Not so long ago, I found myself on my hands and knees. My family gathered around a recent snapshot of my mother and we prayed to a pair of her shiny gold-lamé slippers on the homemade altar.
"This is what she will wear on her journey," my sister said after smoking a joint in the kitchen.
I knew those slippers very well as I had bought them at Sears for five dollars.
Once, when paramedics called my house to tell me that my mother was about to jump off the roof of her building, I nonchalantly replied, "It's only a two-story building." Shocked, they quickly passed the phone to my mother.
"Mom, stop that bullshit. If you jump you'll only fracture your ankles and you won't be able to wear those lovely slippers I gave you!"
She never jumped, but she loved having an audience. The closest she had gotten to death (not of her own making) was when a bullet sailed through her windshield.
"Your father wants to kill me," she said while adding another sequined butterfly to her geisha-beehive hairstyle.
"No he doesn't. He only wants to scare you."
I remember staring strangely at her hair when a fashion suggestion suddenly came to me, "Mom, you should wear bangs."
"Bangs are for amateurs," she snapped. "I wouldn't be caught dead in bangs."
After a lifetime of tragedy it was ironic that my mother died of an aneurysm. She had a headache, ate a hot dog, swallowed some Tylenol, and poof!, she was gone. They found her reaching for her panic button, the same button she used to raise the stage curtain in her own plays and taunt the emergency medical service.
At her funeral, the backdrop of her last act, I remember sitting in a pew afraid to view her body.
As a nurse I had wrapped at least 100 dead bodies, but I couldn't muster up the courage to look at my own mother lying in her coffin. The smell of formaldehyde filled the church and made my body rigid with trepidation.
After my sister smoked a joint in the parking lot, she joined me in the front pew and together we watched as ten strangers entered the church. They had all gotten out of a van and shuffled silently in the back.
"They look like Zombies," I said.
"Oh, they're always like that. Those are mom's friends from the mental health program."
"They must be loaded up on Abilify and Zoloft," I whispered.
Then, after a long silence, my sister began to speak. I was waiting for some words of comfort when she reached out to me and said, "Do you think that mom has any panties on?"
"What?!"
"The mortician. Do you think he put her panties on? I bought a fresh pair for her to wear on her journey."
"This must be some journey," I said. "At least she's not walking barefoot."
When my sister suggested that she might "take a little peek" to check for the cotton drawers, I knew then and there that marijuana is never a good idea at a funeral.
It was then that the Zombies lined up at my mother's side...one by one saying their good-byes.
I knew it would be my turn next.
My sister promised me that my father would stand by my side to hold me up should I make a dramatic attempt at fainting.
"No, I'll be fine." I assured her.
I knew that our brother would probably throw himself in the grave and I didn't want to steal his thunder.
When I reached the purple-felt box that would be her final bed, my father got up to join me. In fact, the rest of my brothers and sisters stood up to assemble a family farewell.
I saw her arms resting comfortably upon a stockpile of photographs, my graduation picture sitting prominently on her belly. The ivory gown laced with french roses and the rosary wrapped around her wrist were a vision of death couture.
I was pleased and started to make peace with this parting scene. As my eyes turned to see her face, I was overwhelmed with a sense of despair that made my knees buckle. I was about to drop to the ground when my father took hold of me.
"Is it too much for you?" he asked.
"Yes! Oh god, oh god!!" I waved my hands in the air like the last disco dancer. My cries were loud enough that even the Zombies stopped drooling and started to perk up on the sacred benches.
I clutched my Versace tie when my sister with the bloodshot eyes asked, "What is it? What do you see? Do you see her blessed spirit?"
I swiveled my head 'no' as the flood gate of tears opened from under my expensive RayBans.
And then, without any hesitation, I yelled as loud as I could:
"Bangs, I see bangs!!!"
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Scar Wars
It began with something that went bump in the night. I awoke to my mother's frightening tale.
"There's a prowler at the window," she whispered.
"The bogeyman?" I asked wiping sleep from my eyes.
"Of course not, the bogeyman isn't real. This is a prowler."
She hurried me out of bed to the bathroom window where her mad vision had taken place.
"What's a prowler?" I asked.
"You don't need to know! I just want you to go outside and make sure it's not there."
"But I'm only 5 years old," I cried.
"Stop that whining. The prowler doesn't want you, it wants me. Now go outside and scare it away!"
"What about dad?"
"He's out bowling and he has three frames left," she said matter-of-factly.
When I came back into the house that dark night I crept past my mother who had fallen asleep on the sofa.
"Did you look under the bushes?" she asked scaring the hell out of me.
"Yes. There's nothing out there."
Then with just a hint of endearment she said, "You are, and always will be, a survivor."
Years later I realized that my mother had truth in her shadows. She was right, the prowler did want her. The abyss of her mental deterioration had just begun to emerge and the voices were starting to take residence in her saddened nut house.
When I was 17, her new husband once woke me up with a knife at my throat. He was an abusive drunken mess. The next day I said, "Mom ask him to leave."
"Why should I?" she said. "You don't even have a scrape on you. What about me?" she continued. "My head is a bloody mess from that frying pan, and I just had a wash and set."
Then she repeated her famous words.
"You'll be fine, you're a survivor."
