Nursing Nightmares 2

I had a rough shift last evening. I ended up staying an hour and ten minutes overtime because I hadn't gotten a chance to do a single word of charting. Everything just came at me nonstop all shift. So I got home around 0100, fell asleep a little after 0300. I had given my cell number to the oncoming nurses to let me know if I'd missed something or if there were questions.

Well at 0839 I get a call from one of the nurses letting me know that I'd somehow mislabeled the tube for a stat troponin draw that happened right around change of shift. I honestly can't believe I did that.

Anyway, I managed to fall back asleep and had this lovely dream...

I'm on the B station, waiting to get report. For some reason I'm sitting on J the Nurse Educator's lap, kinda leaning on him. He's a pretty snuggly guy. Talking to a couple of the nurses there, waiting for S to come give me report. She was a little ways down the hall so I flagged her down from outside rm 62 saying "C'mon, let's get this moving. It's already 1510 and I haven't gotten any reports yet." Someone unidentified said "Good job encouraging bedside report" so I felt happy someone noticed me doing the right thing.

Then S told me to follow her and suddenly I was driving to Santa Cruz (or at least the dream-equivalent). I think it was somewhere on campus. Anyway, I end up rather lost and at this rundown-looking shack, with a low wooden-post fence. I wander through the house looking for S, becoming more worried that I won't get through report on time.

I get back in my car and start driving around, and end up going through this large square archway in a wall, and what I see *looks* like ground, maybe with some water on it. I drive towards it and it apparently *is* water and I'm up to my chest in it in the car. But the car turns into some sort of floaty thing, like the kind you put babies in in the pool. The water is moving and I'm spinning around, trying to find my way back to the cement walkway near the arch.

I finally get out of the water and head back to the hospital so I can finish getting report from other people, assuming that I'll just figure out what I need to know about S's patients while I'm there.

I get lost a few more times on my way back, but I can't figure out what time it is an how late I am. At that point something in my brain says "Y'know, this seems awfully unrealistic. Are you sure you're awake and that this is happening?" I get back to the hospital and I try to ask MH and L if I really left the hospital and if any of this was real.

While waiting for an answer, Mom comes to wake me up so I can take her and Dad to the airport.


My most vivid/realistic dreams always happen when I have to wake up and interact with reality and then go back to sleep afterward. I'm sure this dream means something lol. I especially like the not-so-veiled reference to drowning....

Here's hoping for a calmer shift today.... [knocks all available nearby wood]