Trick or Treat?

Well, I guess that's the question lately. Everyday. Is my life a big effing trick or full of sweet treats. I think it's mostly good, except for this one big black spot on it.

::cough:: my job ::cough::

'Scuse me. Little something in my throat there. Anyway, this was my long week. The week I work 4 night shifts instead of three. I think the worst part (besides the 60 hours at work, 8 hours of commuting and 500 miles on my car) is the fact that on weeks like this I don't get to see my husband hardly at all. I don't get to see anyone really but it's not seeing Brad that really stings. For example, this week we saw each other Sunday night and then not again until Thursday night. Yep! Four days. It's like one of us went out of freaking town. And on regular weeks that interval only shortens to three days! But somehow I guess we've learned to handle this. Mind you, there are lots of phone calls but it's just not the same. Can anyone out there imagine not seeing their spouse for 3 days straight every week? And then missing them for 4 days straight once a month?!? It's rough.

On the bright side, if I had to pull 4 shifts, this was a pretty great week to do it. For several reasons:

1. Really light census. For those of you who don't work in a medical setting, the census (or number of patients) is a big part of how busy you are at work. It was really light this week, which I'm super grateful for!
   
2. Plus, not a lot of scheduled C-sections. Backstory: The first C-section of the day is at 7:30am and I am supposed to get off at 8am. In theory, the 7:30 C-section should be the last thing I do before I duck out. Problem is, no one there can seem to get their act together and the 7:30 C-section rarely (read: never) goes at 7:30. I'm usually not paged until 8am, which means the baby won't be born until 8:15 and I'm lucky to be out of there at 8:30 or so. 30 minutes late. So I hate the AM sections. So the fact that I only had one this week was heaven!! I'm thinking since it's Halloween week, moms are choosing not to be have their babies born so close to the holiday. Since it's scheduled, obviously they have the luxury of picking the day. That's my guess anyway.
3. They are re-doing the call room this week. Sucks a little because I've been shuffled around between call rooms and the phone hasn't worked and everything has been a war-zone with all the construction. But they pretty much started and ended all the work within a couple of days which was great. AND the new call room looks amazing!! The best part is the mattress, which now actually passes for a mattress and not a boulder covered in noisy plastic! And it's clean with new carpet and wallpaper! Can I just tell you that there were sticky stains all over than room that I think are older than I am!! It was gross. Oh, oh, oh!! And I saw them bring in a fridge and microwave!!! That's right, I can actually store my food and eat in my breakroom rather than walking across the hospital to store my lunch box!! Woo hoo!! I'll hafta post pics because that room is freakin' sweet!!
4. Brad was sick this week. And as much as I would have loved to be home to take care of him, it's probably best that we were apart so I didn't get sick as well. Not only would we probably end up just passing it back and forth for weeks (yes, it's happened before and, yes, it sucks) but I'm also apparently not allowed to call out of work. (long story but basically I've been told that "of course you can take time off, just make sure to give enough notice that they can find someone to cover your shift, at least a month would be great." Uh, okay. So what about being sick or emergencies? Can't exactly plan those! Remember my car accident? Yeah, bite me.) So anyway, getting sick isn't an option.
   

I'm a little bummed that I have to work on Halloween. I knew going into this job that I'd have to work some portion of the weekend. And really thought only having to work Fridays was about the best it could get. But every frickin' holiday this year has been on an effing Friday! WTF? July 4th was the other big one. Not that I have plans but I'm excited that we may get trick-or-treaters this year and I'm a little bummed that I won't get to be there to see them and hand out candy. In fact, I've already told Brad that he must open the door for trick-or-treaters and he must give them candy and he must be nice to them and try to remember their costumes so he can give me a full description when I come home the next day.

Well, that's it for now. Lotsa other stuff going down but I'll save it for another post. Plus, we close on our new house in 3 days!!! Woo hoo!!

~Layne