She was absolutely right about that as well. I knew I needed a job to leave her tiny apartment so I applied to a beauty school. I had waited for my mother a thousand times in beauty parlors and observed my fair share of teased-up hair-dos...so why not?
I missed the stylist deadline, but a kind counselor offered me a Ronald Reagan nursing scholarship. It was how I came to be an LPN at 19 years old.
I have survived a long career that has included med-surg, Oncology, ICU and ER. I also furthered my education at a nursing school in the Big City. It's unofficially called a "boot camp" for vocational nurses.
Some of the women at that college were scarier than snakes slithering under a door, but many of the best RNs are spawned from being an LPN, and I am proud of that. Like my mother said, I'm a survivor, even if my life's pursuit began at the end of a jagged edge.
I am that powerful "something" that was forged from my mother's schizophrenia. She taught me pride, humility and, most importantly, she taught me courage.
Every time I triage a psychiatric patient, I know the strength it takes to witness the breakdown of the human soul. There lives a tragedy behind every insane, neurotic triage complaint.
If you look close enough you can even find a melody behind every malady.
I started this blog filled with a sanctuary of reservations: Would I be misunderstood? Could my flashbacks serve as a sort of "rah-rah" that might encourage and welcome nursing newcomers?
Followers to this blog have come from Australia, New York, California and even the Philippines. They are young, old, male, female, gay and straight, but with a common interest...to read my little stories. And I am very thankful for that.
Sometimes I provoke inspiration and, then again, you might read a flare-up of pee, poo and wigs flipped backwards.
My storytelling has been sprinkled with an extremely creative imagination (hey, it's my party and I'll lie if I want to).
But this is what I know to be real: I am a middle-aged gay man who is grateful for a long and illustrious career, and I live with an open-hearted honesty.
I know the dull, aching pain of Love's heartbreak. I've known nurses who have committed suicide and nurses who were drug addicted. I even watched as one nurse ran off the floor to spend some time crying in the rain. She was overwhelmed with the grievous chore of her first shroud.
I've had great nurse managers and some extremely awful ones.
And through it all I carry one certain and undeniable truth: Nursing has been good to me, and I to it.
I am a survivor.
I am a Registered Nurse.
"There's a prowler at the window," she whispered.
"The bogeyman?" I asked wiping sleep from my eyes.
"Of course not, the bogeyman isn't real. This is a prowler."
She hurried me out of bed to the bathroom window where her mad vision had taken place.
"What's a prowler?" I asked.
"You don't need to know! I just want you to go outside and make sure it's not there."
"But I'm only 5 years old," I cried.
"Stop that whining. The prowler doesn't want you, it wants me. Now go outside and scare it away!"
"What about dad?"
"He's out bowling and he has three frames left," she said matter-of-factly.
When I came back into the house that dark night I crept past my mother who had fallen asleep on the sofa.
"Did you look under the bushes?" she asked scaring the hell out of me.
"Yes. There's nothing out there."
Then with just a hint of endearment she said, "You are, and always will be, a survivor."
Years later I realized that my mother had truth in her shadows. She was right, the prowler did want her. The abyss of her mental deterioration had just begun to emerge and the voices were starting to take residence in her saddened nut house.
When I was 17, her new husband once woke me up with a knife at my throat. He was an abusive drunken mess. The next day I said, "Mom ask him to leave."
"Why should I?" she said. "You don't even have a scrape on you. What about me?" she continued. "My head is a bloody mess from that frying pan, and I just had a wash and set."
Then she repeated her famous words.
"You'll be fine, you're a survivor."
She was absolutely right about that as well. I knew I needed a job to leave her tiny apartment so I applied to a beauty school. I had waited for my mother a thousand times in beauty parlors and observed my fair share of teased-up hair-dos...so why not?
I missed the stylist deadline, but a kind counselor offered me a Ronald Reagan nursing scholarship. It was how I came to be an LPN at 19 years old.
I have survived a long career that has included med-surg, Oncology, ICU and ER. I also furthered my education at a nursing school in the Big City. It's unofficially called a "boot camp" for vocational nurses.
Some of the women at that college were scarier than snakes slithering under a door, but many of the best RNs are spawned from being an LPN, and I am proud of that. Like my mother said, I'm a survivor, even if my life's pursuit began at the end of a jagged edge.
I am that powerful "something" that was forged from my mother's schizophrenia. She taught me pride, humility and, most importantly, she taught me courage.
Every time I triage a psychiatric patient, I know the strength it takes to witness the breakdown of the human soul. There lives a tragedy behind every insane, neurotic triage complaint.
If you look close enough you can even find a melody behind every malady.
I started this blog filled with a sanctuary of reservations: Would I be misunderstood? Could my flashbacks serve as a sort of "rah-rah" that might encourage and welcome nursing newcomers?
Followers to this blog have come from Australia, New York, California and even the Philippines. They are young, old, male, female, gay and straight, but with a common interest...to read my little stories. And I am very thankful for that.
Sometimes I provoke inspiration and, then again, you might read a flare-up of pee, poo and wigs flipped backwards.
My storytelling has been sprinkled with an extremely creative imagination (hey, it's my party and I'll lie if I want to).
But this is what I know to be real: I am a middle-aged gay man who is grateful for a long and illustrious career, and I live with an open-hearted honesty.
