Wet Sheets And Misunderstandings

I got my least favorite kind of patient assignment last night, a ward with four old women. Why is it that so many older women are incontinent and have to pee about every five minutes? All four patients were recovering from hip surgery, could not walk or even roll over.

They were diapered so the bed wouldn't get soaked every time they coughed, sneezed or puked, but they used the bedpan in between accidents. Their arms were too weak to use the trapeze to lift up their bottoms, so I had to do all of the work to wedge the bedpans under them and remove them. They were also fleshy, so the butt fat oozed into the bedpan leaving no room for pee. The pee would then overflow the pan and wet the sheets. I was tempted to tell them to just pee in the diaper, but that rarely goes over well. So, I just spent the evening going from bed to bed, changing sheets and diapers. If doctors had to take care of their patients, they would order catheters for all of them.

It could have been worse, though. At least they didn't all have watery diarrhea. I've had nights like that too. I always try to look on the bright side.

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During change of shift report, I was told that my patient had faggots disease. This was new to me. I wasn't aware that this was a disease and the terminology seemed derogatory somehow. I asked her to write it down, so that I could see the spelling. She wrote Pagets. Pagets is a bone disease as opposed to a sexual orientation.

Later, a coworker mentioned that she brought some pood from home. This time I didn't laugh. I know what pood is. Some people call it food.