by Stacy Kess

Created on: October 07, 2009

Nurses, by nature, are a superstitious lot.

Full moons mean crazy nights on the unit. Emergencies, codes and deaths happen in threes. Never use the words "quiet" or "calm" before the shift is over. In fact, never talk about anything you don't want to happen.

And I swear, up and down, that ghosts do haunt the unit at the post-acute care rehab facility at which I work.

In fact, I saw proof of all of the above in the course of three nights.

Night one:

While sitting at the nurses' station around 1:30 a.m., I felt the drawer below me begin to buzz. This drawer contains the pagers that aides carry to alert them to a call light. The pagers buzz and beep when the call lights are rung, as does the board at the station.

As I was saying, the drawer began vibrating, but the board was silent. The drawer began beeping, but the board was silent. I opened the drawer, and began picking up the pagers one by one. All were turned off.

Night two:

I was sitting at the table in the activities room behind the nurses' station finishing some charting. One of the aforementioned pagers was sitting on the table, about six inches from the edge. Suddenly, it clattered to the ground. How the pager fell from the middle of the table off the edge to the ground, I cannot explain. At the time, I turned to one of the other nurses and grinned. "It's our ghost."

Meanwhile, outside, a full moon rose. Inside, two dementia patients became agitated, screaming like banshees. Patients rang call lights all night. I won't go into details, but suffice to say, there was never a dull moment. In fact, there was never a moment to do anything but pass medications and answer calls. It was just - for lack of a better term - crazy.

Night three:

It was a calm night. Medications were passed with time to spare, paperwork was done by 4 a.m., and treatments were already underway. (I always save the majority of my dressing changes for morning so we can wash up the patient at the same time or so that I can do it with morning medications.) Things were running so well.

"I'm on time," I said to one of the aides. "This is different."

Shortly after 5 a.m., as I was preparing medications for a patient, an aide came running. "Kathy needs you. Mr. X had a seizure," she said.

It took me seconds to reach his room, but he was already unconscious and unresponsive. After life-saving measures by the nurse, Kathy, and paramedics, the ambulance took the patient to the emergency room.

This code set off a series of events that I promise

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