I know the dull, aching pain of Love's heartbreak. I've known nurses who have committed suicide and nurses who were drug addicted. I even watched as one nurse ran off the floor to spend some time crying in the rain. She was overwhelmed with the grievous chore of her first shroud.
I've had great nurse managers and some extremely awful ones.
And through it all I carry one certain and undeniable truth: Nursing has been good to me, and I to it.
I am a survivor.
I am a Registered Nurse.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
UNBEWEAVEABLE!
"I'm so tired of fighting with my patients. Just put weights on my legs, drop me in the Hudson River, and see if I float." -- quote from an RN in NYC.
On my first day of work in NYC, I sat in the lounge for my lunch break. There was an ambiance here that I had never experienced.
It was 1 pm and I was surrounded by housekeepers blasting a Spanish soap opera on a small television set while the "aroma" of microwaved fish consumed the atmosphere. An RN was snoring in an old geriatric chair and an ER tech was brushing her teeth rather loudly at the sink.
There was rubbish everywhere and all I could think was, "Oh my god, what did I sign up for?"
The bathroom door opened directly onto the eating area and introduced a pungent odor. Nobody flinched. Not a single word or scowl. No one made a sound, not even a mouse...or so I thought.
I was fresh from California, eating a salad for lunch and sitting very upright at a small table in the corner. I wanted conversation about film or literature. "Has anyone been to the Angelika Film Center?" I asked, eagerly awaiting the adventure of new friendships.
"What the hell is that?" said Fifi as she ripped the bones out of her roasted chicken.
"It shows art films," I responded. "Or perhaps you've read The Lovely Bones?"
Snap went more chicken wings.
"No one has time for that," she crunched. "All New York RNs have 2 jobs. You California nurses never realize that. The nurses out there have it all backwards."
Before I could digest the entire lounge experience, a small black tail ran by my foot heading towards the coat closet.
"What was that?!" I yelled, almost choking on lettuce.
But before Fifi could answer me, another black mouse scurried across my Nikes.
"Oh there she is," Fifi said. "They've been together a long time."
I never ate in the lounge again.
I thought NYC was going to be paved with lights and dreams as if the cliches had some basis in reality. But hard work and the 2nd job were soon to follow. My easy care-free life in San Francisco was left behind, replaced by subways and SUBWAYs, my surrogate lounge.
RNs in New York eat a hardcore breakfast. No fruit or yogurt, but a large roll filled with sausage and eggs lathered in real butter. The nurse's station cabinets are filled with fake handbags bought off the street. The NYSNA photographs display weathered faces and bargain basement sweaters.
The California Nurses Association photos portray nurses in an extremely different light. Real Gucci handbags with matching shoes and belts abound. Nurses do wine lunches after Botox treatments.
There's polite conversation about culture and politics. California nurses drive nice cars, not the beat-up jalopies. There's a liberal attitude about sex and teeth whitening.
RNs in NYC are the real deal...and the fiercest nurses on the planet. Not only do they disregard cholesterol levels, they are imprinted with a highly suspicious nature. Collection cards are closely guarded.
"We're collecting for the death of Pauline's father, and don't steal anything in that envelope."
And the favorite saying, "Don't fuck with me," can apply to almost any encounter. And I used it freely until I learned a valuable lesson.
Once, Fifi rolled a stretcher carrying a homeless patient soaked in urine and maggots to me, and blithely said, "Here. This is now your patient."
I was courageous enough to say (and after hours of practice in a mirror), "Don't fuck with me, Fifi. This ain't my first time at the rodeo."
"What did you say to me?" the vein in her forehead forming a large V.
"You heard what I said. Don't fuck with me, Fifi!!"
She replied with a coy smile, "Oh, I didn't know you were offering."
Then she said, "I thought your gay self had it backwards."
At this, I scurried away like the mouse in the lounge.
Yup, an RN in NYC is the real deal...
Oh, except for the hair.
One day, Fifi came to work 35 minutes late sporting a very unusual appearance. It wasn't the dangling earrings (shoulder length, of course), the ruby red lipstick, or the tomato red scrubs complete with panty line and camel toe. (NY style, you gotta luv it!)
But her eyes were strange. Fifi's eyes were missing and somehow she made it to work.
"Fifi, what's different about you this morning?"
"Nothing darling."
"My, what no eyes you have."
"The better to not look at you, my dear," she growled.
"No, no. There's something a little off. Your fluffy hair is covering your thick eye brows."
Then without missing a beat, I checked the back of her head and gasped loudly enough for the entire ED to hear me. "Oh my god. I know what's different."
"Fifi, you have bangs on your neck!"
"Don't say a word!" she squeaked, and scampered to the hallway mirror.
And there it was in all its glory, the synthetic feathery mess that sat on Fifi's head had been turned around.
This time it was Fifi who had it "all backwards."
On my first day of work in NYC, I sat in the lounge for my lunch break. There was an ambiance here that I had never experienced.
It was 1 pm and I was surrounded by housekeepers blasting a Spanish soap opera on a small television set while the "aroma" of microwaved fish consumed the atmosphere. An RN was snoring in an old geriatric chair and an ER tech was brushing her teeth rather loudly at the sink.
