Being a nurse-manager in an assisted-living facility is no picnic, either. Fifty-hour weeks are the norm, and sometimes I just want to slap the snot out of the residents' family members who stick their heads into my office and scream at me about something that I have nothing to do with. Today, it was a 60-something daughter kvetching about her mother's missing laundry.

Number one, I'm the NURSE. I am not the laundry person, and I don't give a rat's ***** about someone's dainties when I've got a diabetic whose blood sugars are going into the dumper. Number two, why is it that some people feel they're entitled to treat healthcare professionals like something they just scraped off the bottom of their shoe? And number three.....if that's all they have to gripe about, they need to get a freaking LIFE, or better yet, if they think they can do a better job of taking care of their loved one, why don't they take Mom or Dad home and take care of her/him themselves?!

Don't get me wrong---I actually love my job (except for the above parts of it) and am extremely fortunate to have a director who respects me and doesn't micromanage me, and who works around my appointments and even takes on some of my stuff when I'm going through a bad patch. He knows I'm bipolar and doesn't hold it against me. So I'm in no hurry to go anywhere else, even though it's hard on me to do five-day weeks and have so little downtime.

But ya know, if I could afford to retire, or work part-time, I'd quit in a New York minute. Nursing is an extremely stressful occupation, and as much as I've enjoyed it, I'm waging a battle with myself that I know I'm losing because I don't know what else I could do and afford to maintain my current lifestyle. I can't make it on a Wal-Mart greeter's pay, even though sometimes that's all I should trust myself to do, because I'm the only one working (hubby is retired for health reasons, but won't be eligible for SS till next winter).

Maybe when he's got an income again, I'll be able to throttle back some.....in the meantime, I'm just gonna hang on. What other choice do I have?