Well today will make my 9th ten hour shift in 11 days. I work as an ER nurse practitioner in a busy city based ER. The work is challenging, fun at times and devastating at others. Nonetheless, the schedule is unpredictable and all over the place. In total I work 14 shifts a month but some weeks are heavier than others. This stretch is particularly long due to me being out of town in a few weeks. It is stretches like this that make everything difficult. My ever growing pile of laundry that mocks me each day is case and point. The kids go back to school this week which meant my one and only day off was spent running for haircuts, getting school supplies and trying desperately to be sure there was some food in the house when I am not. That made Friday more like a marathon than a rest day.
So, translate that to healthy lifestyle changes. How the hell do you get a workout in when there are so many other things to do? Well lots of times I get comments like,"I don't know how you do it." Now, in the past I would say that I would be the first to make a comment like that. However, belonging to a gym that charges if you miss a class is a great motivator. I also play this game with myself where I put the master calendar in front of me and schedule each day's Orange Theory class weeks in advance, wherever it will fit. Sometimes that is 5:00am, other times 7:15pm. I can honestly say I think I have been to every time slot they offer. Ah....the life of a shift worker. Nothing is consistent.
Yes. This sounds like a good idea. Schedule time to workout. Put it down and make it work. There is only one downside to that logic. It is getting up at 4:15am to work out when you have worked 12 hours the day before and are staring down another twelve on that day. This requires a wide variety of inspirational things to get there. First, there is the music. For this I apologize to my neighbors. Yes. I know that the music emanating from my monster Suburban of a mom mobile may be a bit much at 4:45 am, especially when it tends to be old school heavy metal like Guns and Roses, but I need something to wake me up at that hour. Second, I find a carefully woven web of profanity on my drive to the gym is particularly helpful. No. I don't want to be out of my f'ing bed. No. I did not decide this eight hours ago as I was still at f'ing work. Yes I realize by not canceling earlier I will be charged. No. I do not want to be charged. I realize I have carefully selected my time slot so someone else cannot have it. However, I now find a healthy loathing of the poor wait listed person who could not get into class as they are likely cozied up in a warm bed and I am not. Damn it. Why the hell did I sign up for this? The beauty of said tirade to the back drop of 80's heavy metal does seem to bring my heart rate up a bit to be ready for class. A word about said profanity to my church friends and fellow Christians. I have reconciled these episodes with the understanding that hour of the day was deemed "ungodly" at some point in history which allows for me to say ungodly things for that period of time.
What follows this ugly scene is me pasting a smile on my face and exchanging pleasantries with the rest of the rise and grind crew who appear about as awake as I do. What follows this is a workout that frankly is not as good as later in the day when I train, but a workout nonetheless. Calories burned. Sweat dripping and the urge to curse heavily stops. What follows is nothing less than bliss when there is no line at Starbucks at 6:05 when I get to have a latte that I swear tastes better than any other latte any other time of the day.
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