There was rubbish everywhere and all I could think was, "Oh my god, what did I sign up for?"
The bathroom door opened directly onto the eating area and introduced a pungent odor. Nobody flinched. Not a single word or scowl. No one made a sound, not even a mouse...or so I thought.
I was fresh from California, eating a salad for lunch and sitting very upright at a small table in the corner. I wanted conversation about film or literature. "Has anyone been to the Angelika Film Center?" I asked, eagerly awaiting the adventure of new friendships.
"What the hell is that?" said Fifi as she ripped the bones out of her roasted chicken.
"It shows art films," I responded. "Or perhaps you've read The Lovely Bones?"
Snap went more chicken wings.
"No one has time for that," she crunched. "All New York RNs have 2 jobs. You California nurses never realize that. The nurses out there have it all backwards."
Before I could digest the entire lounge experience, a small black tail ran by my foot heading towards the coat closet.
"What was that?!" I yelled, almost choking on lettuce.
But before Fifi could answer me, another black mouse scurried across my Nikes.
"Oh there she is," Fifi said. "They've been together a long time."
I never ate in the lounge again.
I thought NYC was going to be paved with lights and dreams as if the cliches had some basis in reality. But hard work and the 2nd job were soon to follow. My easy care-free life in San Francisco was left behind, replaced by subways and SUBWAYs, my surrogate lounge.
RNs in New York eat a hardcore breakfast. No fruit or yogurt, but a large roll filled with sausage and eggs lathered in real butter. The nurse's station cabinets are filled with fake handbags bought off the street. The NYSNA photographs display weathered faces and bargain basement sweaters.
The California Nurses Association photos portray nurses in an extremely different light. Real Gucci handbags with matching shoes and belts abound. Nurses do wine lunches after Botox treatments.
There's polite conversation about culture and politics. California nurses drive nice cars, not the beat-up jalopies. There's a liberal attitude about sex and teeth whitening.
RNs in NYC are the real deal...and the fiercest nurses on the planet. Not only do they disregard cholesterol levels, they are imprinted with a highly suspicious nature. Collection cards are closely guarded.
"We're collecting for the death of Pauline's father, and don't steal anything in that envelope."
And the favorite saying, "Don't fuck with me," can apply to almost any encounter. And I used it freely until I learned a valuable lesson.
Once, Fifi rolled a stretcher carrying a homeless patient soaked in urine and maggots to me, and blithely said, "Here. This is now your patient."
I was courageous enough to say (and after hours of practice in a mirror), "Don't fuck with me, Fifi. This ain't my first time at the rodeo."
"What did you say to me?" the vein in her forehead forming a large V.
"You heard what I said. Don't fuck with me, Fifi!!"
She replied with a coy smile, "Oh, I didn't know you were offering."
Then she said, "I thought your gay self had it backwards."
At this, I scurried away like the mouse in the lounge.
Yup, an RN in NYC is the real deal...
Oh, except for the hair.
One day, Fifi came to work 35 minutes late sporting a very unusual appearance. It wasn't the dangling earrings (shoulder length, of course), the ruby red lipstick, or the tomato red scrubs complete with panty line and camel toe. (NY style, you gotta luv it!)
But her eyes were strange. Fifi's eyes were missing and somehow she made it to work.
"Fifi, what's different about you this morning?"
"Nothing darling."
"My, what no eyes you have."
"The better to not look at you, my dear," she growled.
"No, no. There's something a little off. Your fluffy hair is covering your thick eye brows."
Then without missing a beat, I checked the back of her head and gasped loudly enough for the entire ED to hear me. "Oh my god. I know what's different."
"Fifi, you have bangs on your neck!"
"Don't say a word!" she squeaked, and scampered to the hallway mirror.
And there it was in all its glory, the synthetic feathery mess that sat on Fifi's head had been turned around.
This time it was Fifi who had it "all backwards."
Thursday, November 26, 2009
RNs Aren't Built To Break
Once, I witnessed an RN's final, solemn march.
Many years ago, while working in an ICU in the hills of San Francisco, I sat at the monitors and observed Jerry pushing a very heavy hospital bed across the unit by himself (as you know, nurses often work alone).
His struggle, personified in an extremely thin frame pillaged by AIDS, refused to quit working. He was an ICU Nurse devoted to his career and wanted to pay off his debts before his death.
This nobility couldn't overcome his attacker, however, and he died a week later. His ashes were thrown into the Bay by a handful of nurses who had become his de facto family.
I remember his cool-headed approach to his illness and his mortality.
"RN's aren't built to break," he would say.
He was committed to his work ethic in an environment that encouraged an honest, open approach to illness, even when it was one's own.
I'm writing this story not to embellish sad thoughts or gloomy moralizing, but to simply acknowledge the strenuous endeavors of an epic career filled with good fellowship and camaraderie.
There's a big difference between the West and East Coast and I'm sounding the alarm....ringing the bell and clanging the trolley.
I had been on vacation and upon my return I asked my colleagues, "Where's Grace? I haven't seen her in a while," and was met with a disquieting "SHHHH!"
"Be quiet," I was told.
"What are you talking about?" I persisted. "What's the matter with Grace?"
I put on my mining cap and continued inquiring until I discovered the heartbreaking truth.
