Nursing nightmares

We’ve all had those sleepless nights before clinical, tossing and turning. You’re really only half asleep at any given point, with diagnoses and potential disasters running through your head. It’s always the worst at the first part of the term, and slowly, if you’re lucky and you like your clinical, you may get to catch a few Zzzzs toward the end.

But what about those times when you do drift into dreamland, and you’re greeted by something not so lovely? I’m in the middle of spring break but had a dream last night about work. I was on my unit, the day was just starting, and instead of taking vitals I was giving a very long bath to a baby, and before I knew it the shift was up, I had 30 minutes left, and realized I hadn’t seen any of my other patients, and while I did rounds, they were all doing horribly!  Throwing up, nauseous, and definitely lacking some TLC in the hygiene category.  It was a disaster. And what’s worse is that at that moment, I realized that I hadn’t charted ANYTHING, all day! So it was a mad dash to get everyone everything they needed, cleaned up, and charted, and before I knew it it was too late. I looked up from the computer and all of the day shift had left, night shift was there (of course, in my dream, these people weren’t really my co-workers!), and I hadn’t clocked out – a half hour after I was supposed to!

What a mess! Not something I want to wake up too at all – especially on spring break! The first thoughts through my head when I realized it was just a dream was, “that didn’t really happen, right?” and then reality kicks in with, “DUH! Of course not! You wouldn’t let that happen!” There have been other dreams, but not many, and they’ve all been similar to this one.  I guess I have been lucky on that front.  What kind of dreams, or should I say nursing nightmares, have you had? Care to share?