A Constipated Patient, A Burrito and Blankets
The patient had been on a bedpan for some time when she asked the aide to use her finger to uh...(what's a delicate way of phrasing this?) help her go # 2. Aides aren't allowed to do this, but regardless, she stuck her finger in to pry out what wasn't moving naturally. The patient then screamed loud enough for everyone to hear, "Get your finger out of my butt." (Visitors must wonder about us.) The aide did manage to extract a softball size whatchamacallit.
On the subject of food that hasn't been digested yet, I started out the day so well. Breakfast was tea and tiny, grape sized kiwis. Lunch was raw almonds and a soymilk, berry smoothie. Then I totally blew it by ordering a carnitas burrito that was the size of a cat. Of course I finished it. Isn't it a sin to waste food? Or, is it a sin to be a glutton? I can never keep it straight. Anyway, ice cream was for dessert.
It was freezing cold in the hospital tonight. By the end of the shift, it was starting to look like Halloween with all us wrapped up in white blankets like mummies. There is some silly rule that we're not supposed to wear blankets, but we of course ignored it. If anyone had dared to tell me to take my blanket off, it would have not been pretty.
Written by Melissa on 12:40 AM
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Melissa blogging from sunny Santa Clarita, Southern California, United States.
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11 Comments:
Lol!You must be a lot of fun at parties. Thanks for visiting.
I took my first medical job in a nursing home when I was 14, it was almost 30 yrs ago. No one payed much attention to rules of what "nursing aids" could do. We had no training, no certification required, all you need was a pulse...and I had one. "Digital disimpaction" was a routine part of my job, as was passing meds for the one licensed nurse in the facility. There were a couple of patients in private rooms who had black gangrenous feet. The smell was overpowering as you entered the room, it was the maggots busy devouring the decaying flesh. Most had bedsores, on many you could see right to the bones on the hips. By the time I was 18 I was day charge of a mid level facility where most of the people could walk and talk, I still had no certificate or license, and I had the med keys. Pretty scary huh?
And you decided to go to nursing after all of that?
The bedsores down to the bone I can understand, we get that all of the time, but why didn't they amputate the gangrenous feet? Those we routinely remove.
These were elderly terminal patients, mostly untreated or noncompliant diabetics with multiple comorbidites and no family or advocates. Did I mention this facility was shut down? I didn't immediately go into nursing after that, it was many years later, after accounting and cooking, etc.
I can honestly say that I have never heard "get your finger out of my butt" during my workdays :) LOL!
My life seems so different from other people's lives and yet, this feels normal to me. I hear comments like that all of the time. :)
Sorry Melissa, we are different. When other people say they have a disgusting oozing wound they are usually pretty grossed out. I'm ready to lance and drain it, just to see what comes out. If your surgical incision opens up at midnight on Saturday I'd happily stitch it back up for you.
I can easily eat while I read your blogs (except phillipino food, now that makes me sick).
If you happen to need your blood drained, I am happy to stick a large IV in your arm and drain off a unit or 2 of blood into any handy container and make rose fertilizer out of it.
I know this is not normal.
I do not panic in emergencies, I am happy to help when there is a code. The hospitals do not have a nursing shortage because there are not enough nurses. They have a shortage because many of those of us who actually like the work of nursing, who like helping people, who can clean a stinky green slimy softball sized wound will not work in horrible conditions the hospitals create. I'd like to see the administrators work on their feet for 12+ hrs, lifting and turning 300 lb patients, getting yelled at by the family members, and then be told they can't leave because no one showed up to replace them. 16, 18 hr shifts were not uncommon and that was ICU, those people didn't have papercuts! You are lucky (haha)to work in one of the few facilities who still schedule reasonably humane 8 or so hr shifts.
But guess what Melissa? If there is a heaven, you get a free ticket in, and if not you have a boatload of good karma for your next life!
I must have a better union. They can't make us stay one minute past our 8 hours. It's a good thing too. If I had to work a longer shift, I would probably start killing patients and it wouldn't be an accident.
I do wish that managers were required to work as nurses one or two days a month. Some of them have lost touch with reality. It would also be entertaining for the rest of us.
I'm sorry, but I'm still grossed out that you pour your mother's blood on your roses. I know, it's good for the roses and it would be wasteful to throw it out, but ewwww.
At the hosp with the 12+ shifts there was no union. I did work at your hosp in W.H. and it was the same thing there. We were on 8's but if someone didn't show up you had to stay another 4 or 8 until they could get someone in.
With all the dressing changes you do, I can't believe blood grosses you out.
Is that where they get blood-red roses?
"If corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil ceom from?"
dk! The baby oil thing...that's just nasty! (glad you're feeling well enough to join us again). Please be sure to take the full course of the antibiotics, don't just stop when you are feeling better. There, now you have 2 bossy nurses nagging you!
The blood I am using is overloaded with iron which the roses, and many other plants love.
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