If Only I Had A Four-Leaf Clover

I swear I have some of the worst luck with work schedules. I only have to work every third weekend. But, of course, I was scheduled for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this past weekend. And why am I so piffed about this? St. Patty's Day was March 17th! And since Boston has a huge Irish population, it was just like one big party everywhere this weekend. Everywhere, that is, except the Brigham, where I was forced to slave away against my will. (Feel sorry for me yet?) Anyway, here are a few bloggable moments/thoughts from the past couple of days:

• Thursday night I did manage to drag a few friends out so that I could at least have my own little St. Patty's Day celebration. We went to a few nearby pubs that had some pretty good cover bands playing, I wore green, and I drank plenty. All I remember is running up to the front of the stage, screaming/singing, and head-banging to some song at the end of the night. Good times.
• On the way to work Friday evening, I almost got swept away by a blizzard....for real! It was so f***ing cold, snow was everywhere, and the wind was blowing so hard, I was in full-on survival mode. I wore long john's with jeans and boots on the way to work because I knew my scrubs would not be warm enough and would be soaked by the time I got there. Even with my head bowed against the wind, and my hood cinched up, snow still managed to blow down my neck. Now that's what I call cold!
• The trek to work on Saturday evening was just as bad. It was still cold, but raining instead of snowing. After the four or five inches of snow from the previous day, the rain on top of it made for a huge slushy mess! Plus I left the apartment a few minutes late, so I had to run through all that crap, dodging drunk people that had been partying since that morning. Then, just as soon as I got into the train station, I heard my train pulling up, so I started run-walking even faster. As I started down the escalator at warp speed, my wet boot slid straight out in front of me on the first step. I threw my arms out and caught myself in mid-air before I totally busted my ass, and then ran the rest of the way down to jump on the train just in the nick of time. When my adrenaline quit pumping, I then felt super embarrassed at how dumb I must have just looked. And my left quad still hurts because I must have pulled it a little. Yeah, that sucked.
• Sunday morning I was oh-so-pleasantly surprised to see beer cans, liquor bottles, multiple patches of yellow snow, frozen vomit, and various green party debris littered all over the sidewalk on the way home from work. And most of it is still there, as it is frozen in place. I guess city life isn't always what it's cracked up to be.
• On top of the bad weather and missing the partying, work itself was also pretty crappy this weekend. The patient census was lower than usual, and since I wasn't needed to work on my regular unit, I was floated to other units to work. I don't mind having to float every so often, but by Sunday night, I was really feeling abused. Both Friday and Saturday nights, they floated me to work on one unit at 7pm, and then made me switch units at 11pm. This is really a pain because at 11pm, I would be on a completely different floor with a whole new patient assignment, and have to start all over again. So Sunday night, I simply told the charge nurse that if I was told to switch units at 11pm, I would just go home. And what do you know? I stayed on the same unit for the whole twelve hours and had a nice night. So here's to putting the smack down!
• Just when I thought my nursing duties were over for the weekend, my poor little favie needed his own private nurse. When I woke up this afternoon, I found him lying on the couch, looking like death itself. It turned out that he had a temp of 103.4!! I was trying to stay cool, but I blew it when I looked at the thermometer and exclaimed, "Oh Shit!!" Thanks to some good drugs and a little extra TLC, his temp finally came down to normal by bedtime, and he was feeling much better. Whew! I've never seen a temp that high on a conscious person! I'm so glad his brain didn't fry up, because I think I would've really missed it :)
• And last but not least, just when we thought the snow was over, it started snowing again this evening. See, I told you I wasn't getting my hopes up about spring!