300 employees, including myself, were mandated to stay at Boone Hospital on Tuesday night during the blizzard. I had already stayed overnight Monday after my shift, anticipating the wintery mix stuff in the wee hours of Tuesday, and not wanting to have to drive in it. They wanted to be sure they had people to run the hospital, if people couldn't make it in on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning.
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Luckily, most of the night shift gals for our unit made their way in to the hospital early on Tuesday and just hung out until their shift started at 7PM, so none of us that were already there on Tuesday during the day had to work to cover any "no-shows."
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Monday night I slept in a room on pediatrics. The hospital bed was SO uncomfortable. It's a newer bed that makes this humming noise every few minutes as it inflates the different sections of the mattress. Couldn't sleep with that going on, so I unplugged it, which resulted in the portion of the bed that supports your back to deflate almost completely. That didn't work either. Luckily there was a pull down "cot" in a cabinet in the room, so I pulled that down and slept on it. Not the most comfortable thing in the world, but better than what I started with.
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I was utterly exhausted anyway, since LOTS of people came to the hospital with even the slightest cramp or pain, thinking they were in labor and not wanting to get caught in the blizzard. At several times during the day, ALL of our beds in L&D were full. It was truly a crazy day. We managed to keep the "keepers" and send the others home, and I think we delivered 6 blizzard babies on our shift.
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I got up Tuesday morning and L&D was a lot calmer. I think we only had a few people come in to be seen and we had a few labors. It was a much nicer day.
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They had mandated everyone to stay Tuesday night, and even had a "Command Center" to assign sleeping rooms/space to those of us that had to stay. Lots of staff were doubled/tripled up in rooms in bed/couch/mattress on floor fashion. I, however, was thrilled that I got one of the physician call rooms all to myself, with a real twin bed! I must say I slept MUCH better Tuesday night.
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I was up before 6 on Wednesday morning. I knew I would be giving up my room to one of the people that was getting off of night shift. I moved my stuff to an empty triage room in L&D and hung out and read (I wasn't scheduled to work Wednesday) until I got the call from Mia saying they had come to clear our driveway. One of my old high school classmates/Facebook friends had offered on Facebook to clear driveways with his front-loader and I took him up on it.
I got home at around 2 or so and couldn't believe my eyes. Piles of snow everywhere I looked on the way through town. My driveway was PERFECTLY cleared. It was so good to be home.
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I had to laugh at Mia on Monday. She called me at work and said, "Mom, can I make pretzels and tree bark?" I laughed and told her I'd prefer she use ALMOND bark.
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She called on Tuesday, too and said, "Mom. HOW do you do it???"
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"How do I do what, Mia?"
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"How do you take care of a house and three kids by yourself?"
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I guess she was trying to keep up with the house, bless her heart. So proud of her. The house looked pretty good when I got home.
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