Under the Full Moon

I started this morning on a good note... for the first time in three days, I woke up with the alarm instead of at 4 in the morning. My body had let me sleep in... until 6am. I got ready for work, took off down the hill and started to realize it might be time to bulk up my jacket a bit. My arms were cold. Everything else was toasty warm. And just as I turned up the hill to the hospital, I noticed the full moon behind me. And what a sight it was. It was one of those nights (the sun wasn't up yet) where there's a very light cloud cover over/around the moon. And so instead of the moon simply looking extra round and bright, it had a rainbow halo more than 3 times it's own size. Made me wish I had a camera with me, it's a rare, beautiful sight. But, as one of the girls at work was saying, it was also kind of eerie, "kind of like it's out of a Harry Potter novel or something."
I went in to work knowing I was going to be attending a c-section that morning, so all my morning work was centered around being ready to go in. In order to go in to the OR (operating room) it is mandatory that you wear greens (specific, hospital-supplied-scrubs.) So just before we needed to go in, myself and the nurse who was orientating me went to grab some greens. Now, it is a small hospital, so supplies are limited. But I've been told that when they first moved to the new hospital (1 year ago) they had plenty of all the different sizes of greens. Where they disappeared to, one can only guess. Anyways, my choice today was whether I was going to wear extra small or large. They had one top in a small, but top is not where I'm small. So I picked the large scrubs. The pants on those reminded me of the punjabi pants in India. I had to pull more of the drawstring out of the waistband to tighten them than I left in there to circle my waist. At least loose is comfortable!
So going in for that and "catching" the baby took up most of my morning, especially with doing post-op vitals afterwards. Then I had a handful of discharges (which, everyone at work agrees, the discharges from maternity, have way more paperwork than any other discharge.), which I got help with, thankfully. And then I had someone come in that I had to admit for other reasons. And just as that's finishing up, two of the nurses head home, one because she's sick, the other was only doing a short day. We started getting admissions left and right, and had one heavy care patient added to ICU, which somehow always seems to occupy a minimum of 2-3 nurses, even though only one is assigned to the ICU. Five thirty rolls around and another nurse goes home because she was brought in for a different, specific patient and had been promised she could go. Things keep getting busier, but another nurse goes home because she had been promised she could get the last couple of hours off! Suddenly we're down to 4 nurses, and one is still orientating to the unit, and I'm supposed to be being shadowed in maternity.
Having been frustrated at doctors not returning their pages all afternoon, I finally discovered around 6:30 that the whole paging system was down (one of the doctors tried paging himself and a colleague and realized the problem).
I left shortly after the end of my shift, wolfed down a cookie from my lunch, and only then remembered I hadn't gone for any break since lunch. No wonder I was tired! So now... I can eat supper in my nice, quiet apartment. I wonder how the rest of the night at the hospital will be... sigh, I'm back tomorrow!