Is the OR just a training ground for adrenaline junkies?
Who doesn’t like doing the adrenaline pumping, patient’s life on the line case?
Oh, is that just me. Okay.
But I bet it’s not. (said in a sing-song cadence)
Probably one of the reasons I enjoy call so much. You never know what is coming through the door. From the ER. When the pager will go off. Or the phone will ring.
As I settle into my new role as the call nurse, I find it interesting that the rest of my life is, well, boring. I have lived in both the call world and the evening charge nurse for so long it takes more to get my butt off the couch, or out of the computer chair.
Which got me thinking about the OR and the adrenaline that a case engenders. I have no problem doing the case. Moving fast, impossible odds. And if there is another case, better yet. My brain has to juxtapose the current case and the next case and what will be needed for the next case and which room should we go in? And on, and on.
But that is lacking in my current job role. I wonder if this is what all the other call team members are going through. I have to reach out and ask.
Yeah, I’ve had my break. Many books have been read. Goodness knows I’ve needed it after working like an idiot for many, many years. But the adrenaline needed for me to do anything is missing. I would rather read than just about anything in my house.
I think routine is needed. And definitely has gone by the wayside, especially under pandemic conditions.
Oh, the pandemic.
I legit just thought of this as I am typing. Those of you who thought this blog was stream of consciousness, here is your proof. Especially Monday’s Musings.
Every health care worker I know is experiencing something after this last 2 years.
Maybe what is the matter is I’ve been living under a pandemic cloud for so long, and this has tripled what I had been doing with working so much.
I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I like to push the limits, the time needed for anything. I’ve always been like this. There has always been the next deadline, the next thing, etc. Rinse, repeat.
I think all OR people are a bit of an adrenaline junkie. We get to help people, yes, but we get to exist and thrive in an atmosphere that demands more, faster.
And now all I have is time. And it is messing with my head a bit.
Time to do all the house things. School starts in 10 weeks, you know.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 