Fatigue
Receiving dock, between shifts
Nine days into this job, it seems I was right to be concerned about sleep. But first a word about fatigue. On night two, the first shift that I worked until 5:30 a.m., exhaustion hit me like a wall at 2 a.m. It wasn’t bodily exhaustion — I’ve pushed my body much harder plenty of times — but the wearing down of consciousness. What struck me as odd was how suddenly it overtook me, transforming me from kind of draggy to stupified in a moment. I found it hard to read the numbers on my “shot,” the list of cases to pick up, and even had to make a deliberate effort to discern whether I was holding it right side up or not. I became disoriented, unable to remember what part of the warehouse I was in and which way to go next. (Fortunately, it is about as difficult to get truly lost in as Manhattan, since it is a mostly orderly numbered grid system.) My feet grew heavy, and I stumbled.
It was after I got home that things happened that made me realize how impaired I really was, though. After spending a few minutes with my wife and daughter I went to bed and was soon sleeping heavily. But not for long — four hours and I was awake again, unable to sleep although still thoroughly tired. I put together some breakfast and put a cup of the coffee K had made earlier in the microwave. Only as I finished breakfast did I realize I’d forgotten to get the coffee. When I opened the microwave, there was milk splattered around the inside of it, and a mug with a little milk and no coffee. Evidently I had never poured the coffee at all, just the milk, which I then overheated.
Later, after I discovered that the basement was flooded due to melting snow pooling against the foundation, I set up a pump to remove the water. I screwed a hose to the pump outlet and laid the other end outside. As soon as I turned the pump on I found myself sprayed with water, soaked from head to toe. It seems I didn’t really screw the hose on, and it flew off as soon as the water started flowing.
What really disturbs me about this is the knowledge that this kind of exhaustion is routine among medical residents, who are in a position to make worse mistakes than forgetting to pour coffee along with milk. It’s also no comfort to know how many people — like myself — are driving while operating in such a sub-par condition. Tiredness is said to be comparable to inebriation in its effect on judgment and reflexes. I know in my state of fatigue I was no more able to will myself into real alertness than I could will myself sober after getting hammered.
Happily, the worst seems to be over. I am somewhat accustomed to being up all night now, and I haven’t experienced that intense fatigue again. But my success at sleeping enough during the day is mixed. A couple of times I have slept eight hours. Other times I sleep four hours and awake. The night before last, which I had off, I slept about 10 hours, then after a few hours awake and active I went back to bed for the whole afternoon, although I didn’t sleep. Today I slept, poorly, for about five hours, then had to get up in order to interact with the daytime world before going to work — I expect it to be a long night. However much I sleep, so far, I don’t feel fully rested. Undoubtedly this is partly because I am still sick (and undoubtedly I am still sick partly because I am not getting fully rested), but I suspect that the irregular daytime sleep I get simply isn’t as restful as routine nighttime sleep. The two days I have had off from work so far were mostly consumed with recovering from the preceding days, and my main preoccupation whenever I am not in the warehouse is trying to get enough rest.
