An Old Constipation Remedy And Nursing Burnout
Constipated since childhood, but after 63 years, she decided to deal with it on Christmas at 0400.
Okay, not really.
Apparently, if you are constipated you should eat yeast.
Plain squares of yeast.
I don’t get the mechanism.
Yeast rises in a warm environment.
So, if you eat it, does it keep expanding until it explodes everything in front of it out the, uh, exit door?
*****
I will say that the most interesting chief complaints tend to cluster around the holidays.
It goes something like this:
“Hi! I’m Kim and I’m the nurse; what is the problem this cold, icy, rainy holiday morning?”
“I’ve had a flaky left baby toe for a week.”
“Is it painful?”
“No.”
“Does it itch?”
“No.”
“What have you done for it so far?”
“I saw my doctor and he gave me a cream, but I don’t want to use it.”
“Really? Why didn’t you want to use it?”
“Because my toe is flaky!”
Well, okay then…
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Something is changing on night shift.
Used to be you could clear out the PM patients by 0100 and only have a rare patient before 0530. Left a lot of time for studying.
No more. Now there is a flurry at 2300 (almost all pedi fevers) and a steady stream after that, all the way up to day shift. Croup, abdominal pain, migraines, chest pain, nausea/vomiting, cough, asthma, it’s all there. Can’t blame it on H1N1, either; it’s been like this for awhile. Summer slump? Haven’t seen one for at least two years.
The problem with this is not that people need care – that is why we are there. It’s that the unspoken benefits of working the night shift (the slower pace, the down time) has virtually disappeared.
It’s getting harder and harder to deal with a dissonant circadian rhythm.
Some of my co-workers are older than I, and they work doubles and double-backs and seven, eight 12-hour nights in a row.
Just the thought of a 12-hour shift makes me want to run for Zoloft.
When did I turn into a wimp?
(Could be the constant ingestion of sugar, salt and fat over the last four weeks……nah)
I mean, I am Nurse, hear me roar…
…right after I’m done yawning.
*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*
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