Sleeeeeeep: The Night Shift

I believe that there are aliens that roam the earth. I also believe that I have been mistaken for one of them. "Why?" you might ask.
"Because," I would say. "It is simply not human to be awake and productive any later than 3 in the morning."
But I do it for the money.
Shift Differential is a beautiful thing
Oh the sacrifices.

I was so excited to be 20 years old working the same position that my mother had left not too long ago. From what I knew I was 20 years old with a career! I loved what I was doing and how I influenced my coworkers (and vice versa). I loved the people and how new everything was to me. I was working in a hospital with people who had kids, grand kids, and Medicare! I was way ahead of the game.

Within a month of working as an on-call employee I was offered a FULL TIME POSITION. The 7:30 PM to the 6:00 AM shift. With my adrenalin constantly at an all time HIGH I said calmly with a pleasant smile, "Yes I would love to take this position," as the inner me bounced around my inner abdominal walls. I was too grown. #independentwomanrighthereson #getlikeme #boybyenotwiththemshoeson #etcetera...

People were amazed by the way I could stay energized all ten hours, especially the hours between 1 and 6 in the morning (you know, the whole latter half of the shift). I looked around and saw co-workers barely making it to the end chanting monotonously "sleeeeeeeep..... sleeeeeeeeeeep........." They looked as if they were trying to climb out of hell, and they never made it even when they left for the day because in 13 and a half hours they would be right back here to die a bit more inside all over again. 13 hours? That's plenty of time to sleep! Why not do that?

Probably because they have lives. Then I got one too.

And by life I mean... a second job. I bet you could guess what comes next! I have a day job and a night job and I finally see what all the dying is about. Nope!

I left every shift just as unscathed as I would leave before I was working 18 hour days sometimes for 3 days straight (that's 5 shifts) and people looked at me like I was NUTS!!

A little over a month after I got the second job, I started developing health complications. I don't know what it was exactly but one day I just started vomiting every liquid I had in my digestive system. It got so bad that after my intestines were clear, I started to vomit bile I guess because that was all that was left. I got sick on my shift at the hospital so I easily got admitted there. After running some tests, the Doc told me that it was Colitis, but I learned later never to trust this hospital's diagnoses...

I was out for a couple days and I came back with a vengeance, even stronger than before! In your FACE, Sick, eat my grits. And it did. I got more crazy looks and I'm sure at least 5 people dragging themselves about the linoleum struggling to make it to the end of their 10-hour shifts strained to lift their heads and look up at me asked "What are you?" I'm pretty sure that now they KNEW I was an alien. I was not from this sane place called Earth. There's no way I could be functioning right now. That's when I looked at the zombie that they had become... looked up and off into the distance... pulled my Locs (these are Locs, the glasses)

out of the black leather jacket that I wasn't wearing before which was by now blowing in the wind that also wasn't there before (blowing from where? I'm not entirely sure)... slid the glasses onto my face as the music intensified... nodded my head as the music climaxed to a halt and said "I'm Acacia, of course," then came the guitar solo as I stepped on the zombie's back and out and out the automatic ambulance bay door toward my car in slow motion.

About a month after that epicness, I got sick again! Once again at work. So once again I got admitted. Once again they ran tests and once again I got a diagnosis. "Hmm.. According to your CT scan... It looks like you have an inflamed gallbladder."
"Ok..." I said.
"You may want to have it removed. There definitely are no gallstones in it, but it is unusually large. Here's a good surgeon, just call that guy and, yeh know. Take it out."
"O_o Nah." I took my prescription and went on my merry little way.

Let's fast forward through this next part to get to the point of this story.

Couple days after my diagnosis I started having more pain, I went to my regular hospital's ER, they tell me I have a TY Beanie Baby where my gallbladder should be, I get the operation there to have it taken out, I recover in 4 days, doc tells me "No, you can't go back to work until two weeks after the surgery date," I return to my second job the Monday after my check up anyway, and THEN I go back to my initial job two weeks after the surgery date. 

At the hospital (my initial job) I have to push my workstation around and that is absolutely FORBIDDEN after getting a gallbladder taken out. You can't do strength workouts or anything of the sort (can't lift, push, pull, or move an object weighing more than 20 lbs) so when I went back to work... I had to stay at front desk. For ten hours.

First day back, I'm excited to see everybody. They're excited to see me. I get to the front desk and I knock EVERYTHING out! LIKE A BAWSS!! Until... 

Midnight struck. 

I could feel 

My posture sink...

My skin rotting off of my bones... 

My teeth falling out of my mouth...

My eyes pop out of my head...

I started to nod involuntarily

Hallucinate

Talk about my hallucinations with the nurse tech...

It was AWEFUL

I was... 

One of them.

"Sleeeeeeeeeeep....." at first it was a whisper. 
"sleeeeeeeeeeeep." then it was a statement.
"SLEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!" Then a declarative command!
"Sleeheeheeheeheeeeep....!!!" Then finally a sobbing longing.

I now knew what it was like to be... a zombie. 
"What have I DONE?!" I asked myself internally "Who would DO such a thing to themselves?!"
but really I had found myself on the linoleum with the rest of them, only saying
"SLEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!"