(Ashley)
I was scheduled for a Sunday shift.
Seven to three. The ER on a Sunday morning was different from a weekday. Slower to start. The kind of morning where the floor had not fully woken up yet and the staff moved at a pace that matched it.
I got in at six forty five. Changed. Did my handover. Took my assignments.
The first two hours were quiet. A sprained wrist from a fall. An elderly man with chest pain that turned out to be indigestion. The kind of cases that moved through quickly and did not require much.
By nine I had a window.
I had been thinking about the surgical board since Saturday. Not constantly. Just in the background the way a thought settled when you had decided something but had not acted on it yet.
Sunday was not a heavy surgical day. I knew that. Major elective
