Don’t approve my PTO? Enjoy your short staffing!

I work in a hospital, most hospitals book out their schedules two, three, even four months out. Mine is three months. They do this to ensure staff to patient ratios are placed correctly. We have a pretty early PTO deadline. I requested my PTO for my week long planned family vacation in the middle of March for spring break BEFORE the new year. Some of the stuff is already paid for. When it comes to PTO requests, if multiple people request a similar time, they go by seniority (how long you’ve worked there), I have a pretty high seniority compared to my coworkers as there was a huge mass hiring event due to the pandemic being under control. I worked here before and through the pandemic. I know you should never assume, but due to these factors I was almost 100% I’d get it off. Especially because we have more than enough employees to fill my shifts as well as a few temp employees. Just heard back, they denied my PTO. In that week, I’m scheduled four 12 hour shifts, which is my norm. I reached out and they didn’t even give a reason as to why, just that they denied it. I NEVER call in, so I have no points. Unfortunately I can’t just say, “screw you I’m going anyways.” So I’ll just wait until a few days beforehand and call in sick. I hope you enjoy your shitty ratio because you were too lazy to fill my four shifts. 🤷🏼‍♀️

TLDR: my work denied my PTO request for march so I’m just calling in sick