I'm trying to stay professional but...

After Mari passed away I went back to work in the orchards counting bugs for the summer.  It was good to mix it up a little bit, I was feeling a little emotionally overwhelmed.  I got into nursing school that summer and couldn't wait to get started.  Honestly those two years are kind of a blur (I fell of the face of the earth for two years, sorry friends)...not many specific stories stick out until I got to do my last quarter of clinicals in the ER on night shift...all the crazies come out at night...

One night a man came in who was soaking wet, clothes and all.  Apparently he decided he was going to swim across the river.  Not a little river, a really big ass river.  Our friendly local police brought him to us to get checked out.  We got him hooked up to the monitor and his heart was racing.  We went through all the classic questions if someone has a funky heart rhythm and they can still talk to us.  Then I asked him, "sir, have you used any drugs tonight?"  He responds without missing a beat, "well yeah, but it was just two lines of coke."  Well, guess what...that still counts.  His heart eventually settled down, clothes dried out, and we called him a cab.  Adios River Man.

On a cuter note, we got a sweet little old guy (you will learn I have a huge soft spot for cute oldies, and even for sassy not-so-cute ones) with a GI bleed who had to wait in the ER for a bed to open up.  So we started his blood transfusion and let him hang out with us.  I went to talk with him and held his hand (hand holding is automatic with cute oldies) and his hands were really cold, so I said "oh, cold hands!"  He smiles at me and says "warm heart." :)  I hope I'm a cute oldie someday.

During this quarter was the first time I did CPR on a human, not a mannequin.  It's not for the faint of heart.  He had been coded for quite awhile in the ambulance and we kept at it for awhile in the ER then called it.  It's not Grey's Anatomy...ribs are broken, bodily fluids are everywhere...I'll just leave it at that.  So to all of you reading this...if you have an 90 year old grandparent or parent who is still a "full code" please talk this over with them.  Maybe give them some meds, a little shock to give them a chance....but please please, no chest compressions.  It is probably their time to go and letting us thump on their chest isn't the way to go out.  Sometimes we can do too much in healthcare, and coding a 90+ year old is the perfect example of TOO much.  (Alright I'm stepping off my soapbox)

We had a young homeless guy brought in by EMS who seemed either really drunk, or really high.  He couldn't get it together enough to do a breathalyzer, but the 10+ attempts were pretty entertaining.  We didn't know anything about the guy, and he definitely wasn't going to help us out, so we found his wallet and got his name.  Luckily he was in our system so we knew a little background.  He was a type one diabetic and an IV Meth user living on the streets.  I was assessing him with the ER doctor and the patient starts sticking his tongue, drooling, & grabbing his stomach and talking about "the baby."  The doctor asked me to check a blood sugar since this guy acting so out of it.  I checked it, and it was 19!!  (Normal is like 60-100)  I don't know how this guy was still functioning (well sort of functioning).  I grabbed my preceptor and she came right in and started trying to get an IV.  His veins were shot since he was an IV user, but eventually she found one up by his shoulder.  We gave him some IV dextrose and then the real fun began.  He started to perk up...then he stands up, and starts pulling down his pants.  I said, "I think he's gunna pee!"  Thankfully we had a urinal in the room and we shoved it down there and he fills the thing to the brim.  He sits back down, we ask him if he's hungry, he nods.  So we grab a few sandwiches and juice.  He eats these in about a minute, we ask if he wants more, he nods again.  We grab two more sandwiches and he eats those too.  We left him alone for a little bit & I hear the drawers in the room opening and closing.  We go back and he's stumbling around the room looking for needles.  We ask him to stop, and lock up all the needle drawers.  He still hasn't said a word to us, and he is still pretty out of it.  While we are locking the drawers, he starts farting.  Not your average fart.  This is what my older brother would call a "cosmic fart."  This thing went on for seriously 10 seconds.  It was insane.  I look at my preceptor, who is about to loose it too and I said, "I'm trying to stay professional, but..." and we just burst out laughing.  I don't think I've ever laughed like that in front of a patient, but it was 4am...and we just couldn't help ourselves.  The patient didn't seem to notice.  Then our friend (who still hasn't said a word) starts unpacking his backpack.  I seriously think they should have a show that reveals the contents of homeless people's back packs.  It was wild.  This guy had maps, needles, papers, books, hats, clothes, insulin, blankets, it just went on and on.  We stayed in the room just to see what he was going to do with all of it, but then he just loaded it all back up, held out his finger for us to re-check his blood sugar (it was normal) and he walked out.  So random.