"Grace has cancer," Miss Kimodo said. "She's terminal." (Stage 4 breast cancer)
"Grace has too good a heart," I replied stunned and tormented.
She is only 34, a wife and mother, and gifted with perennial cheer. She's a nurse who "has your back."
Have you ever watched a Chinese family working together in a restaurant? It's very much like the excitement of a busy nurse's station. The pots and pans create a busy melody reflecting the hospital-ity of family. And there's always a child in the corner doing her homework.
In my experience, it was Grace finishing her master's degree on any computer she could get her hands on.
Ladies and gentleman of the nursing profession: Cancer is not a horrible secret or something "bad" that happened because of karma. It...just...is.
In the tradition of honor and affection, and in the old-fashioned warmhearted style of nursing, I am reaching out to all those Amazing Graces. The RNs, LPNs and aides that you work with are your second family. Embrace the big picture.
Breast Cancer should not be silenced. If it is, it will shut out all the good intentions of caring comrades. It will also inhibit the funding needed to search for a cure.
Yesterday, I noticed for the first time in years the beautiful sunrise over NYC.
It carried with it all the residual colors of Autumn. And in its golden hue, I reflected on the words of an exquisite nurse:
"RNs aren't built to break."
...patients and doctors should be thankful for that.
Many years ago, while working in an ICU in the hills of San Francisco, I sat at the monitors and observed Jerry pushing a very heavy hospital bed across the unit by himself (as you know, nurses often work alone).
His struggle, personified in an extremely thin frame pillaged by AIDS, refused to quit working. He was an ICU Nurse devoted to his career and wanted to pay off his debts before his death.
This nobility couldn't overcome his attacker, however, and he died a week later. His ashes were thrown into the Bay by a handful of nurses who had become his de facto family.
I remember his cool-headed approach to his illness and his mortality.
"RN's aren't built to break," he would say.
He was committed to his work ethic in an environment that encouraged an honest, open approach to illness, even when it was one's own.
I'm writing this story not to embellish sad thoughts or gloomy moralizing, but to simply acknowledge the strenuous endeavors of an epic career filled with good fellowship and camaraderie.
There's a big difference between the West and East Coast and I'm sounding the alarm....ringing the bell and clanging the trolley.
I had been on vacation and upon my return I asked my colleagues, "Where's Grace? I haven't seen her in a while," and was met with a disquieting "SHHHH!"
"Be quiet," I was told.
"What are you talking about?" I persisted. "What's the matter with Grace?"
I put on my mining cap and continued inquiring until I discovered the heartbreaking truth.
"Grace has cancer," Miss Kimodo said. "She's terminal." (Stage 4 breast cancer)
"Grace has too good a heart," I replied stunned and tormented.
She is only 34, a wife and mother, and gifted with perennial cheer. She's a nurse who "has your back."
Have you ever watched a Chinese family working together in a restaurant? It's very much like the excitement of a busy nurse's station. The pots and pans create a busy melody reflecting the hospital-ity of family. And there's always a child in the corner doing her homework.
In my experience, it was Grace finishing her master's degree on any computer she could get her hands on.
Ladies and gentleman of the nursing profession: Cancer is not a horrible secret or something "bad" that happened because of karma. It...just...is.
In the tradition of honor and affection, and in the old-fashioned warmhearted style of nursing, I am reaching out to all those Amazing Graces. The RNs, LPNs and aides that you work with are your second family. Embrace the big picture.
Breast Cancer should not be silenced. If it is, it will shut out all the good intentions of caring comrades. It will also inhibit the funding needed to search for a cure.
Yesterday, I noticed for the first time in years the beautiful sunrise over NYC.
It carried with it all the residual colors of Autumn. And in its golden hue, I reflected on the words of an exquisite nurse:
"RNs aren't built to break."
...patients and doctors should be thankful for that.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Excuse Me. Is the Morphine Fresh?
Basic requirements for all nursing candidates include:
- "good moral character"
- full disclosure of criminal convictions
- knowing how and when to give the WTF-glance
Yes, the WTF-glance. I also call this the "$8.99 deadpan"...here's why...
Once, while going through airport security, I was stopped by a female agent. My genuine Coach cabin bag was searched and out came a hula-girl lighter that, when lit, flashed its boobs.
The agent pulled it out of the bag and shot me a disconcerting stare. I was surprised to see this novelty gift in my carry-on as I forgot to put it away in my checked luggage.
"Oh no," I lamented. "That cost me $8.99."
She returned my sentiment with a WTF-glance, a knowing glare that I interpreted as 'Are you kidding me? $8.99, who gives a shit?' Then threw the new lighter away.
This is the same deadpan look that I've learned to give many patients, an art form that's difficult to put down in black and white. Only a skilled and literate patient can manage to write it down correctly on a complaint form, otherwise it reads, "The nurse gave me a dirty look."
"I don't recall that look," a wise nurse responds. "What do you mean?"
(I rest my case.)
[Example One]
Latina patient says: "Look into my eye, what you see?"
"I see lots of mascara, eye liner and blue eye shadow," I answer.
"But I have pain in my eye, what else you see?"
"Oh yes, I see the redness from TOO MUCH mascara, liner and blue eye shadow."
