What it’s like to work "on call"

It’s almost 3 am in the morning and my phone goes off.  The beeping makes my heart stop as a grapple with the sheets to sit up.  I answer the phone as formally as I can but I know I still sound half asleep.  Josh stirs but falls right back to sleep. 

Nurse on the phone, “Want to come to the south side of Chicago?” 

Me, “No.”

I go anyway.  There is no one else on the highway but it still takes me an hour to get there.  I chug caffeinated soda and sing at the top of my lungs on the way there to keep myself awake.  When I get to the nursing home they tell me there have been two death and the families of each are here.

I go to the first room, I give my sympathies and we say a prayer.  The family thanks me and goes home.

I go to the next room and repeat but we finish our prayer one of the family members open up the window and lets in the fall air.  He starts a Native American prayer song and he cries as he sings.  We all stand crying, holding hands circled around their deceased loved one.  My whole body covers in goose bumps as a let go and fall into the experience. The family thanks me.

I go and do paper work.

I get home about the same time I usually wake up.  I hug Josh and go to sleep for a few hours and wake up feeling like someone has hit me with a baseball bat.   

At work I discover that I will have to go and fill out paper work with a family two hours after work, also as part of my on call duties. 

Due to where they live and driving logistics this means I will not get to go home till 9pm that night.

I bight my lip and hold back tears.  I go to the bathroom and splash water on my face.  I try pawning off this responsibility on someone else.  I warn my manager that I am near my breaking point.

I sit in a grocery store parking lot eating bad sushi to pass the time.

When my job was done and I drive home, I cry very tired tears.  Josh listens to me and hugs me, my dog licks the tears off my face.  I am so tired. 

I drag myself into bed and try to sleep knowing that at any moment I could be called out again.  When that idea runs into my mind hot painful tears come out just imagining it. The painful part being that if I can’t rise to that challenge somebody who might need my support will go without.  This is a heavy responsibility. 

I fall asleep but wake several times in the night to check my phone and make sure I have not missed anything.

By some small miracle I make it to the next morning.  Get up, get dressed, and somehow find the will to make it through another day.