Working Christmas…part 1 – Christmas Eve Night

Many people I have talked to these last couple of weeks have felt sorry for me because I’ve had to work Christmas, and was scheduled to work the nights of the 24th, 25th and 26th (7pm-7am). I get comments like, “Can’t you just get ONE day off?” or “How can you work Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day?!”, and my personal favorite, “Is it because you don’t have a family and children?”, as if it’s a tragedy in modern day life. Forget the fact that I had 8 days off around Thanksgiving, another 8-day off stretch in the middle of December, and I have 6 days off over New Years! Forget the fact that people still get hurt and injured and sick even during the holidays, and in the middle of the night. To these people, I have to say one thing – I appreciate your concern, but do I really look like I’m having a horrible time at work?! Judge for yourselves…

Christmas Eve night was a slow night, with a big snowstorm that dumped a few inches. The few people getting out to the Emergency Room tended to be those who either had life-threatening illnesses or conditions and those who are lonely without family/friends to be with at Christmas. Given the recent fresh powder-snow that fell that night, and the small number of patients we all had to treat, a couple of us were able to dress up in our boots, coats, and a few other creative things to keep us warm and dry and protected, and we headed out to play in the snow!!! I am finally thankful that my hospital is located on the top of a hill in the Salt Lake Valley, as we had some fantastic sledding options!




We’ve talked about how fun it would be off and on, to take the “slickers” or flexible but hard plastic back-boards that we place under patients, and ride them down the hill in the snow. Well, we finally had the perfect opportunity to try it! We got our slickers, and found some “trach-tie-tape” which is a very strong, ribbon-like cloth tie that we use to secure breathing tubes in people who can’t breathe for themselves. This we tied to the front of the slicker, both to help steer, and to keep the tongue out of the snow. It was incredibly effective, and I quickly learned that the only thing that limited how FAST these slickers really do go down the hill was my ability to stay on it! For this, the handles on the side were quite effective. While it’s been a few years, I can’t remember riding a sled that goes faster than these did! I used a pillow (hospital pillows are covered in plastic) to protect my tailbone from further re-injury, and splash-guard goggles to protect my eyes, as they had been sensitive earlier in the day. We also wore Tyvek suits (little bunny suits that we would put on patients in a decontamination-emergency) to keep our scrubs dry – another little idea that worked quite well (our charge nurse wouldn’t let us wear the real hazmat suits – only these disposable ones)! And finally, I placed the plastic hospital gloves over my own cloth gloves to keep my own gloves dry. In the final minutes at about 5:00 Christmas morning, I had chosen my own nurse and doctor from among my co-workers, should anything bad happen… and with all the preparation in place… we went and played!!!


As I was at the top of this hill about to ride my slicker down for the first time ever, the last thing I yelled out to those watching at the bottom was, "Are you SURE this is a good idea?!" Then we ALL laughed hard, knowing that that is what many of our patients tell us were their last thoughts before doing something that landed them in the ER!