The patient presses me further by asking my thoughts and I say, "No one uses blue eye shadow anymore."
She looked quizzically at this helpful beauty advice, so I continue the triage examination with the Snellen Eye Chart.
"I can't read it," she says while covering her well-decorated eye.
"Just read the top letter," I ask.
"No can see," she insists. Then goes right up to the eye chart, puts her face up to the big letter E, and says, "I think I blind."
Huh? I just saw this woman through the plate-glass window not 5 minutes earlier reading the directions to my triage chair.
I have nothing more to say and give the deadpan WTF or $8.99.
"Can I get glasses now?" she requests.
She then gets a double What the Fuck (or a $17.98).
[Example Two]
28 y/o obese female --negative for pregnancy-- comes in with "severe abdominal pain."
This is her 4th visit in one month. She is seen talking and laughing with at least 8 family members who surround her gurney with folding chairs.
ED. physician orders Reglan, Pepsid, IV fluids, Morphine and Gastrographin in one liter of water.
This elicits the first WTF or $8.99-look by this nurse. This kind of "cover your ass" medical service always generates a very deserved once-over.
"Morphine?" I ask. "How refreshing."
"The only thing fresh here is the nurse," the MD says.
(No, I think to myself. Years ago I was told that a fresh dose of Morphine was one that the nurse hasn't licked. Old school joke told by an MD., of course.)
After I administrate the pain medication I hear over the loud speaker, "Your pizza is here."
To my utter amazement, the same patient who just drank one liter of Gastrographin gets out of the stretcher, takes her purse to the main desk, and starts counting out her coins.
She retrieves the pizza, no tip of course, and brings the entire box into the ER telling her family to hold it for her.
I explain to her that she's ready for her abdominal cat scan and she is Nothing by Mouth.
"I know," she tells me. "I want to have the pizza ready for when I get back. I hate those bag lunches you hand out. The turkey sandwich is so dry."
$8.99, I think. $8.99 or a big WTF???
[Example Three]
But my absolute favorite of all time is the patient who is escorted to the exam room and, after a kind "hello" from this nurse, is handed the hospital gown with the basic instructions, "Please put this on. The doctor would like to examine you."
After 15 minutes, I walk into the room and there stood the patient, cool as a cucumber, wearing the gown OVER the clothing...including over the winter coat! It's like wearing your underwear over your clothes! We've all done this but not since we were 4 years old.
Now that was a classic What the Fuck moment.
Any WTF looks ever had to come out of you?
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
He came back one day, my cat. He was missing for three weeks and then sauntered in like he never left home. I called to him and he ruffled his ears, so full of love.
Sometimes a nurse's work becomes so labored and methodical that it's easy to forget why we became a nurse in the first place. Do we do it for the money? The 401k? The search for empathy and spiritual endurance?
Or did our mission become so squandered and wasted that compassion strayed like a cat through an open window?
This is a story of a dead son. Anita's son. Only 22 years old. He was brought in through the ER, bullet ridden and layed out in the code room surrounded by the trauma staff. It was manslaughter.
"It's Anita's son!" would ring over and over like an unanswered telephone.
Anita was an asthmatic, cocaine abuser, and frequent pain in the ass. She would smoke a bowl until the sound of a whistling train screamed from her lungs.
Whenever she entered triage she would bellow, "I'm first!"
As a triage nurse I have the etiquette of a magistrate, and most of the time I would tell Anita, "You will just have to wait." This, of course, after objectively assessing her with an oxygen saturation and a stethoscope.
"But I cant wait. I have asthma."
"Anita, I'll be with you as soon as I can."
"You're a bitch," she would say with her cellphone in hand and a direct line to patient relations on speed dial.
The same Anita -- who never tired of her battles with me -- was now on her hands and knees screaming in a maniacal fashion; her loss palpable and unforgiving. Her own maladies temporarily lost.
"God, give him back to me!" she wailed. "Give him back! Give him back!" A passionate cadence, like that of a pauper.
While the other nurses continued to wage resistance against the young man's doom, I couldn't help but observe Anita...and feel nothing.
This woman who tussled with crack caused her own calamities, I thought.
I felt nothing.
When the doctors could no longer revive this woman's only son and the crescendo of her outcry filled the emergency room, I shut her out.
I watched as the nurses cleaned up the young man and draped the sheet over his face.
I saw the family take Anita into a private room to continue her hysterical dance.
I should be shamefaced, I thought.
Perhaps compassion was hiding in my heart like a lost child. One could only hope for this. Had the tireless years of nursing left me stone-cold, a manslaughter of a different kind?
It was then that a phycisian said to me, "Get Anita a dose of IM Ativan now."
"I can't," I answered. "Anita hates me."
"That's tough. Right now she needs you."
With no other nurse available, I prepared the Ativan dose in a syringe and prepared myself for the emotional encounter that I knew would take place in Room 29.
Upon entering the room, Anita looked straight at me...there was murder in her eyes. She was bloated with hostility.
"Get him out of here!" she yelled. "That nurse is a bitch!"
Find the compassion, I thought. Stay calm.
"Anita I have to give you this shot, I'm the nurse who prepared it for you."
"I don't care."
Her sadness overwhelmed her with such a convulsion of tears that the tide started to turn, sweeping away the hate and contempt she felt towards me.
