Inappropriate at Baseline

Hot vag...

2014-04-25T19:41:00.000-04:00

Nurse: "I just checked again and you don't have a fever."
Patient: "But I feel like I do! Can you check under my arm?"

Nurse takes patient's temperature under her arm.

Nurse: "You're still not febrile."
Patient: <Big sigh> "All right then, can you put that thermometer in my vagina then? Because I bet I have a temperature there."

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

2014-04-15T19:28:00.001-04:00

I hate that I have succumbed to the laziness that is posting only on facebook so this page is becoming less and less relevant. I am going to look into apps to change that. Because lately, facebook has a much better app for posting things from pages than Blogger does. And when I post something here, then I have to go get a link and then post to facebook. I hate that now I am in a demographic that this really takes too much time for. What a cliché I have become.

Anyhow, does anyone know of good apps or anything?

The Home Depot baby: a cautionary tale

2013-08-22T01:24:00.001-04:00

A while back I was admitting a lady in preterm labor. I noticed on her chart that we shared a birth month and year. When I was asking her history it became apparent she had older kids, which is another thing she and I share.

Me: "so how old is your first baby?"

Patient: "oh she's a worthless thing that's almost sixteen, thinks she owns the damn world."

I laughed out loud and got the rest of her history.

We have a section on our chart where we ask if the patient got pregnant as a result of fertility treatments. When I asked her this she laughed out loud. And she said:

"Honey, this is a Home Depot baby. You know what that is? It happens when you get divorced. After a couple of years you start noticing the cute young boys at the Home Depot. Some of them even offer to come over and help you fix things if you ask enough questions. So you have this beautiful young man in your house... and you know what happens? They don't even need more than a couple of minutes to get hard, and you don't even have time to think about wearing condoms. So... Look what happens. My old ass is having a Home Depot baby, and I'm in preterm labor because my old body isn't doing too good a job with it."

I told her I was in the middle of a divorce with older kids also.

She looked at me and said, "you'd better watch yourself, then!"

Look out, divorced ladies! Beware the Home Depot baby.

Updates... I am alive!

2013-08-21T15:52:00.003-04:00

So, a lot has happened. I transferred out of the ICU and now work in Labor and Delivery... a whole new kind of inappropriate. ;) I've been mostly loving it. It's one of those areas of nursing where it sounds like all rainbows and fluffy bunnies and clouds, but often it's really people screaming at you, drug addiction, people bleeding to death, and untimely death in general. Other times it's really truly beautiful and I feel like I am walking on air after a good delivery. You never know what you will get when you walk in the door, and I say that even more so than the ICU, which is surprising.

I have a medical procedure coming up where I get to be someone's patient in a hospital. This is terrifying for me. I really don't do well with role reversal, and not being in control. I live alone now so I am having friends come and see me after the procedure while I am in the hospital and I just KNOW I will fall asleep while on pain meds and fart really loudly, or wake up and start admitting really, really embarrassing things to people. I have been told I will be pretty snowed. If you're in town and free, send me an email and I can do embarrassing things to you, too! Mostly, I am looking forward to having a couple of weeks off from work. Things have gotten kind of crazy in my personal life lately, and I could use some time to reboot a few things.

When I have a short snippet, I usually post on facebook instead of here, at https://www.facebook.com/InappropriateAtBaseline - so feel free to like that page.

What else?

Oh, I am slowly making my way through midwifery school. Yay! It's sometimes awesome, sometimes horrible, and I am in a phase where right now it's often mundane because I am taking all the preliminary courses and not much that's related to midwifery yet.

How did that get in the icu?!

2013-02-15T15:43:00.001-05:00

Read in a patient's chart: "patient had fowl urine".

Rinse, lather, repeat

2013-01-17T23:18:00.001-05:00

Patients who repeat things indiscriminately can be really funny. A friend's patient had a heavy accent and kept digging in his rectum. People invariably would tell him "stop picking at your bottom" or "stop picking your butt" when they were in his room caring for him. He would repeat it and nod.

