In the night service: The care is not sleeping

The care is a 24-hour Job. I need sleep, actually, very much. This has always been so. Eight to ten hours per night were not uncommon. But with the first child everything changed abruptly. Suddenly, two to four hours ranged on the piece. Somehow, anyway. On some days, the deficiency could not be compensated, other. Like a tired Zombie, I shoved many a Time the stroller through the city Parks. With the move to the Land of the Apple trees and with the soon to be second child, it was initially not easy. Anyone who has children knows what I’m talking about. That I later in the night service of the country, I would have suspected at the time, never.

Now I’m landed in the care of the layer of the service requires, and round-the-clock. It still feels strange, service live anti-cyclic: the long queues in the morning and in the evening on the embankment opposite. No jam in front of the Elbe tunnel – for me anyway.

For almost three years I work exclusively at night in the care of the psychosomatic Department. While all of the Stripping for me in the evening, the Stress of the day, I drive my energies. This sometimes leads to conflicts of interests within the family.

To 21 o’clock is the beginning. Until after midnight, I have to do a lot to To take each patient on the ward I contact. The already sleeping, and I will, of course, alone. I am the contact person for everything, what is the patient soul, I always have an open ear for you. On emotional days like Christmas and new year’s eve, the demand is particularly high. In front of unmet, and often unspoken expectations, familial disasters, old and new quarrels, or the feeling of loneliness, that’s all. My task: Together, these eyes bear eyes and to reach out to the patient, is emblematic of a doormat, if you carpet the floor is slipping from under the feet. Care for the soul.

Silent night: care for the soul

“Silent night, Holy night. Everything sleeps. Einsam wacht …“ – this is a traditional Christmas song begins. There are nights, as sleep really all of the patients. And that is a good thing. You should to opportunity.

But it is precisely in these nights, if there is really any paperwork and all the routine work is done, the station, room cleanliness and order shines, and the regular tours are carried out, can be a night service very long. The Jump of the hour hand is between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning to slow down from one second to the next, it seems. My gaze wanders in these eyes of my night colleagues, the work at the Desk or busy, the changing rooms look to the lighted Windows. Once I saw a colleague on the opposite hallway from a patient’s room, and on a Skateboard. This is something I had not seen it before.

There are also restless nights. Those in which I hardly can breathe, where the needs are so great that the patient pushing in succession in the station room. Because the service goes on, of course.

The early bird …

As soon as the birds start out your conversations, is the layer change. It is, as you would have scaled the Reach of the tired point, the top of a mountain. Now the descent starts for me on the finish straight. In me, all my energies are mobilizing for the remaining preparations for the early service. And the glance at the clock tells me that there are only a few hours until the service end at 07:00.

The silence on the Station is broken in the Morning with the Arrival of the cleaning power that your cleaning materials pushes on the car with small tires squealing. With the Handover to the colleagues of the service ends. I’m tired. And without traffic, the traffic in the opposite driving, I reach the native Apple trees. And go to sleep. Good Night.

Photo: Fotolia / Benjamin Haas