Exhaustion

This morning I made a mistake that could have cost me my career. At the very least. It was also the kind of mistake that could be easily misconstrued. An honest mistake but it would have been difficult to prove that because it involves a conflict of interest & large sums of fines & insurance money etc...And this is a country where you're guilty til proven innocent.

Except I managed to rectify the situation without anyone being the wiser. Or cover it up so to speak.

As I type now my hands are shaking. It was a freak chance that I came in early enough to save the day. My manager's usual insensitivity. He called at 5:00am & woke me up to ask me to come in an hour early. Note that we start work at 7:30am. I was not amused.

He wanted me here to do something totally different. But being here I couldn't resist going over yesterday's work again. And that's when I found it. Just sat there staring at the screen thinking how could I have missed that & how could anyone believe me if I said I missed it?What is happening to me?Why am I suddenly so incompetent?

The panic paralyzed me for seconds & then I was off. The fight or flight response. There was no way out so I had to fight. By 8:30am I was done. My manager called to ask about the status of the other task - the one he made me come in early for. What could I say?I told him I didn't feel well & needed to leave the office for an hour, that I'll give him a report when I come back.

Just sat in the car for a while. Called my husband but he was swamped at work & couldn't talk. Was paralyzed again. The hour was almost up but I wasn't ready to go back & face my manager. What would I say? Come clean about the fact that I couldn't do what he wanted me to do because I had another emergency on my hands? Keep my mouth shut? Just didn't know.

Gave up on thinking & just started praying. It worked too. The boss called to say he'd be out office for the rest of today, give me a couple more tasks to handle for him & tell me that we'll talk tomorrow.

What a relief! It gives me a chance to think about what to do, talk it over with my husband & some friends.

I've got to start sleeping. This is ridiculous. Yesterday I was too sleepy to concentrate. Was easily distracted. Spent half the working day blogging. Worked very late but accomplished very little because I just couldn't focus. Haven't slept more than 2 or 3 hrs a night in over 10 days now.

I have never, ever been in a situation like this before. Maybe because I never had this kind of responsibility before. So does this mean I can't handle it? I don't know anymore. My husband & I both stay up very late. We rarely get to sleep before 2:00am. But he seems to be managing fine. I mean he hasn't killed any of his patients or anything. Maybe his work needs less concentration? Or maybe because he gets to sleep in an extra hour & a half in the morning?

But the things is if we don't stay up late when do we ever get to spend anytime together?In the weekends?What kind of marriage would that be? I miss him so much all day & now I have to give up the nights too?And our weekends aren't even the same. Like today. I have half a day off on Thurs but he'll be working two-shifts. He has Saturdays off but I have to work full-time on Sat. So we only get Fridays. Once a week. God I can't believe this. I used to see more of him when were dating. But now when I think of it when we were dating I called in sick or took a few hrs off work or came in late in the morning a lot etc....Couldn't have kept that up indefinitely. All those hrs I spent hanging around the clinic or out with him were often borrowed from work.

Thinking of taking the rest of the day off & going home to sleep. Am so exhausted now. I think the stress of events this morning was the straw that broke the camel's back. My system is completely overloaded & ready to shut down.