So when the attending doctor came in to check how "with it" the guy was and asked him what his name was, the guy looked him straight in the eye and said "stop picking your butt, man!".

Quotes of the day!

2013-01-13T04:17:00.000-05:00

(People are running around all crazy because five patients were being admitted into the icu at once)

Doctor: we are getting POUNDED right now.

Nurse (without batting an eye): not as hard as your mom did last night.

___________

Nurse 1: those things are hanging around all over the place, and you really have to keep track of them, they kind of get around...

Nurse 2: kind of like your mom?

___________

Doctor, to patient: so tell me what brought you here tonight.

Patient: I have no idea. I asked these motherfuckers (gesturing at the ems personnel) to take me to a bar but they took me here instead.

___________

Nurse 1: We just had to go put a flexiseal and a condom catheter in room 19.

Nurse 2: Wow, that sounds like some kind of party. But probably not the kind I would want an invite to.

A for effort, A+ for execution

2012-12-28T06:54:00.001-05:00

So a group of med students and residents walks into my patient's room. The lead guy asks how she is doing. She says she's doing horrible. Resident asks why.

Know what she says? No, SCREAMS?

"My ASS hurts! And it's all HER fault!"

She had the decency to point at me for that last part so they wouldn't think it was some poor hapless soul's fault, at the very least.

(And no, I didn't touch the woman's ass, before someone asks me).

Bucket list for my night, 12.17.12 edition

2012-12-17T03:11:00.000-05:00

- had to fill out a police report after my colleague got punched by a fully "intact" patient
- cleaned up urine
- cleaned up blood
- cleaned up semen
- had one patient pull out their own catheter

And I still have four hours to go...

Quote of the day...

2012-12-12T07:04:00.001-05:00

"I mean, I would be agitated, too, if my penis was that swollen!" - said by someone who doesn't have a penis

Public service announcement # 75426

2012-09-28T19:38:00.001-04:00

I was going to say "this one is for the guys", but really it could apply to anyone.

If, hypothetically, you get some kind of brain issue in the future that requires hospitalization and a 24/7 police escort... Even if you think you're a hot commodity... No, the nurses, techs, and doctors DO NOT want some of that. I promise. Even if you're related to some celebrity I've never heard of and have a good singing voice. Even if you once had a wife that looks just like me. Nope, I still don't want some of that. And I can guarantee you they won't. Save yourself the hassle.

Aaaaaand it's not a Friday night until...

2012-09-22T02:59:00.001-04:00

You walk in and your patient is trying to place his pulse oximeter on his penis. Then he looks up at me and says, "it's three in the morning. What's a girl your age doing out this late?"

Beats last Friday night's excitement...

Never say this unless you want all kinds of modern connotations attached to it

2012-09-22T02:51:00.001-04:00

(call light goes off)

Secretary, over the intercom: "yes, mr. Lastname?"

Mr. Lastname: "I need my nurse to come in here and make me happy."

That's some admirable restraint, if you ask me

2012-08-31T22:54:00.001-04:00

While turning a male patient in bed...

Nurse: "come on, we have to turn that way and get you off these nasty sheets."

Patient: "No. I'll kill you motherfuckers."

Nurse: "ok, no one's killing anyone tonight."

Patient: "I will. Because I ain't killed a man in... Um... Four days."

Woot!

2012-08-15T20:00:00.001-04:00

Getting report on a patient...

Me: "is she appropriate?"
Other nurse: "um, actually, NO. Not at all."

Best your mom joke so far in a hospital setting

2012-07-23T03:23:00.001-04:00

Nurse 1 (to resident, about a new patient that was just admitted): "... He also has some weird looking green penile discharge I need you to go look at."

Nurse 2: "so does your mom."

I couldn't tell at all.

2012-07-22T04:22:00.001-04:00

So I walked in and my patient is spread eagle on the bed without anything covering her up.

I said, brightly, "Susan! How are you?" (while shutting the blinds to her room and getting the bed ready to get her re-situated).

