Monday, March 18, 2013

On-call Me, Maybe

Well, so much for my intentions to write every day.

I realized as I was driving home from work this evening that many of my "good intentions" are often wrought with snags, snafus, bumps, hurdles, detours, and serious road blocks. This weekend I experienced what it's like to be "on call" for my work.

Healthcare is a 24/7 business depending upon what avenues of healthcare you're in... hospitals, long-term care facilities, and medical emergency businesses never sleep... kind of like Vegas but without the free alcohol or fun! Where I work, we provide durable medical equipment (DME) to hospitals, clinics, patient's homes, hospice, and long-term care facilities. So when our "regular business hours" end, SOMEONE has to be available to provide oxygen supplies, nebulizers, and such whenever necessary. So, instead of having a nacht or swing shift, we assign people rotations for carrying the company cell phone and laptop. I was, um, compelled to give it a go...

*Insert look of sheer terror here*

Anyway, when I left work on Friday night, I was armed with aforementioned phone and laptop and since on call doesn't officially begin on weekdays until 10:00 pm (or 2200 hrs), I had pah-lenty of time to get set up... HA!! I say!! Thankfully, I was savvy enough to check out all my bazillion log ins (for security purposes) at 8:30-ish (or 2030-ish) JUST to be sure... well, sure enough, my log ins didn't work, I had to call Computer Support, and after an agonizing 45 minutes, I was finally "in"... then I couldn't figure out how the phone worked... I mean, my God, it's a SmartPhone and I, alas, am only used to dumb ones... so after another exchange of text messages (on said dumb phone) to co-workers who already do on call, I was FINALLY ready to begin my weekend O N C A L L *insert echo here*

Let me just say that not only was I operating under a paralytic sense of doom, I freaked myself out and even tho' the evening held only two calls (that I was completely capable of handling), by 12:35 am (or 0035... and yes, I intend to run with this...) I was CONVINCED that if I even remotely attempted to close my eyes to sleep, all heck would break loose... (side note: one thing I adore about living in UT is the areas vernacular, which is devoid of mainstream cursing... I particularly find Oh, my heck and Holy Hannah quite amusing substitutions for stronger language).

Anyway, I finally closed my eyes around 0320 only to be awoken by my husband at 0430 wondering why I was sleeping on the office floor (you see, we recently moved to our new place and are lacking in certain furniture items, like a guest bed and couches). Anyway, I managed to catch a few hours of sleep, pop online for a few hours of work, and then took a nap in anticipation of the dreaded Saturday on call time beginning at 1700. Boy, howdy - they weren't kidding!! By 1717, I was getting call after call, fax after fax, and having to process each request (I won't bore you with the particulars... I mean, you're still awake at this point, yes?? Oh, you need a potty and snack break?... I'll wait)

*insert musical interlude here*

Ok - you settled? Good!! This flurry of activity didn't end until 2323 (I kid you not) and the amazing thing was that there was no other activity, BUT I stayed up watching TV (JUST in case) until well after 0200, when the phone woke me up around 0645 by a man wondering what our "regular business hours" were!

*insert rolling of eyes here*

Sunday was just... weird... and although the evening's activities didn't start until 1735, they kept up for a few hours (which made it REALLY difficult to catch up on all the NCIS's we'd recorded), but I was able to actually GO to bed by 2340. BUT, like parents with small children (where you sleep with one ear open) I kept waiting for that bloody phone to ring (or quack, in this case, because my friend and co-worker Morgan changed the ring tone to a duck), so I was somewhat "resting" my eyes until about 0200, when I finally fell asleep. Well, THAT didn't last long - at 0230, the phone rang with the need for an oxygen setup, which meant I also had to roust the poor driver out of bed to deliver it, and the entire process took 40 minutes... needless to say, today at work was somewhat foggy.

The main things I got out of this first experience is the knowledge that I'm quite capable of handling the task AND the next time I have on call duty, I will know that I can actually GO to bed AND sleep because I will be able to answer the phone quickly and do what needs to be done...

So on THAT note... ZZZZzzzzzzzz...

2 comments:

  1. great story. U a grate wrighter tooh.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah - I does good... I went to skool to learn me how to read and write good!!

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