When the sun sets

I hate the day that I start overnight shifts.

I wake up in the morning with a sense of impending doom.

I desperately drink gallons of Robinsons orange and pineapple squash in a bid to prevent dehydration overnight. (It's amazing how little water I drink at work - there's no time for it, so I have to play the camel. If I ever so much as take a sip from a plastic cup while I'm writing up medical notes, my patients glare at me as if to say, "How dare you take a break to drink water, can't you see I'm sick?!".)

Later on, I will force myself to sleep in the afternoon but it doesn't work, so I lie in bed with my eyes closed, trying to rest my mind. I concentrate very hard on trying to relax. I do not sleep. Instead, I wind up with a headache. I drink more squash to combat the headache. My brain starts to feel like it's gone soft and soggy.

Eventually, I fall asleep out of sheer boredom. All the food colouring in the fruit squash gives me bizarre dreams. I dream about oversleeping and being late for work. I panic. I must wake up! I fight myself awake and look at the clock. I have been asleep for a grand total of fifteen minutes. Grumbling, I flop back down on the pillow and gradually drift off again. This happens another eight times.

I give up trying to sleep in bed. Instead, I put on a TV movie (a friend of mine has taped literally hundreds of TV movies and left them in my care) and wrap myself up in a blanket. I drift off to sleep and wake up as Columbo says "Oh, just one more thing..."

I prepare a light dinner (breakfast?), and then stuff a chocolate bar in my pocket to eat at around 4am just to boost my energy levels.

It's dark outside. And I'm off to work.