My Job Sucks

Wretched working weekend Friday, Saturday, Sunday, twelve hour shifts, praying for Monday. Noisy nurse's station, patients pressing call-lights, you'd think they'd all be resting, but instead they're up all night. With their East Texas accents: "I need hay-elp" patient cries, always adding syllables, "I wet my bay-ed," from 545. One patient's heart rate's 170, another's is just 40, and there's a patient screaming: "Lordy, Lordy, Lordy." Constant call-lights beeping, monitors alarming, patients demanding Demerol, isn't my job charming? 600 pound man who just poops in his own bed, takes three aides to clean him, (I'll keep my job instead!) In 20 there's a drug-seeker, whose privates are all swollen, in 30 there's an old man, with cancer of the colon. I answer all the call lights, then page the patient's nurses, I give them their messages and listen to their curses. I'm stuck in the middle, angry patients on one side, calling busy nurses whose frustration they don't hide. Meanwhile the phones are ringing, and I have to keep an eye on 27 EKGS, so someone doesn't die. Then the ER calls and they need three more beds, the thought of telling everyone fills my heart with dread. Well, that's the job I'm doing, and I guess it could be worse, every day I'm grateful for the fact that I'm not a frigging nurse!