Evil Night Nurses and Recovery

Please tell me why ninety percent of the nurses that work at night are nasty. Is it because they are sleep-deprived? Is it because they have lousy personalities to begin with and are scheduled at night to limit interactions with patients? I think in all of the times that I have had to be in a hospital situation overnight I have only had one really nice night nurse. I mean if someone doesn't genuinely like working with people then perhaps nursing should not be a career option. My little one and I settled in for our overnight stay on Thursday, our day nurse was as sweet as can be, our night nurse came on duty at 7:00, but never made an appearance until 8:30. This of course put her off schedule with the medical assistant that came on at 7:00, and saw us shortly after his arrival. He was in charge of taking vitals every four hours. The nurse, also had to come in every four hours with meds. So you can see where I am going, 11:30ish we see the medical assistant, a little after 1 a.m. the nurse makes an appearance. Then 3:30 the medical assistant, but thankfully the nurse steered clear until 6:00. Which wasn't a surprise after the incident at 1 a.m. But let me start with the 8:30 introduction. She didn't give us her name, she gave our child her medicine, and then basically said we would need to leave between six and seven in the morning. Her manner was abrupt and unfriendly. Her declaration surprised us because our doctor told us we would not leave until our youngest ate a good breakfast and drank well. If that didn't go well, then we stayed until a good lunch was eaten. We conveyed this to the nurse, and she said, "Just who is your doctor?" Like, how dare he mess up my schedule in my hall? Thursday did not go well as far as eating or drinking for our little one. All day I think she drank six ounces, but since she was on an IV I wasn't super worried about dehydration. I just had my doubts about how well that good breakfast was going to go on Friday. So, anyway, I will fast forward to 1:00 a.m., the nurse wakes both of us out of a dead sleep, I was a little more understanding, but she tries instantly to force medicine down my daughter's throat. First of all, she scared the crap out of my kid, second, the medicine was nasty...we had been informed of that earlier in the day by the other nurse, so my child's natural reaction was to cry. So then the nurse tried to pin her down physically. At which point my child started to fight, almost kicked her right in the face, and I can't say that I blame her. The nurse got nastier from that point on. I grabbed the syringe from her, and said I would do it. Eventually, I managed to get the medicine down her, but she was crying loudly. The nurse told her she was going to wake all of the sleeping babies and she needed to be quiet. I really don't recall wanting to punch someone as much as I wanted to punch this woman, maybe it was my lack of sleep, but her bedside manner was awful. She didn't bother us again until six, and then basically said "As soon as you eat you can leave." Eating on our end consisted of my child drinking 8oz., and that took an entire hour. By the time that was accomplished I just wanted out of there. I was exhausted. In addition to the night time visits, my daughter was hooked up to a monitor that monitored her heart rate. If her heart rate dropped below a certain point it sounded an alarm. Twice during the night it went off repeatedly. Her heart rate wasn't abnormally low I was informed, but two times I had to trudge down the hall to the nurse's station to have someone fix the alarm. The first time they set the threshold lower, the next time they came and turned the alarm portion off. Why they didn't do that in the first place I don't know. I think I got maybe three hours of sleep, maybe. My little one and I came home, crawled in bed, and slept another 4 hours. Since we have been home we have had to work tirelessly to get my daughter to drink. The biggest problem that kids have following a tonsillectomy is dehydration, while the doctor wants 48 to 64 ounces each day, I am happy if we manage to get her to drink 36-40oz.. And that requires constant prodding. She stills talks a little funny, but I assume that will improve over the next couple of days. Now if we can just make it past all of the whining and demanding behaviors we will be good to go. I am trying to be understanding, since she has been through a lot in the last 12 days, but my patience is being sorely tested. I will be really glad when she is fully recovered.