Sometimes you just have to...

Take a mental health day. I rarely call in... as in rarely I mean in four years of working at Children's I've called in twice. Once because I was having a miscarriage and needed to have surgery. It was clearly completely out of my control. I didn't want to have a miscarriage, I would never wish that on my worst enemy. It happened, I clearly couldn't be at work, I needed to take care of me. Once because I had out of control "morning sickness" when I was pregnant with Grayson. I was about 12 weeks or so pregnant and went to work because I thought my "morning sickness" would go away... well I puked multiple times in the trash cans in the hallway. At that point, I decided I needed to go to the emergency room. I left work, called Ryan drove myself home to get my pillow and then drove myself to the ER. Where I spent the next 12 hours getting pumped with IV fluids, getting the baby checked and getting pumped full of meds to make me stop puking.

Today, I called in for me. I needed a mental health day. I needed a day for me, to take care of me. I worked 12 hours yesterday and ended up crying 3 times during my shift. I cried for no great reason, I cried because I was starving, because I had a raging headache and because I had a rough end to my 12 1/2 hour shift which led to me being there for an extra hour. I was wiped out, I was in pain everywhere, I was completely exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally. I was maxed out. I got home and cried again.

Thankfully I have some good friends. Three amazing women that I work with that assured me that even though I felt like giant, unattractive and frumpy that I rocked my bump. They told me how beautiful I looked pregnant, they offered to help me when I was struggling with my patients, they asked if there was anything they could do to help. Those are what I call great coworkers. I'm so thankful to have such incredible women that surround me daily. I'm also thankful that I think they are incredible nurses, if my child were in the hospital, I would want them to take care of my child. Then, I ended up chatting with Ginny for a short while, which was just enough to get me over my hump. I'll spare you the details of our conversation but I did laugh so hard that I cried. We both ended up telling each other a similar story about us getting in the bathtub and having such big bellies and bodies that we almost overflowed the tub.

Today, I didn't do anything exciting. The kids were already scheduled to go to daycare so I took them to daycare then ran some errands. I had some me time. Ryan and I ate lunch and ate so much at Buffalo Wild Wings that we were full until about 9pm! I napped on the couch for an hour. It wasn't crazy or exciting but it was a break from giving all of me to my patients. I just didn't have it in me today. I guess it goes to show you that I do give my patients all that I have. Sometimes you just have to give yourself all that you have, today I did that.