Sleepless Nurses
“If I couldn’t even figure out what goes into my lunch box, how could I possibly have multitasked . . . on a busy unit?”
Awake for 40 hours.
Photo by Jeff Greenberg. The ImageWorks.
I recently had the disorienting experience of being awake for 40 hours. This had to do with a family member’s interminable emergency department visit, a 3 a.m. car breakdown, and a post-ED MRI and medical visit.
I’ve never been up for 40 hours in my life. I didn’t pull “all-nighters” in school before exams, and never worked longer than a double eight–hour shift. Partying the night away wasn’t in my DNA. So this experience was strange and new, and something I pondered over for days afterward.
An ‘otherworldly’ state.
By the time I’d been up for 24 hours straight, I was operating at a level about two beats behind everyone around me. Physically, I felt a little off-balance, as though I might fall if I didn’t step carefully. My brain seemed mired in muck, and I found myself trying to recall what I knew about depleting bodily stores of ATP. Preparing to return to work around hour 26, I stared into my lunch box. I couldn’t remember what food I was […]