Nocturnal mammal

Tomorrow night (Thursday night), I will be pulling my first night shift in the trauma bay. In order to prepare myself, I'm forcing myself to stay up as long as possible tonight in order to sleep most of the day tomorrow. My mind keeps telling me, "it's time to sleep; I'm tired." Now, I love to sleep. People who think sleep is overrated should work more hours/week. After watching an amazing, but nerve-racking, Rice game on ESPN, I am beat-down after a long three days at work and my body is ready to crash. Back to this night shift business....

I'm not quite sure how my body will react to this sudden and dramatic change in time schedule. For certain people, jumping between day and night schedules do not throw them off kilter from their normal routine. In the trauma world, everything happens after midnight. Somehow, people morph into another being and begin to act irrationally. Theoretically, all of the learning and experience is normally acquired during the evening/night shift.

Even though the thought of throwing off my entire bodily and daily schedule makes me uneasy, I am excited beyond words for the cases I will see tomorrow night (I know, I'm a loser/dork/nerd/etc. I have come to accept this fact and I think you should to.)

I already have remarkable and unbelievable stories from all of my encounters with patients as a member of the Trauma Team; stories and injuries I could never fabricate. Every evening I come home thinking I have seen all there is to see until I arrive at work the next morning to realize that my previous experience had just been trumped.

Of course, I pray that tomorrow night is a quiet night and we will not receive any patients with critical or unsurvivable injuries; on the other hand, if an individual is in dire need of medical help, our trauma bay is the place they need and want to be.

Ready or not. Here we go.