The longest day in the calendar is the one where you didn’t sleep the night before. It appears the gastro has descended on the house of Gooden.

It made its appearance with the sounds of my toddler throwing up at midnight. And one am, two am, three am, four am, and then it was time to go to work again.

I felt as if I’d been on call for the entire night on peds ward during rotavirus season, but without the option of going home at the end of the shift.

Instead, I woke up with sandpapered eyes and the tired taste in my mouth, which reminded me of far too many late nights at the hospital.

Through some miracle of caffeine, I powered myself through until five pm.

Luckily, there were no giant struggles, no life or death moments that I had to be at my peak to deal with.

But by the time I returned home, I was spent. Completely and utterly ready for bed at 5 pm.

I remember how exhausted I’d be when I came home after a 36 hour shift, how grateful to fall into my bed at two pm and sleep until six the next morning to do it all over again.

How sometimes I didn’t see the sun for weeks at a time, working from dark until dark until dark.

And how much more exhausting it is now to have children and work and adult responsibilities.

Now I look back on those shifts, 1-in-3 or 4, missing every third or fourth night of sleep for work, and think how lovely it was to the post-call sleep.

I can’t remember when I slept through the night last. I’m bewildered by the idea that I used to need eight to ten hours of sleep to function.

Now I glory in six full hours in a row.

Maybe I’m getting tougher with time?

Or maybe it’s being a mother that has tempered me.

Forged in the heat of sleepless nights, I am now able to function with so much less rest than I would have dreamed at twenty,

When I still had dreams at night.