Car 54 Where Are You?

So, yesterday's about High Incident... (Any one remember that old NBC prime time series from 1996? I loved it, but then again, I somehow hadn't yet discovered Law and Order ... which by the way, I've seen Matt Craven "0fficer Len Gayer on LAO episodes, I think as defense attorney, or maybe as the defendant. LAO is the crime/drama/cop equivalent of the soap As the World Turns: seen them once on one show, you've seen them elsewhere, too. (Meg Ryan and Ming Na got their start on As The World Turns, as did just about everybody else in movies today according to my mother, who was a longtime fan of the soap when we were young children).

So it turns out the big crash and thud I heard was a couch being moved out onto the porch (why? because their porch isn't exactly ground level, and also, who the hell moves a couch out onto the porch in 30 degree weather?!) Sounds fishy to me. They were probably trying to launch the couch at one another, if you ask me.

But they were fighting, and fairly brutally from the sound of it. I was seriously afraid someone was wounded and/or dying from all the blood-curdling screaming and hysterical sobbing. Of course, in a very Petunia Durselyish manner, once the cop arrived, I listened at the top of the stairs to part of the conversation ("Oh! Officer! Yes, well, we're just having a bit of a fight. My son, you see... he's not well liked at school, gets bullied all the time, and we're trying to get him into a school where he'll fit in.")

Likely story. The kid's a punk, frankly, smoking outside the back entrance next door to our porch and leaving nasty cigarette butts all over the damn walkway (I would love to pick them up--gloved of course--and leave them wrapped up in cellophane at their front door. It really pisses me off. I mean, seriously, haven't they seen those waste containers with the weird little stick figure and the enthusiastic "PITCH IN!" signs?)

Speaking of which.... nonsequitar (flight of ideas, they'd call it in psych nursing): Any one remember the little public service message with the cartoon owl, who I think was dressed in a park ranger like little suit and hat and said things like, "Give a hoot! Don't pollute!"

Oh boy. I'm having flashbacks form 1979. This isn't good, folks. Not good at all.

Any way, all's well that ends well, I suppose.

As for me, I got a crappy night's sleep (4.5 hours of tossing and turning) and woke up at 5:30a.m. for a 7a-11a shift which ended up being a 7a-12:30p shift. Honestly, they should never schedule you on for four hours, because you're never there for just four hours. Try five, or six.

The shift was decent, though, despite figuring out one of my lovely patients now has about three more issues in addition to his primary issue, and I don't see how he's going to ever get any better since each issue basically presents a contraindication for treatment for the other issue. It's like some kind of fucked up Rubic's Cube of diagnoses.

Though I've been wrong before, and maybe we'll be able to fix him up a little bit, I am still wondering how we're going to pull the rabbit out of the hat in his case. I sincerely, sincerely sincerely hope he gets a little better (at least back to baseline, which is medical speak for "you don't suck as much as you did on admission, but you're back to as crummy as were in generally before whatever acute issue you had we treated. I don't want to have to send him off to ICU and/or code him, because that would then make the second time in two weeks I'd have cried at work. And coding this poor man, with all his issues would really be an insult to his life, if you want my opinion. I really adore some of my patients; they are such lovely, kind people. It's the special saving grace of working such a frightfully frustrating and busy job.

I mean, here's this guy who is sick (which is not like a cold, which is how you and I think of sick) with chronic and acute onset issues, and he probably feels like a pile of crap, and he's nothing but nice and patient and kind the whole time I've had him. Never complains about a thing. I wonder how much character and nobility of spirit you have to have not to complain when you're that sick, because I would probably be a nasty witchy old hag by that point. I wish nursing weren't so sucky sometimes so I could actually spend more time with my patients. Some of them, any way.

Also, now I have actual proof that the Bride of Chuckie family member really is devil spawn, because apparently she's read the same riot act to three consecutive nurses, one of whom was the charge nurse at the time and apparently went up the chain of command about the obnoxious behavior exhibited by BOC (Bride of Chuckie) on her shift.

I shall be vindicated. I shall. We all deserve a big fat apology, not that we're holding our breaths (because damn that autonomic nervous system, we'd just start breathing again after we'd passed out any way).

Ironically, the patient is very sweet. I go into his room sometimes when Medusa isn't lurking about (read: not anywhere within 5 mile radius of hospital grounds) and say hello, and he's just nice as can be. I think he remembers me, and what happened, and feels embarrassed and wants to apologize, but he's probably too afraid to say anything, for fear she might just plunge a dagger through his already-not-so-great heart if she finds out.

I have a doctor's appointment later on, at which I shall bitch about length about my back, and insomnia issues, but in a nice way, because my doctor is a very nice, good doctor.