Why I Called in Sick Today

Today, I backed into my Dad’s car when I went to pull out of my parent's driveway.

Not because I’m a terrible driver (well, not really), but because I was so tired that even walking past the van right before jumping in to my own car was not enough to stop my frazzled brain making such a stupid mistake.

It would be an untruth to say that never in my life have I experienced physical and mental fatigue equal to that which I experience as a new nurse, however it would be fair to say that as a nurse there is very little room for rocking up to work in a zombie-like state that would be acceptable in other circumstances. After the multitude of tears and apologies abated, the first thing I thought was, ‘what if it was four hours later and I’ve just made a medication error at work?’

Would I call that too, a ‘stupid mistake’?

So, I called in sick for my shift.

No matter what is going on outside of work you absolutely have to learn to compartmentalise. Let’s not even go there because we’re all adults (or in disguise as one, like I am) who have families to support, sick relatives, financial stresses and mouths to feed. I am still trying to perfect the art of deep breathing. That fixes stuff, right? I keep trying to get to a yoga class at my local gym but I am always working (surprise!), and even though I desperately want to catch up with friends and have a social life, I feel more drained than relaxed afterwards. I have caught more than eight hours of sleep every night this week, but feel wrecked. Am I suffering from a teensy dose of burnout, here!? Probably. Every shift has felt like a marathon, especially with accreditation chasing our tails. The irony here is that like most nurses, I can’t find the time to look after myself properly. Ha!

The scariest thing about being a health professional is that there are very few ‘small’ mistakes that we can make. Having made (many) mistakes before and only having worked as a nurse for under two years, I can affirm that this comes with the territory of the work. The saying that the master has failed more times than the beginner has tried? Yeah- pretty sure that the person who said that was a nurse. The difference here, is that if I go to work and I know I’m unsafe to be there, if I make a mistake I’m not going to feel like it was a learning experience. I’m going to feel like it was negligence on my part. So, there’s a substantial dent in the bumper of my car- but at least I can rest easy knowing that without the zombie-nurse version of me today, my patients will remain intact.

See you tomorrow, nursing.