Yuck

    WARNING: If you are thinking about eating anytime soon, read this blog once the food has settled. If you enjoy eating either mayo or spaghetti, I suggest neglecting this blog entry entirely. Here we go. 

In nursing school, we learn that we ought to be nurses who engage in "compassionate care." Unfortunately, some patients are too rude and disgusting for this to become a reality. Take my middle-aged heroin addict patient for an example. The man keeps demanding that we give him candy. A relative of his hands him a Snickers bar. He begins to eat it, but hates the peanuts in it so he SPITS THEM OUT ON HIS LINENS. To make matters worse, this man only chose to communicate with me through loud and piggish grunting. He was a disgusting human being, and I thereafter referred to him by the acronym H.L.P.O.S - huge loser piece of shit. 

     In another incident, we had a homeless patient whose clothes smelled worse than anything I could possibly describe in words. He yelled out expletives to our nurses that would probably not even be allowed on H.B.O. or the most hardcore of porn scenes. At the end of his tirade, he squatted down on the floor, and went #2 right in the middle of his room. He then pointed to a staff member, laughed, and yelled "Merry Christmas." Despite getting a relatively high salary, this is why nurses still complain of being underpaid. 

    My most interesting patient case to date came yesterday morning. A young man fell into a tar pit, and his entire body was covered in black tar. In order to get it off of him, we all had to get a huge container of mayo and spread it all over his body. As we did this, the young man screamed at the top of his lungs. We then took dry towels and scrubbed off as much tar as we could. We couldn't get it all, and so he was transferred to the burn intensive care unit. This was a very serious case, and a patient a month earlier had died from the same kind of incident. 

      A lot of the nurses were talking afterwards, and said they could never eat mayo again after smelling it on tar and seeing it spread all over someone's body like that. It was one of the most eerie and disturbing things I've seen in my life. Another nurse said it wasn't too bad. She said one time a lady was throwing up so much, that long spaghetti strands starting falling out of her nose. Out of respect for my loyal readers, I will end it right there. 

     I'm almost finished with my experience and am so grateful for the skills my nurse has taught me. I will never forget 6 words of advice she gave me as I was struggling to put in a male catheter. 

    "Grab it like you own it"

         Thanks for reading. 

      - Tommy

     

     

Sundowners

     Alas, I have completed my 100th hour in the E.R. The last 24 have been full of fun and excitement. Let me share it with you. 

 

      On Friday, I took care of a patient with Sundown syndrome. These people get increasingly more confused as the day progresses, culminating in the most absurd and preposterous statements shortly after the sun goes down (hence the name). In a nutshell, this is what happened: 

  Before the sun went down - I interviewed patient. Patient discussed diagnosis, her family, and commented that I would make a good nurse someday. The conversation was functional, logical, and pleasant. 

  After the sun went down - Pt informs me that General Electric makes every single telephone pole in the United States. Pt longs for the days when during lunch hour, she would let herself loose on the concrete dance floor. Pt loves September, and is so happy that it is finally fall outside. Pt concludes conversation with me saying, "You are going to make a great surgeon one day."

    Moving on. Here are two notable patients I've had in the last two days. 

  Hacksaw Hank - Fell in his garage and landed on a hacksaw. Lot of blood and work to do, but discharge teaching was easy: Don't keep hacksaws on your floor. Goodbye. 

 The Kidney Guy - Guy comes in with kidney pain. CT scan, urine-analysis to rule out kidney stones. Nurse comforts him by declaring that passing a stone is like giving birth. Lucky for him it never happened. He was discharged A.O.K.

    In addition to those guys, I've seen liver failure, asthma attacks, chest pains, eye injuries, hypothermia and seizures. The list goes on and on. 

    As far as my skills go, I've learned a hell of a lot lately. I now start IVs, get lab work drawn, interview patients and chart without any supervision what so ever. I've even catheterized a male and female patient by myself, and got to insert an OG tube when a patient was on the cart about to code. I've come a long way. Last semester I didn't know how to change a diaper. 

   As always, thanks very much for following my blog. I appreciate your loyal readership. You all deserve a gold star.