I do enjoy my work, to an extent. But my schedule has been changed this month, due to lack of staff, and it's just not as good as what it used to be. Before I basically worked every second day and it worked pretty well. I wouldn't get exhausted as I would have the second day to sleep in and keep everything else up to date. At the moment, I'm working 3 - 4 days in a row, then with 3 - 4 days off in a row and I really don't like it. For one, it means that I can't accept extra work (and yes, I get called a lot at the moment) because then I end up working days and days in a row - last week, had I said yes to everything, I would have worked 10 days in a row. I just don't have that kind of stamina. But then, of course, they throw the guilt trip - there's no one else to work, this person is sick, can't do this blah blah.... Sorry, but.... I kind of don't care. For one, it's not my fault that the hospital is understaffed. It's really not. You can't be bothered hiring and training new people, not my problem.
And the fact is, my health needs to come first. I have seen what kind of person, and worker, I become when I'm so tired from working. I quite literally go just a little bit insane. The drugs that I'm on are really good at keeping me awake and pushing past the tiredness, but after more than 3 days in a row of work they just can't cut it. All I want to do is just sleep and sleep and sleep, and it's almost like my face shuts down too... I stop being able to smile and communicate, and focus, and I can remember one shift where I spent the last hour out the back in the hospital just thinking, "Just clean this cage. Don't talk to anyone, if you just do one thing at a time you will get through it all and then you can sleep." I hate being like that. It messes me around health wise, but I know it also means I become REALLY crappy at my job. I don't want to be like that.
I said to my boss when I dropped from full to part time, that if I couldn't do that then I couldn't work at all. Hopefully she will remember that, because I meant it. It will be absolutely crap if I had to leave, but I generally value sleep more than anything.
Hopefully now that I have 4 days off I'll be able to get my life back in order. It kind of went to shit these last few weeks and I think I'm suffering from that a bit too - when everything's all discombobulated it makes me anxious. Hoorah!!!