Paul Bass Photo
After working the overnight shift, surgical ICU nurse Makenzie Givens polished off a plate of scrambled eggs at Bella’s Cafe Friday morning, then headed home for some shut-eye.
But not too much shut-eye.
Givens and six fellow Yale New Haven Hospital overnight nurses were in high spirits as they left a communal brunch at the Westville Village brunch spot, which was doing brisk business amid the brisk sub-freezing temperatures.
You wouldn’t have known that they had worked a demanding 6:45 p.m.-7:30 a.m. shift right before that.
“It was a long week for all of us. We decided at the beginning of the week that we were going to do brunch on Friday morning to celebrate some of the new nurses and what they’ve accomplished,” Givens said after leaving the restaurant, during a sidewalk conversation on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
Givens and her colleagues used to have regular post-shift brunches at Bella’s. They value the camaraderie. “We see a lot of sad hard things. It’s nice to go with your friends and decompress.”
“Covid happened and slowed everything down,” Givens noted. Friday’s was their first communal brunch in months. “I’m hoping it’s picking back up now.”
Givens managed to make it through the scary pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic without catching Covid. She credited the hospital for putting protocols in place and providing protective equipment. As the daughter of a nurse, she also grew accustomed early on to regularly washing her hands.
She has since caught the coronavirus twice. They were both mild cases, thanks, she said, to her vaccine and booster shots.
As a “squeamish” kid, Givens didn’t think she’d follow her mom into nursing. “As I got older, I thought I really liked taking care of people. It just sort of happened.”
Seven years into the job, she said, she’s happy with her career choice. “It’s an extremely rewarding job. It’s definitely hard, though. I would tell people in nursing school, if you’re going for the money, then that’s the wrong reason to do it. It’s something you need to be passionate about to stick with it. We see people on their worst days. It’s very rewarding if you do it for the right reasons.”
She moved last August from the trauma surgery unit to intensive care. She likes the new assignment, which offers “more autonomy” and opportunity for “critical thinking.”
Givens headed home to Wallingford for a few hours in bed. Working overnights requires adjustments to try to stay on some kind of regular sleep schedule, she said. She gets to cluster her work week into three consecutive overnights. Then, as on Friday, she’ll recharge with a nap, not a full sleep cycle, so she can “start my normal weekend” and pivot to a full slumber while it’s dark outside.
“I’ve been working nights a lot of years. You get used to it. It helps to try to get on a normal schedule,” she said.
You can watch the full conversation with Makenzie Givens on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHHFM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program in the video above.
Around the corner from Bella's, welder Anthony Vargas warmed up in his car during a break from helping to erect the frame for a new apartment complex on Blake Street. The foreman said he might have to send everyone home; it was too cold to work.
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