What it's like to be an owl

Sometimes I feel like an owl...or a bat, as my brother likes to call me. (However, thinking of myself as a flying rat with fangs is much less appealing than the proverbial gentle, wise owl.) I work the night-shift at the hospital, which means I wake up around 4PM and go to bed around 9AM. On the weekends, I try to switch back to living during the day, but it's difficult when your body is in complete rebellion of being awake at 10AM. In such an attempt yesterday, I slept from 11:30AM-6PM, then again from 1:30AM-3:35AM. Crazy!

Just to give you a picture of my schedule, imagine yourself waking up around 3:30 or 4 in the morning, driving to work at 6, working on your feet with critically ill children until about 7:30PM...with a 30 minute lunch break somewhere in your 12-13 hour workday, and then coming home and going to bed by 9 each night. No, it's not the ideal schedule; and, yes, everyone thinks I'm crazy for doing it (which is probably true), but I really enjoy it.

While it's not conducive to life outside of work...i.e. grocery shopping, meeting anyone for lunch (for some reason there aren't many takers for lunch at Chili's at 2AM)...working the night shift on my unit is great. It's much more laid back (well, laid back for an ICU), and everyone gets along pretty well. There's also a little more time to have a conversation with people, be it parents or co-workers.

I was talking to a dad several days ago who was preparing to take his almost 2-month-old daughter off of life support yesterday. I asked her how she was doing and told him that I was praying for her, he said, "I do hope she gets better, but the Lord gives and the Lord takes away." I almost fell out of my chair...this is not the kind of thing that gets said on my unit much, but it was so good to hear him acknowledge the sovereignty of God over this very sad situation and to know that no matter what happened to his sweet baby girl, he would be at peace with the Lord's will. Yet another of the Lord's precious reminders to me to trust in Him in all circumstances, no matter how difficult things seem. He is in control of it all. "The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good" (Proverbs 15:3).