Down like a punch drunk boxer

I can't say I wasn't warned. When I talked with my traveling buddy, Nancy, the other day on the phone, she sounded like she had been run backward's through a cheese grater. She had the husky voice of the 96 year old, red lipstick wearing old lady sucking on a filterless cigarette, swilling rot gut in one of those square drink glasses. With a cocktail onion. She has the dreaded Spring Cold.
I was hoping to avoid this all together, but being as I spent 9 days, sharing a room, and well, space with her, cheek to cheek in NY taxi's, ect. I knew the odds were against me. I was hoping that my superior nursing immune system would kick in and protect me. At least long enough for me to work my two nights. My friends, it was not to be. My laid back, California nurse immune system got beat down by the NYC spring cold bug. I felt slightly shitty yesterday, some body aches, ect. I attributed it to jet lag, and the fact that I didn't sleep well during the day. I went to work, anyhow, thinking, "I can do anything for 12 hours!" Yeah, right, says my body. By 0415 this am, I was a blathering idiot. Let me rethink that. A blathering idiot, taking care of a nearly dead patient on a ventilator. Perhaps, not my finest moment. My co- workers, including Celtic Rose, didn't even hardly blink when I announced, that even with only 3 hours left in the shift, I was going to have to go home. I was just DONE. Thankfully, we had a charge nurse who could take care of my patient for the last 3 hours, or, I would have been forced to suck it up. And I doubt it would have been pretty.
I was home by 0430, in bed at 0433, and sleeping like a punch drunk boxer by 0435. I just got up. Still feel like crap, but at least I feel like kind of rested crap. I go back to work in two, fun filled days. Yipee.
Hope the rest of you are good!
** upon re reading this, I feel the need to point out that it wasn't me who made the patient nearly dead, it was his years of copious alcohol intake, among other things. I think I actually managed to take good care of him up until I left. I left, because I could not see myself doing so well by him those last three hours, and I didn't want him to have any more problems than he already had. . .