A long Night

The night was still young when I went to bed on Monday night, but I already knew that Tuesday was going to be a busy day for me. The darkness of my room surrounded me as I lay in my warm and cozy bed.  I could hear the soothing sound of my fan as I began to list all the things that had to be done the following day.  Then, after what seemed like an eternity, I looked at the clock and thought, “Great! It’s already midnight. Now I will only get four hours of sleep!”  I took some deep relaxing breaths and slowly began to feel myself drift off to sleep.

Suddenly, I was jolted awake as my Great Dane bashed against my bed, which was her way of telling me that she needed to be let outside. Thank God, the shaking bed woke my husband up as well and he sweetly decided to let her out for me. As I lay there trying to fall back to sleep, I could hear him yell at the dog to hurry up, and then, finally, he and the dog came back inside. I turned to the clock once again and wondered if this night would ever end. With only an hour left before I had to be up, I decided to give it one last try to get some sleep, because at least a little sleep is better then none at all.

My alarm went off entirely too soon. After two cups of green tea and a shower, I felt slightly refreshed. Then I realized that I only had forty-five minutes before I had to clock in for work. I rushed out the door, hopped in my van and headed down the highway. To my surprise, there was a scheduled farm equipment parade down the highway. Time was ticking and so was my time clock, none of which was helped by the slow-moving parade, but I did manage to make it to work with five minutes to spare.

Being a Certified nursing assistant in a nursing home has its limitations since CNA responsibilities differ from one hospital to the next. The Senior Nurse Technician class I took was interesting. I learned how to do an intermittent catheter, change-out the inner trachea cannula, and to do G- tube feedings. These were skills that I could use at my present place of employment, but not at my last one.  Although the class was interesting, it was rather long, so I didn’t get home until late afternoon and I still had a ton of homework and grocery shopping to do.  And since I’d had only a few hours of sleep, I can only imagine what the  clerk thought of me with my bright red, glossy, sleep-deprived eyes stared at her blankly as I  attempted to pay for my groceries with my MSSU student ID card.

            At this point of time, I only had one thing on my mind: I knew that I had a warm and cozy bed waiting for me. I couldn’t wait to hear that wonderful relaxing sound of my fan, and once I had finished all I'd had to do that day,  I was glad the day was over and I fell quickly to sleep.