Doctor My Eyes.....

All of this occurred last night. It was a VERY long night, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry on the way home, so I did both!The LOL who came to our locked dementia ward after breaking a hip, then dislocation of said hip. She wanted to go home and to prove she was fit to do so, she jumped up and down and bounced on the bed. The amount of bruising was unreal by morning, as was her refusal to wear the braces to keep the hip stabilized. She refuses to walk during therapy, but is more than happy to when she is sundowning at 2 AM. Do therapists work at 2 AM?The LOL w/ dementia and a colostomy bag-she removed the bag and spread the contents all over herself, then came out into the hallway and asked me if I thought the "lotion went bad-it smells funny". Wow.

The parent who insisted on sleeping nude in her 4 year old's hospital room, stating this is how they do it at home. Sorry sister, you are not at home, put some clothes on.The father asleep on the little couch at the bedside, curled on his side, facing away from me, who needed me to cover him with a sheet all night so I could stop his butt from smiling at me.

Ill never forget the young paraplegic who was taken care of at home by his mother...She ran out of money and dressings and began to use duct tape to hold his necrotic, decomposing bottom together. No wonder he was septic.The man who was trached, awake, alert, long term with Nec Fasciitis- he had multiple wound vacs to his bilateral legs. When he knew it was time to change the dressings, he would silently cry. So did I, I learned the value of pain control and comfort.The pregnant woman who put herself into DIC and HELLP syndrome because she didnt think dealing with kidney stones was really necessary. After an anoxic hit, she still doesnt even realize the magnitude of what happened, but her family's face said it all.Ivanna

That was wonderfully well written. Thank you!Around the age of twelve, I was able to do a ride-along during a 24 hour shift for the ambulance company that my mother worked for under the auspices that such things were allowed as part of the Boy Scouts "Explorer" program. Wishing so much to be the student of nursing I have now become, I was elated to do this! I had a little jacket, my own mag-lite, even a stethoscope. Boy, was I a pro!Well, to make try to make a long story short- old hippie biker guy with long hair/beard is assaulted in his home during a robbery- phone lines are cut and so is he. He has multiple lacerations, the most stunning of which is right across his throat. He drives himself to the nearest greasy spoon diner with a pay phone outside to summon the ambulance. I sit quietly in the side seat as we bring the man in.After a word with the doc, my mother asks if I would like to stand near the wall and watch from a distance while the stitches were being done. The doctor remarks on how close the ear-to-ear cut on the mans neck narrowly missed the trachea, and that the scant hyoid bone may have been the only thing halting the blade. Old hippie biker says, "yeah, well- what I am worried about is...will it leave a scar?"Doc says, "Afraid so..."Hippie says "Good! I can't wait to show the boys the scar from when I was the bad mf*er that survived getting his throat cut!!"Never forget it!

The day I'll never forget was the day the toughest nurse on my floor said I was "hard core" -- we had a guy spontaneously rupture an esophageal varice -- we knew something was going down when the we heard a CNA scream. We all go pounding into the room, and the guy is literally erupting blood like a volcano, and we've got Lake Esophagus forming in the floor, complete with chunks (food/tissue? Didn't stop for a biopsy). The nurse in front of me skidded to a stop and I took a look and said, "Gee, you don't see that everyday." The guy lived only because the OR team was in house for an emergency appendix -- the appy got tossed into the PACU and varices boy went straight from his room to the OR, doors open all the way. They replaced his esophagus with a section of small bowel, and from the look of him postop, the doc did a "splash and slash" opening. About 2 months later, he died from yet another drinking bout, 4 days after finally getting out of the hospital.

Probably the most horrific traumatic injuries I ever saw were as follows:Man changing a tire on a semi when the tire exploded shooting the rim right across the top of his head. The prison doc accompanied me out to the area of the accident. As I stood slack jawed at the sheer amount of gore and tissue strewn about I heard a quiet eep followed by a thud behind me. The doc had fainted at the sight before us.The young soldier who was sideswiped while fixing his car on the shoulder of the road. His ass was literally ripped off. It looked like gigantic jaws had taken a chomp out of him. He never passed out either at the time of the accident, during the trip to the ER and I have never seen anyone come out from under general anesthesia so rapidly. His pain was so horrific all he could do was moan and weep non stop for days. It was a blessing when he got air evacuated to a larger hospital.

I remember a male patient in his sixties asking for me to help him piull his underware up while he was in the bathroom only to be faced with the embarrassment of seeing his (genital) hanging down which was (i'll put it this way), surprisingly long in length. All i could do was turn my head the other way, hurry up to help him and leave. A minute later, a pca came to me and said, "wow, I feel like i have just been flashed"!!!! we both laughed so hard but i could not help but wonder if this patient had a hidden agenda.There was another time when a patient asked me to hold what looked like a small earring for him, only to realize a couple seconds later that i was holding his tongue ring with dry food around it and then he asked me to put his long hair in a ponytail. what we nurses are asked to do will never cease to amaze me!!!!

The most horrible thing I ever saw was in LTC. This absolutely adorable LOL has a necrotic foot. Her entire foot was black and full of holes. I have never smelled something that disgusting. I felt so bad for her. I'm just glad it didn't hurt her. I still get the creeps when I think about it. She has since passed away.

I think we've all probably had the LOL who carried her F/C bag around insisting it was a purse (I'm just thankful that she never tried to open it to look for her wallet). And my favorite memory of all... My first attempt at applying thigh high TEDs on a 95 yr old ER admit at 2 am. I was in my last year of nursing school and working as a tech on Med/Surg. By the time I finished, I was practically in bed with her and we were both laughing so hard that we were crying and couldn't talk. 22 yrs later, I can still see her sweet face laughing at me...

OMG, I don't know whether to laugh or cry, we are a jaded bunch aren't we

The oriented pt who tried to insist that no, she was not smoking in her bathroom...all wide-eyed innocence...until she turned around and we saw a Camel filter sticking out of the top of her crack. Yes, she had tried to hide it between her ample cheeks. I totally get the whole nicotine withdrawal thing, spent over a year craving a cig day in and day out while pregnant and breastfeeding...but to put it between her butt cheeks to save for later? That's going a leetle far, IMHO.The new chemo pt admitted for dehydration who vomited/dry heaved continuously for over two shifts, regardless of what we gave her...when her doc came in to see her, her comment to the doc was along the following lines: "You could make some great money...advertise the Dr. Jones diet on late night TV...this is a helluva lot more effective than Jenny Craig."The frequent flyer geropsych pt with moderate dementia who kept trying to use a shop vac-style vacuum to take care of his manly needs...I don't care how bad your dementia is, how could that possibly sound like a good idea?My 14 year old step-son, after an ED visit to r/o appendicitis...the CT showed he was just FOS, so he got a Fleets... "How often do you stick things up people's butts at work?" My reply: "At least once a night...we gotta swab people for VRE all the time." Him: "You people are sick."

One of the worst of many patients seen at a trauma center. Had EMS call with an "industrial accident with facial trauma". They bring in a 28 y/o male who fell face first into an industrial fan. His entire face wash shredded and we were only able to tell anatomical positions by his ears and forehead. Worst of all he was completely alert during the whole incident. That is one of a handfull of times I have seen someone trached in 2 mins. He ended up living but had numerous operations and from what I was told never even came close to looking like his old self again.