Monday, August 31, 2009

Sleep Deprived Psychosis

I previously mentioned that I had awakened at 3 A.M. on Saturday morning then did a six mile run. After I got home, I had lunch, then at about 4 P.M. I tried to take a nap before I had to go to work at 7 P.M. Well I was restless and was unable to do so. My work shift starts at 7 P.M and ends at 7:30 A.M. so I had to be up all night. I was so tired that I was afraid I was going to start seeing things that were not there or start talking nonsensically. Fortunately, it was not a busy night because we only had a few patients, no admissions, and nobody acting out. When I hit the twenty four hour mark of being awake at 3 A.M., I was still feeling okay but fading fast so I had to take a break at 4. That helped a lot and I managed to finish the shift without suffering from sleep deprived psychosis. I couldn’t wait to get home and sleep on my bed but with the heat wave that we have been having, going to sleep and staying asleep posed another challenge. Nevertheless I managed to sleep for three and a half hours before the high noon heat awoke me. I’m back at work tonight on 3 ½ hours of sleep and running on fumes. I’ll be doing a lot of squats and pacing the hallways to keep myself awake and hopefully when 7:30 A.M. comes, I’m still sane. If not, well, I'm already in the right place.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I can't imagine the kind of sleep deprivation you are talking about. I feel so lucky to be able to go to bed at the same time every day after reading your post. Night shift work sounds pretty difficult to adapt to.

Please do not go crazy (sure you are in the right place but it sounds so dangerous).

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