Juanita Monroe-Giancola was always a people pleaser. Doing stuff she didn't necessarily want to do just to make others happy and bring a smile on their face and brighten up their day.
Especially after the death of her twin sister, Maria.
Juanita fee...
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Today was actually supposed to be my day off from work. First ever in what had seemed like ages too. Having had worked for five days straight, I was so exhausted and so looking forward to not showing up at the hospital for the next 24 hours for once, but nope. Come this morning, I find myself walking into the urgent care unit with a cup of coffee in my hands to help keep me awake, my long braids gathered and pulled up into a tight ponytail at the back of my head.
I simply couldn't say no (story of my life) when one of my co-workers had phoned me yesterday and asked me to cover the double shift she was supposed to do today, but ended-up having to take off from due to a family emergency.
And I had wanted to say hell no so badly, you guys, simply because like I said, I was SO FREAKING TIRED!! Plus, I was really looking forward to finally having a day to myself. Being a nurse can get extremely overwhelming sometimes after all, and I feel like after working at this job for only one year so far, I'm already experiencing burnout.
But Tasha is really cool, and she's always been so nice to me, ever since I was first hired here, fresh out of nursing school. She was actually the one that trained me for the job, and she would always stick up for me whenever other more seasoned nurses, women that's worked here way longer than me, would bully me simply for being a wide-eyed new girl. Which happened quite a lot. Like seriously, I had absolutely no idea that healthcare field was so catty, but I've quickly learned how it really was the hard way.
From my first day of working at the hospital, the other girls would constantly push their assignments on me that they didn't want to do and talk down to me whenever it took me longer than they thought it should take me to catch up on certain things.
Tasha used to always stand up for me though, and she was constantly encouraging me to fight them girls back, so of course, if she needed a favor from me today, then I felt like I absolutely had to help her.
So here I am now...
"Hi, Nita. Are you here to cover Tasha's shift?" Ms. Jade, the head nurse in charge of the unit asks me as soon as I walk in.
"Yes ma'am," I smile back politely, trying to keep the tiredness out of my voice.
I really wish it was easier for me to just say no to people sometimes. But I just can't bear the thought of disappointing somebody and not making their day.
My twin sister Maria used to say that it would be my ultimate downfall in life.
And she was probably right.
"Well great, because otherwise we would be short-staffed today, and in this godforsaken place that would truly be a disaster, we had at least 10 code blues today, the EMTs keep on bringing victims from that huge fire that broke out a couple of blocks away down the street, plus some guy came in a couple of hours ago claiming to have accidentally swallowed a whole bottle of Tylenol, and we've got him on suicide watch with nobody to actually do a one-on-one with him now that the other girl that was looking after him before shift's has ended."
