Noodle Checks, Specimens And A Squeal

A coworker asked where the noodle check forms were.

"Noodle check forms," I replied?

"Yes," she answered.

"Noodle check forms,"I repeated?

Slowly, she said, "Noo wall checks."

Then, I understood what she wanted, neural check forms. It didn't make sense why or how we would measure noodles, but checking neural functioning makes sense.

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The patient didn't speak much English and the nurse was trying to make the patient understand that we needed a stool specimen. The nurse acted out pooping in a little cup.

That's not quite how it's done. The bottle only has a two inch wide opening, but the nurse was hoping that the patient would understand what we wanted in the cup. We'll just have to wait and see what we get back in the cup. This could be interesting.

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With only five easy patients and four nurses, there wasn't much to do tonight. I didn't get any patients and no one needed any help, so I mainly hit the mute button on the negative pressure alarm all evening.

The patient was here to rule out a disease that is spread by breathing the same air, so we had her in a special room that sucks the air out to a vent on top of the roof. The only problem was that our room doesn't work, so the alarm squeals until someone hits the mute button. That buys a few minutes of quiet. So, that was my job tonight. It was a very long evening.