Tired, Confused and Fed Up

This last week rode rough as a corn cob. I am attributing it to working nights for the the past 3 years- I think it's finally catching up with me. The days that I am not working I can only sleep 4 hours at a time, which means that I might wake up at 3am, go back to bed around 10am, wake up again around 4pm and so on and so forth...
I once read that working night shift for a long time can diminish your life span about 10 years and that it even increases your risk of cancer! This shouldn't be worth the extra $4/hr they pay me to work nights, but even still, it is hard for me to walk away from the extra money. Why is this? Why am I putting more value on money than I am on my health and well being? Why, for that matter, am I even doing something I don't even enjoy? Sure, it's a job and no one likes to work, but I don't mind work, I just want to do work that I like. Am I naive thinking that this is possible? This is the main reason I am back in school- I'm casting myself out into a sea of possibilities waiting for something to bite, but attending classes from in front of my home computer makes it difficult to discern when my fishing lure bobbles; something seems to get lost in the distance.
Maybe it's not because I work nights that I am feeling so tired and worn, maybe it's nursing in general. Everyone always says, "That's the great thing about nursing, there is so much you can do with it", to which I say: Most of the nursing jobs available involve doing more or less the same thing- being overworked and under appreciated. People assume that nurses just pass out medications and take vital signs. This assumption is why so many new nurses leave nursing with in the first few years of their career and is why their is a nation wide shortage of nurses.
Nurses are with a patient for 12 hours, while doctors are only there for 10 minutes- at the most. Doctors do not get pooped on, slobbered on,and bled on every single day, which is why they can wear white lab coats; you hardly ever see a nurse wearing white. Whatever happens in those 12 hours is the nurses responsibility;nurses are the "eyes and ears of the doctors". Doctors have a HUGE responsibility; I'm not saying they don't. I'm just saying that nurses do, as well.
Hospitals do not staff enough nursing assistants and ancillary staff to help fill in the gaps and so the nurses are not able to give patients the attention they deserve. A nurse should not be given 10 patients to take care of, this is not safe. Families end up bitter, rightfully so, because they don't feel that their loved one is getting enough attention.
One main reason that nurses have been taken away from the bedside is because of the amount of charting that is required. This is to protect the hospitals and nurses from over zealous lawyers who want to find any reason to sue and end up driving up the cost of health care and diminishing the quality of care; therefore, they are essentially kicking themselves and there loved ones in the rear. I can't even begin to describe the amount of time I spend dating, signing, putting check marks here and there. It has gone too far. Nursing has become a paper trail.
I'm not sure what led me on such a tangent. Maybe I didn't realize how much of this nonsense is what makes nursing unenjoyable for me. I feel I am catering to hospitals and lawyers more than I am taking care of patients. The satisfaction I do get from nursing comes, not when I get a raise or on Nursing Appreciation Day, but when I am at the bedside giving care and the patient, or the family, say's "Thank you".