Shifts

Categories: swansea

Tags: Shifts

Date: 23 May 2007 15:38:53

I'm on nights at the moment. I'm much better at coping with them now though, in comparison to the first ever night shifts I did. I now sleep easily for 6 or 7 hours during the day, whereas initially I couldn't get into that routine. Its odd, I can often be feeling wide awake after a night shift, but then as soon as I lie down I fall asleep within a couple of minutes! My eating pattern also goes crazy - I eat around the clock, day and night. I have a main meal before I go out to work, I eat fruit, geobars and toast during the night (as and when I have time and am hungry), and then during the afternoon after a sleep I snack on cereal and whatever I fancy. It feels like I'm constantly eating, but its mostly just little and often.

Shifts generally tend to send my eating and sleeping patterns up the wall, although not as much as when I'm on nights. On early shifts, I tend to have 2 breakfasts, a smallish lunch and dinner. On late shifts its a bit more normal, except that the quantity of food for dinner varies depending on how busy the ward is. Sometimes I get home from a shift and just collapse into bed. Especially when I have a late followed by an early (finish at 9.30pm, start at 7am the following morning *yawn*). When I'm in Swansea its easier to be distracted (in a nice way) by my housemates, although on my last placement I did do one 12 hour shift where I was stood up in theatre for 6 hours, and then *nothing* could distract me from collapsing into bed.

Shifts are odd, and can be stressful, but I'm used to them. You learn to juggle everything else around them. At the moment, any time that isn't spent on the ward or sleeping, is spent doing academic work. As I'm away from Swansea, my social life is limited (says she who is going out to dinner in 3 hours...). But then on my days off I either travel back to Swansea and see my friends, or they come up to me to visit. I'm down here till the beginning of August, when I've finished my degree. Eeek. Then I will (hopefully) be doing full time shift work.