let it woe

Most of you know that I volunteer for an emergency advocacy group. I've been doing this for 4 years and every shift for the 4 years (with the exception of a few months off for school related issues) I have been called in to various hospitals in my borough to do that voodoo that I do so well. My shifts have mainly been the late night , "were sorry ma'am, but we can't see your patient right now because we had a couple of stabbings and heart attacks come into the ER," ones. It's been rough, but rewarding work.

During my most recent shift I found myself saying that I didn't want to volunteer today and that I hope that I don't get called in for a case. I got called in 10 minutes before my shift started, it took an hour to travel 5 miles to the hospital, and at the end of the night (at least it was before midnight) I called security to get them to remove a couple of reporters. The rest of the night I slept on my couch (as to not disturb my husband), with a lamp light on, with my cell phone clutched in my hand on vibrate so I can be sure not to sleep through a call. I couldn't sleep because I woke up every 5 minutes or so thinking that a call is coming in. I'm paranoid. Something tells me that's not exactly healthy.

So, after a week of playing phone tag, I finally talked to my volunteer coordinator today regarding how I feel about the work. I told here that I love the organization and the people there, and that I don't want to give it up. In short, I can't work the night shifts any longer. I feel really bad because it's hard to find people to volunteer their time for a 12 hour night shift. Also, because I found this organization at a time when I was out of work and didn't have much of a direction in my life. With out this gig, I'm pretty positive that I would have never gone back to school and I would still be working a union job stressing myself into the psych ward at Bellview.

Anyway, to steal from MNS, today's lesson: you are no good to others if you're not good to yourself first. Cheezzzzy, yes. True, yes. But why couldn't I believe that until now?