With her family supporting her tired frame, I gave her the injection.
Still searching for compassion, I found my way back to the task of nursing.
I instituted the nasal cannula oxygen, checked her breath sounds, monitored her heart and then monitored my own.
I'm not sure where this came from but I said to her, "Anita, I know you have a lot of strength left."
I took a breath and sat down next to her. That's all I did. I just sat there in silence.
I paused.
That's all it took.
She fell asleep and I walked out of the room excusing myself to the family. (I, like a cat coming home.)
It was about 6 weeks later that Anita came to me in triage.
This time I stood up and offered help immediately.
"No, I'm okay," she said, and then with unexpected humility she reached out to hug me. "Thank you," she whispered.
"No," I said.
"Thank you."
Sometimes a nurse's work becomes so labored and methodical that it's easy to forget why we became a nurse in the first place. Do we do it for the money? The 401k? The search for empathy and spiritual endurance?
Or did our mission become so squandered and wasted that compassion strayed like a cat through an open window?
This is a story of a dead son. Anita's son. Only 22 years old. He was brought in through the ER, bullet ridden and layed out in the code room surrounded by the trauma staff. It was manslaughter.
"It's Anita's son!" would ring over and over like an unanswered telephone.
Anita was an asthmatic, cocaine abuser, and frequent pain in the ass. She would smoke a bowl until the sound of a whistling train screamed from her lungs.
Whenever she entered triage she would bellow, "I'm first!"
As a triage nurse I have the etiquette of a magistrate, and most of the time I would tell Anita, "You will just have to wait." This, of course, after objectively assessing her with an oxygen saturation and a stethoscope.
"But I cant wait. I have asthma."
"Anita, I'll be with you as soon as I can."
"You're a bitch," she would say with her cellphone in hand and a direct line to patient relations on speed dial.
The same Anita -- who never tired of her battles with me -- was now on her hands and knees screaming in a maniacal fashion; her loss palpable and unforgiving. Her own maladies temporarily lost.
"God, give him back to me!" she wailed. "Give him back! Give him back!" A passionate cadence, like that of a pauper.
While the other nurses continued to wage resistance against the young man's doom, I couldn't help but observe Anita...and feel nothing.
This woman who tussled with crack caused her own calamities, I thought.
I felt nothing.
When the doctors could no longer revive this woman's only son and the crescendo of her outcry filled the emergency room, I shut her out.
I watched as the nurses cleaned up the young man and draped the sheet over his face.
I saw the family take Anita into a private room to continue her hysterical dance.
I should be shamefaced, I thought.
Perhaps compassion was hiding in my heart like a lost child. One could only hope for this. Had the tireless years of nursing left me stone-cold, a manslaughter of a different kind?
It was then that a phycisian said to me, "Get Anita a dose of IM Ativan now."
"I can't," I answered. "Anita hates me."
"That's tough. Right now she needs you."
With no other nurse available, I prepared the Ativan dose in a syringe and prepared myself for the emotional encounter that I knew would take place in Room 29.
Upon entering the room, Anita looked straight at me...there was murder in her eyes. She was bloated with hostility.
"Get him out of here!" she yelled. "That nurse is a bitch!"
Find the compassion, I thought. Stay calm.
"Anita I have to give you this shot, I'm the nurse who prepared it for you."
"I don't care."
Her sadness overwhelmed her with such a convulsion of tears that the tide started to turn, sweeping away the hate and contempt she felt towards me.
With her family supporting her tired frame, I gave her the injection.
Still searching for compassion, I found my way back to the task of nursing.
I instituted the nasal cannula oxygen, checked her breath sounds, monitored her heart and then monitored my own.
I'm not sure where this came from but I said to her, "Anita, I know you have a lot of strength left."
I took a breath and sat down next to her. That's all I did. I just sat there in silence.
I paused.
That's all it took.
She fell asleep and I walked out of the room excusing myself to the family. (I, like a cat coming home.)
It was about 6 weeks later that Anita came to me in triage.
This time I stood up and offered help immediately.
"No, I'm okay," she said, and then with unexpected humility she reached out to hug me. "Thank you," she whispered.
"No," I said.
"Thank you."
Monday, November 9, 2009
Property Before Airway
When I worked in San Francisco, the diet of a gay man was a milkshake and an Ex-Lax.
Last night, I laughed about this as I swirled my cabernet and popped two of those wonderful round tablets.
I'm currently on vacation on the island of Kauai and I am constipated. Saimin noodles and Portuguese Sausage omelettes will do that. However, the stifled bowel had started with the stress of the ER and the constant search for a free toilet in our hospital.
"Where's my dildo and I got-sta pee," said the Methadonian while attempting to climb out of her stretcher.
"Your dildo is locked up in the property office," I said to her. "That, and 42 cents."
Just then the social worker Vanessa walked by displaying her smart new shoes.
"Look at my new Gucci loafers."
"I don't care about no damn goo-cheese. I gotta pee!"
"Where is this patient from?" asked Vanessa MSW, as she looked my way.
"Methadonia," I answered.
A "Methadonian" is a patient who visits the methadone clinic on a daily basis and then buys some more on the street for recreational use. They usually end up in the ER as an overdose case. Narcan IV will shake them out of their crisis and back into their culture. (It's the Methadonian way.)
