Friday, April 14, 2006

When work is scarce...

A strange and unfamiliar thing happened the other night in the ER. So there I was, working a typical Sunday night shift when I was confronted with a rarity that I have not had to deal with in a long time: no patients. It frightened me at first, and we all sat around the nurse's station waiting for the other shoe to drop - the inevitable 30 patients that would walk through triage or be wheeled in through the ambulance bay at any second. But they didn't come. 2:00am...3:00am...4:00am.... Out of 12 beds on the red side I had the only patient. And there were only 2 on the blue side. So very strange...

So we created our own entertainment. Bad idea. For some reason trauma nurses have a sick sense of humor. We started by tying up one of the docs with bandages.

And we took every quiz in every girlie magazine in the whole department.
And we made fun of the ER director as he fell asleep on the counter out of sheer boredom. (Ooh - that's going to end up in a slideshow somewhere!)


And we laughed.
And we were thankful for a night where there were no traumas, no COR's and no drama.
And then we came back the next night to the regular hustle and bustle of a major trauma center.
And we were thankful for the traumas, the COR's and the drama.

3 comments:

bob said...

Glad you were able to appreciate both sides of the job... I think that means its a good fit when you enjoy it when it's 'bad' and when it's 'good'... you decide which night was which!

Gayle and Rob said...

Had to be really tough -- all that adrenalin swishing around! No wonder y'all took a left turn!

MLE said...

:) Nice. And yes, I'm beginning to feel better. Now I believe it's just allergies. Yippee!