Why do people think it's ok

to sit their butts on a stretcher I just wiped down and changed the sheets on? Look, if you're visiting a friend or relative, don't sit on the clean stretcher. Because how would you like it if you were feeling sick and got called into a room only to find someone else's butt prints on it? Ask for a chair! Or better yet, look around for one. Because I'm busy changing stretchers that people have sat on.

My Good Deed for the Day

Actually, for the year, I think.

One of our rather unpleasant frequent fliers was brought in because he was sleeping on the sidewalk outside his favorite bar. This man is a filthy, stinky, cursing, aggressive, piss-soaked, racist, evil bastard. He comes in two to three times a week, mostly for being passed out in public, and occasionally because he falls and needs something sutured up or x rayed.

When EMS wheeled him in we knew he had to be even more foul than ever--they were wearing full masks and plastic outfits. Not only was he full of piss, he was coated in shit in various stages of drying. He stunk to high heaven.

I was floating, and it wasn't terribly busy, and I have a cold. So I can't smell very well. I decided to clean him up--while he was too out of it to object.

I put him on a sheetless gurney, I suited up in double plastic gowns, shoe covers, triple gloves. I amassed supplies and wheeled him into our decon showers. And then I cut all his clothes off (including his MAGGOT ENCRUSTED VOMIT SOAKED SWEATER), removed his poop-covered shoes and decontaminated his disgusting claw-feet using ERnursey's stink-foot-in-a-bag technique, covered his naked body in soap and bicarb and hosed him down. I scrubbed all the crusty shit off of him as he lay there making drunk noises. (And for all you "drunks are people too" folks out there--the showers are indoors and the water was nice and warm.)

And you should have SEEN what came out of his belly button. It was like a freaking hockey puck or something. Seriously. I broke a little bar of soap in two and used it to dig the fossilized mung out of his navel. If I could have reached my phone, I would have taken a picture of it for you, but my phone was back at the nurse's station with my stethoscope and my bat utility belt.

Anyway, he was nice and clean and dry, and the patient relations people brought him some clothes from the clothes bin. AND shoes. And he actually didn't smell anymore.

But he sure did the next day when he came back covered in shit again. Sorry, my good deed for the year is done. Someone else can clean him up.

Nurses Week: Less Cheesecake, More Staff, Please

Yes, it's nice that the world wants to recognize that nurses do a lot of hard work. We do! And we deserve people to recognize it.

That said: I hate nurses week.

What is it about a free lunch that turns people into raving idiots? Seriously, if our ED staff educator comes up to me one more time and says, "There's food in the back, you should make a plate!" I'm going to flip out. I think she told me FOUR times yesterday. Yeah, I'm going to rush right the heck in there and pile a styrofoam plate high with greasy bad lasagne and fried chicken cutlets. That everyone has already picked over. It's like as soon as the containers are opened, the vultures descend--and most of them aren't even nurses: unit clerks, techs, and transporters are the ones to get there first. If I DO make my plate, I have to put my haul into the fridge for when I go on my lunch break around three pm. Ew, no thanks. Not to mention that the LAST place I want to be on my break is in our stinky, windowless lounge with the TV blaring and people comparing bunions. I need some FRESH AIR and an actual nutritious lunch, thank you very much.

And then we had a Viennese Hour in the cafeteria with raffles and snacks and cheesecake. People came back from that thing with plates PILED with three and four pieces of cheesecake. What, are you stocking up for winter? At the raffle, they were giving away iPods and digital cameras and gift baskets and stuff like that. I hate raffles. The single most annoying and cantankerous nurse on the ED won a digital camera and then spent the next hour going up to everyone, shrieking about how she won and showing them her booty and visibly gloating. The nicest, sweetest nurse in the ED won a huge, ugly Christmas ornament in the shape of a house that sits out and gathers dust. She sighed and said, "well, it's nice that I won, but how am I going to get this thing home?" It's like two feet tall.

The worst thing was that the docs on the floor had been given roses to hand out to the nurses. GACK. That skeeves me on SO MANY LEVELS I can't even get into it.

Again, it's nice to be recognized. But how much money did the hospital spend on this weeklong fiesta? And they just laid off FIVE new nurses from the floor and are not renewing our four great travel nurses who work mid- and night shift. And they're not allowing any overtime. So next month when we're all working ourselves to the bone because we're short staffed, who is going to remember a plate of crappy baked ziti or a stale roast beef sandwich or even an iPod? I guarantee that all the money they spent for catered lunches and dinners every day for a week for every unit and six million cheesecakes and electronics and other crap to raffle off would have paid at least one nurse's salary.

Happy Birthday

So today in the ER we had not one but TWO birth-type situations. As you may or may not know, us ED nurses do NOT like birth-type situations.

The first was a mom of three (now four) who delivered at home, assisted by EMS. Healthy mom, healthy baby, we triaged tem and rushed them right up to L&D so mom could deliver the placenta.

Not even an hour later, we were called out to the street--a young mom was stretched out in the back of a cab, screaming that she wanted to push. Then her water broke (poor cabbie). We got her on a stretcher and RACED upstairs to L&D, exhorting her to PANT LIKE A DOG AND DON'T PUSH!! The baby started crowning just as we rolled through the door of her room. Thank goodness the midwife was right there, as that was more adventure than I wanted.

Hic!

97%ALCOHOLIC

HEY NOW! I only scored this high because I was a bartender for a long time. (Same as being an ER nurse: deal with some nice people, some jerks, and a lot of drunks; run around like a lunatic when it's busy; work weird hours; and give them drugs--just a different kind.)

Once again, ER stands for EMERGENCY ROOM

Not free pregnancy test room.
I was standing at the front desk with the patient reps, shooting the breeze, and a young woman came up and started signing in.
Me: How can I help you?
Woman: Do you guys do free pregnancy tests?
Me: No. You can get them at any drugstore pretty inexpensively, or you can go to Planned Parenthood on Monday.
Woman: Oh. Well, I don't trust those tests. They're not accurate.
Me: We use the exact same test as the ones sold in the drugstore. Are you having any bleeding or abdominal pain right now?
Woman: No. What about a blood test?
Me: We only do those if you're having an emergency. Have you missed your period?
Woman: No.
Me: I'm confused; can you tell me a little bit about why you want a pregnancy test?
Woman: Well, I'm trying to get pregnant, and I might be pregnant, and I want to start prenatal care as soon as possible.
Me: You should probably see your OB/GYN for checkup and a pregnancy test, then, since we don't do prenatal care in the ER.
Woman: But I don't have an OB/GYN.
Me: Again, Planned Parenthood is a good resource. I can also give you our physician referral line number.
Woman: I really just want a pregnancy test.
Me: If you want to sign in to be seen by the doctor, you can. But I'm not going to give you a pregnancy test.
Woman: (sighs and stomps out)

I KNEW it!

Migraneurs ARE crazy.

M.D.O.D., MonkeyGirl, and Nurse K have been right all along.

According to a study in the journal Headache, migraine is commonly associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, and social phobia.

See? SEE?!