With a Methadonian arrival, ER nurses have a saying, "Property before airway" -- hence the missing dildo.
Christmas Madamba and I were discussing this very fact last week in Honolulu.
"Did you hear what else the Methadonian did that day?" Christmas asked me after ordering her spam and rice.
"The dildo lady?" I said.
"She couldn't wait for the bathroom to open up and pee'd in the wastebasket next to the social worker's desk."
"What did Vanessa say? I bet she was horrified," I chuckled.
"Oh she was! She politely said 'excuse me' to the Methadonian and then moved the wastebasket right out from under her."
"While she was still pee-ing?"
"Yes and the pee dribbled on Vanessa's brand new loafers!"
These are the best of times, I thought. I'm on vacation discussing nursing stories with my colleagues. In Hawaii, it's called " talk-story".
Christmas Madamba met my friend Bree for the first time here on the islands. Christmas bought a stretch dress in Chinatown and treated Hawai'i with this tight-knit vision. A plus-sized tube top and a pair of false eyelashes is her idea of dress up.
Once, in our tight-fitting nurses station, Nurse Vivian yelled at Christmas, "I'm charting here! Get your ass out of my face."
Christmas shot back, "Even better, I just took a shit."
Everyone laughed but I, the gay male nurse, was appalled. "That's a private matter," I said.
Christmas is always open about her bowel habits.
"Bree, last night I had a massive bowel movement. It felt so good, it must have been 12 inches long and coiled around the rim of the toilet," she sighed.
Bree laughed and said, "I have a twelve-inch dildo, it's purple. It was a birthday gift. I love my purple."
It's all about our property... owning our work.. owning our way of life. Not only the physical property but the emotional property that contains our heart and its good intentions.
Caring colleagues, stress free vacations, and the time to clear our own "airway."
Inhale and take a deep breath.
Being a nurse gives us a totally different perspective on life.
Kathy Griffin once said, "I'm owning it and I'm going straight to hell. I've got my hand basket all decorated."
Nurses learn to appreciate the little things as well as the big things. Seeing human suffering on a daily basis will do that.
Last night, I laughed about this as I swirled my cabernet and popped two of those wonderful round tablets.
I'm currently on vacation on the island of Kauai and I am constipated. Saimin noodles and Portuguese Sausage omelettes will do that. However, the stifled bowel had started with the stress of the ER and the constant search for a free toilet in our hospital.
"Where's my dildo and I got-sta pee," said the Methadonian while attempting to climb out of her stretcher.
"Your dildo is locked up in the property office," I said to her. "That, and 42 cents."
Just then the social worker Vanessa walked by displaying her smart new shoes.
"Look at my new Gucci loafers."
"I don't care about no damn goo-cheese. I gotta pee!"
"Where is this patient from?" asked Vanessa MSW, as she looked my way.
"Methadonia," I answered.
A "Methadonian" is a patient who visits the methadone clinic on a daily basis and then buys some more on the street for recreational use. They usually end up in the ER as an overdose case. Narcan IV will shake them out of their crisis and back into their culture. (It's the Methadonian way.)
With a Methadonian arrival, ER nurses have a saying, "Property before airway" -- hence the missing dildo.
Christmas Madamba and I were discussing this very fact last week in Honolulu.
"Did you hear what else the Methadonian did that day?" Christmas asked me after ordering her spam and rice.
"The dildo lady?" I said.
"She couldn't wait for the bathroom to open up and pee'd in the wastebasket next to the social worker's desk."
"What did Vanessa say? I bet she was horrified," I chuckled.
"Oh she was! She politely said 'excuse me' to the Methadonian and then moved the wastebasket right out from under her."
"While she was still pee-ing?"
"Yes and the pee dribbled on Vanessa's brand new loafers!"
These are the best of times, I thought. I'm on vacation discussing nursing stories with my colleagues. In Hawaii, it's called " talk-story".
Christmas Madamba met my friend Bree for the first time here on the islands. Christmas bought a stretch dress in Chinatown and treated Hawai'i with this tight-knit vision. A plus-sized tube top and a pair of false eyelashes is her idea of dress up.
Once, in our tight-fitting nurses station, Nurse Vivian yelled at Christmas, "I'm charting here! Get your ass out of my face."
Christmas shot back, "Even better, I just took a shit."
Everyone laughed but I, the gay male nurse, was appalled. "That's a private matter," I said.
Christmas is always open about her bowel habits.
"Bree, last night I had a massive bowel movement. It felt so good, it must have been 12 inches long and coiled around the rim of the toilet," she sighed.
Bree laughed and said, "I have a twelve-inch dildo, it's purple. It was a birthday gift. I love my purple."
It's all about our property... owning our work.. owning our way of life. Not only the physical property but the emotional property that contains our heart and its good intentions.
Caring colleagues, stress free vacations, and the time to clear our own "airway."
Inhale and take a deep breath.
Being a nurse gives us a totally different perspective on life.
Kathy Griffin once said, "I'm owning it and I'm going straight to hell. I've got my hand basket all decorated."
Nurses learn to appreciate the little things as well as the big things. Seeing human suffering on a daily basis will do that.
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