Sunshine, Happy

Does anyone else have spring fever so bad it hurts?

Despite the fact that we have snow predicted for Thursday, today is a beautiful tease, a happy reminder that inevitably the snow WILL melt, the juncos will scatter to the north, and the robins will return.

Thank goodness for sunshine!

*****

It's an odd world that we inhabit as hospital nurses, particularly on night shift.

Surrounded by concrete walls, ensconced in darkness, our shifts are marked by activity and change, nonetheless. We take vitals, listen to lung sounds, page doctors, deliver babies, regardless of the outside world and irrespective of the late hour.

Usually, we have a vague sense of what's happening outside as the few patients and doctors come and go, remarking upon significant events or weather phenomena. But there are also times when we walk through the hospital doors at the end of a shift, only to find a dense fog, a new layer of snow, a howling wind. The quiet corridors and dim rooms don't always belie these changes, as they have no bearing on what happens within.

Just a thought, as I sit here and soak up the luscious new warmth. My friends who are working today have no sense of this bright sky, this gentle breeze. How strange to think that if I were there, or were sleeping between shifts today, I, too, would have missed out on this brief glimpse of spring coming.

Thank goodness for the reprieve of a few days off!