Mon 13 Jul 2009
It is 5:45 AM as I write this, the harsh glare of my laptop an unwelcome affront to my otherwise dark room.
I need to be at the ambulance depot in about 3 hours – tomorrow (today?) is my medic shift, where I ride along with the paramedics for 12 hours of sirens and speeding. Unfortunately, I’ve just finished a string of night shifts and my biological clock is set firmly to wake by night, sleep by day. I napped for an hour at midnight, but that’s it.
I’ve touched on this in other posts. I really don’t like the idea of pharmacologic sleep, but I suspect that tonight I should have popped a couple Benadryl. I just hate that I may end up doing that for the rest of my life.
That sounds rough. I’ve tried Melatonin with some success. It doesn’t knock me out, but it does make me sleepy.
What always works for me is playing something boring, like solitaire, on my laptop, in bed with the lights out. It takes maybe 30 mins before I can’t keep my eyes open.
You’ve just hit on why Emergency Medicine is a tough field to go into. I love being on night shift now…. but I wonder if I would still love it at age 50.