last day of work

my last day of work yesterday passed without much fanfare, which was fine with me. it was an usually quiet day on the ward, especially for being a monday. usually mondays are a little nuts, with all the doctors and therapists and visitors who weren't at the hospital over the weekend. usually a lot of patients being discharged and admitted and lots of changes to medications that had been initially prescribed by the weekend doc on call. but not during the blizzard yesterday.

as the sun was setting on sunday, the blizzard started sweeping in. the temp had been hovering around zero for the last week or two and this new snow and wind was going to be brutal for driving conditions. it was also about the same time that my braxton-hicks contractions (which i've been having for about 12 weeks now) were coming 5-10 minutes apart. excuse me? no, i'm not having this baby in a blizzard. it was the day before i turned the magical "36 weeks" pregnant and i'm not sure that my rural hospital delivers babies before 36 weeks. excuse me? no, i'm not driving to the city in a blizzard.

thankfully, lying on the couch while watching a few distracting episodes of the cosby show slowed my contractions and calmed my fears. i lay in bed that night, listening to the wind howl and wail, feeling my belly tighten up every so often, thinking about how short-staffed we would be when everyone from out in the country hit the ditches on the way to work and thus how exhausted i would feel from rushing around at work for 12 hours.

turned out that we were able to replace all but 1 staff member who couldn't make it in. and we had a lot of empty beds, so it turned out okay after all. it was a quiet day, even though the storm raged all day. and instead of repeating (and repeating and repeating) all sorts of "reasons" why my "pleasantly confused" patient's husband wouldn't be able to pick her up today, we could honestly tell her that it was way too stormy outside for anyone to be traveling on country roads. the only visitors who ventured out were the ever-faithful who hover over family members and care for them in the hospital (hey, if you want to change your husband's colostomy bag for me even though it's not visiting hours, be my guest!)

it was a quiet and long day, and i was tired. i was going to order pizza for supper to celebrate, but nobody was delivering in that weather. oh well. i am done working and i am glad. i ended on a good note. i seriously wonder if i'll be back on the same ward a year from now or if i'll find a job that i really love. this phase of my life is over. now we wait until the next phase begins!