Without batting an eye, she replied, "Crazy as ever".

Please don't do this to your nurse

2012-07-21T00:59:00.001-04:00

(call light goes off, and no one immediately comes)

(patient's husband YELLS across the unit for the nurse, this naturally freaks people out, so four nurses run into the room)

Patient's husband, gesturing: "Have y'all seen all this ear wax she got up in there? Is that NORMAL?"

Google translator please...

2012-07-09T22:15:00.001-04:00

Does anyone have a recording of someone saying the Hindi word for "fuck you AND your mama"? Because I'm pretty sure that's similar to what my patient yelled while he punched me in the face half an hour ago...

I got the iv anyway (first try, with no one helping me), I should just have a title on my badge that says "I win, always"...

Apparently I'm fit to teach others...

2012-07-07T08:31:00.001-04:00

So they told me that I'm being assigned as someone's main preceptor, which means I get to show them how to be a nurse and how to do our job.

Is it wrong that my first reaction was, "I don't know if you guys know how inappropriate I really am...." ?

I'm actually a little bit terrified. Part of how I work is so not by the book, and I am totally not a policy and procedure bitch.

What if this person has no sense of humor? What if they do some dumb shit and people blame me?

There has to be someone more qualified, right?

I would really like to know this backstory

2012-06-30T08:14:00.001-04:00

I got floated to a different unit last night. On the side of a trash can *inside the employees-only rest room* it said, "please do not pee in me", with a sad face underneath.

Overheard...

2012-06-16T07:55:00.001-04:00

Coworker 1: "She asked that lady? That lady's as confused as the day is long."

Coworker 2: (pauses for a beat, then) "Oh, man. The day is REALLY long."

IT'S FRIDAY!!!!

2012-06-15T07:36:00.001-04:00

Alternate title: I wonder what this guy does on Mondays...

So I was getting ready to leave and (in my night shift stupor) almost bumped into a patient walking with a tech. They kept walking (in between knots of doctors doing rounds and groups of nurses giving shift report) and when they got across the unit, I guess the guy saw the board where it says the date and other basic info.

He excitedly yelled, "IT'S FRIDAY!!!" ...

And proceeded to tear off his gown (he was, of course, nude underneath) and continue walking around the unit. Well, for a few seconds anyway.

On my way out after seeing this, I heard someone say, "well, some of us celebrate differently...".

Next best thing to a your mom joke

2012-06-14T20:46:00.001-04:00

Me: "... And I'm going to be your nurse tonight until around 7 am."

Patient: "ok. Go easy on me, I just drove a really long way."

Me: "You did? Where did you come from?"

Patient (deadpan): "My mom."

Just a one-line vent

2012-06-10T05:00:00.001-04:00

Ok, maybe more like one paragraph. Or two. Or... Fuck it.

Sometimes this place is so achingly sad I feel like I carry it around physically - as if it accumulates in my bones and changes the way that I move. I feel so much heavier after a few days of sadness around here. There is just so much hope. It kills me.

An aside: I don't like saying a patient "expired". I hate how that sounds so much. How about, "they've been trying to die for a month and finally won"? Or "patient died"? We call it a time of death, why do so many people say such quaint, stupid things around death?

I can't help but feel like I'm a cog on a conveyor belt sometimes. I love my job a lot, and sometimes I hate it a lot. Probably not for the reasons you'd think.

We can't do much about long term un-interpretable suffering. I can help you with pain as long as you're able to say something or look uncomfortable, or give me some kind of sign. If you're in a long term altered state of consciousness, sometimes we can't tell. Did that hurt? When you moved your arm there, were you trying to tell me something? I can't tell for sure. I am trying so hard to make this comfortable for you, while your loved ones crowd around and sit in the waiting room and talk, try and figure out what to do - what the chances are, what they mean. Can you hear all this? Do you know what they're saying? If I somehow miss a sign that you're terribly uncomfortable, that this is prolonged and endless torture ...

... Would you forgive me? ... hell, will you forgive me?