Delirious by 8pm...

Last night upon arriving at work and going to my pod, a strange thing happened.  There are different stages of nurse emotion I experience through the night, which usually go something like this:

7pm - when I come on - motivation/energy (I have coffee)
8-10pm -- still good, pretty motivated (the coffee is still in my system) increasing stress level with increasing patient load
11-12:30 - - Hanger sets in (hunger + anger), empathy decreases, maximum irritability
LUNCH between 12-2
2am-4am - - depression, fatigue, least motivation, all empathy gone, things are funny
5am - Yay!  It's morning time!  A small return of energy, still no empathy
6am - BREAKFAST, cafeteria opens!  (My favorite part of the day)
6:30am-7:05am - time stops, we usually get really busy and run in circles get ambulances and patients in through triage and we die a little inside until the next shift comes out. (empathy still gone)


Well, last night I went straight from 7pm motivation to ALL THINGS ARE HILARIOUS by 8pm.  I think it was because we were so busy and I was in the psych pod and all the patients were so ridiculous I just skipped all empathy decreases and went straight to sitting and laughing at everything.  We had two patients tied to their beds in restraints, drunk patients everywhere, adults yelling "mama!" over and over again, patients trying to fight other patients, patients from the prison and jail, sobbing patients, patients talking to imaginary friends, patients puking and peeing in the bed and ambulances rolling in with patients drunkenly yelling "I'm home!" and trying to fall off the stretchers as they came through the doors.  Plus we were short staffed.  Wonderfully I skipped irritability and increasing stress level and I thought everything was pretty darn funny.  It also was a life-saver that one of my good buddies was my other pod mate. 

Later in the morning another friend and I made individualized anger flow charts and gave them to each other so we can try to figure out why the other person in cranky/angry and how we can fix it in the future.  My solutions to the various anger-causing issues I have included sleep, chocolate, Midol, homicide, and "brush your hair, put your chapstick on and PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!".  Most of hers revolved around wearing pretty shoes and/or sweatpants.  She is not a nurse, she works in the registration side, so this could be a possibility for her.