I have concluded that my body and I are currently in a workplace dispute.

For most of the year, I thought we were getting on reasonably well. I went to work, did my shifts, survived the nights, drank an entirely respectable—depending on who is asking—amount of coffee, and carried on. My body occasionally complained, but I treated these complaints the way one treats an email marked “not urgent”: acknowledged, mentally filed, and absolutely not dealt with.

This arrangement worked until this week.

To be fair, there had been warning signs. After three consecutive night shifts recently, I came home feeling as though an elephant had sat on me. Not attacked me. That would have been dramatic. This felt more administrative, as though the elephant had simply mistaken me for office furniture and remained there for twelve hours.

I slept. Woke up to eat. Brushed my teeth. Went back to sleep. Woke up again. Checked the time. Became confused. Went back to sleep.

Very productive.

At some point I realised that my sleeping pattern was no longer a pattern at all. It was a collection of unrelated naps held together by caffeine and professional obligation. I could be awake at three in the morning watching Netflix and eating McDonald’s, then asleep at an hour when respectable adults were having lunch. Night shifts have completely removed the traditional meaning of breakfast from my life. Breakfast is now simply whatever meal happens after I open my eyes.

And the ridiculous thing is that I am a nurse.

I spend a considerable portion of my professional life telling people to listen to their bodies.

“Make sure you rest.”

“Keep hydrated.”

“Don’t overdo it.”

“Give yourself time to recover.”

Excellent advice. Very sensible. Evidence-based, even.

Do I personally follow it?

Next question.

Nurses have a fascinating relationship with our own physical wellbeing. A patient tells us they have been feeling dreadful and we immediately become concerned. A colleague looks pale and we tell them to sit down. But when it is ourselves, we suddenly become remarkably optimistic clinicians.

Probably just tired.

I’ll be fine after coffee.

Let me finish this first.

If I documented some of my own reasoning in a patient’s notes, somebody would probably ask to speak to me.

And then this week my body finally decided that enough was enough.

I was off sick.

I will not go into the details because nobody reading my blog needs that level of intimacy with my bodily functions, and I would quite like us to remain friends.

What mattered was that I stopped.

This was particularly irritating because I had set myself a completely unnecessary personal challenge this year: no sickness absence. I had been doing rather well too. We were approaching the final part of the year. I could practically see the imaginary trophy.

Then my body, which had apparently never agreed to participate in this challenge, withdrew without notice.

There went my undefeated season.

I was genuinely disappointed for approximately five minutes before realising how absurd that was. I would never expect a colleague to apologise for becoming unwell. I would tell them to rest, recover and stop worrying about work.

For myself, naturally, I required a full internal disciplinary hearing.

That, perhaps, is the nurse in me.

Or perhaps it is simply me.

Either way, this week has mostly consisted of my body reminding my brain that despite the uniform, the responsibilities, the night shifts, the endless lists and my occasional delusions of being able to function indefinitely, I remain an ordinary human being.

Frankly, I think this could have been communicated by email.