No Free Lunch

The following is an exchange I had with a patient I admitted this evening. A patient who, may I add, is younger than my mother but wanted me to dial the phone for her [ed. note: patient did not have bilateral transmetacarpal amputations--her hands amputated at the wrists for nonmedical folks--and could damn well dial the phone herself. Needless to say I did not comply with request, believing in the Power Of Self-Actualization and living to pass it on.]

You'll see why I qualify her age the way I did when you read the dialogue:

Patient:
Flails about haplessly in bed, moaning and shrieking in apparent distress. Looks oddly like beached whale. A beached whale with nasal cannula oxygen, but a beached whale nonetheless.

Jamie:
[entering room]
What is it you need?

Patient:
[still flailing and moaning]
Where's my sandwich?!

Jamie:
I'll get it in a minute but you have to be patient; I've been doing your admission paperwork and checking your meds. You had a tray of hot food you didn't want so now you'll have to wait for a sandwich.

Patient
[disregarding my well-thought out reply/rationale, apparently]:
I WANT MY SANDWICH!

Jamie:
[supressing finely honed rage]
Fine.
[stalks off to kitchen to get sandwich, brings back sandwich, sets it down in front of patient]

Patient
[acidly]:
What's this?!

Jamie:
[leaving room so as not to throttle patient and make her blood gases look even shittier than they already are]
A sandwich.

Patient
[raving to self, apparently, as no one is left in the room]
What kind of a place is this?! I don't want this sandwich! Get me something else! How horrible! I can't believe this!

The Poor Sandwich in Question:
[hurled across the room by angry patient, who is now demanding macaroni and cheese].

Must. repeat. following. mantra: I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.