I had to spend the night in the hospital last night again. I’ve had nothing short of some fascinating experiences with the nurses at this particular hospital. I thought I’d share a few stories.
First of all, I think they have very specific requirements for the male nurses. The HELP WANTED ads must look something like this:
HELP WANTED. ALL SHIFTS AVAILABLE. HIRING FOR NURSES, NURSING ASSISTANT, AND STUDENT NURSE POSITIONS. MUST BE GORGEOUS TO APPLY.
One of my nurses was so good looking he almost made me WANT to be sick. But… back to the stories we go.
On the night after the first major round of surgeries, I was taken into my room and the nursing staff introduced themselves and gave us a quick report of what their roles would be over the next few hours. “My name is So-and-So and I’ll be doing Such-and-Such…etc, etc. The nurse in charge was this spunky girl who was amazingly with it and had a great game plan for us. This was around 7 or 730ish pm.
Around 10pm it was time for her to be checking the drain in my side and I was starting to feel like maybe I should think about taking a pain pill to avoid any early morning surprises. I rang the buzzer and in came Hot Nurse #2. He said he would tell the nurse that I was asking for the meds.
1015pm, 1030pm…still no meds, still no drain check. HN#2 comes in again, I explained we hadn’t heard from the nurse and he assured us it wouldn’t be long. 1045pm, 1100pm and Mom decided to go talk to the nurse herself. The once spunky nurse growled at her and said she would get the meds in a second.
1115pm comes around and the nurse comes into my room and walks over to the computer. I looked at the screen only to see her toggling mindlessly between the login and password fields. She toggled for about 2 or 3 minutes and was barely touching the keys on the keyboard. It was bizarre. I laid there thinking something was just off. I couldn’t imagine she didn’t know the password, she must use it dozens of times each day in different patients rooms. Then she looked over and asked if I was in any pain. Um, yeah…I thought that was why you were here.
1145 and still nothing. Finally, HN#2 comes in and explains that there is an issue with one of the nurses and they are working quickly to shuffle some other nurses around. Finally around 12am a new nurse comes in and goes to the computer. She apologizes for the wait and says she will work quickly to get me comfortable immediately.
“Can I ask you something?”, I questioned, “and you don’t have to tell me anything”.
“Sure”, she said.
“Is that other nurse a diabetic?”
“Yes, but she’s almost leveled out now. We’re getting her home to rest”.
When the nurse had left the room, I waited for Mom to settle down to sleep and I muttered…”I’m so freaking smart”. Mom cracked up.
Last night was no exception to the goofy nursing saga. Nurses were coming into my room about every other hour. Around 4am, however, the freakest nurse came in. I’ll try to lay out the conversation for you.
Crazy Nurse: “Hi I’m (insert Crazy Nurse name here) and I’m here to take your vitals and weigh you”.
Me: “I think I’m going to need to use the restroom”.
CN: “That’s fine but then we’ll need to get this done”, she said as she’s trying to manipulate a scale big enough to roll a wheelchair onto in the room.
Me: “Seriously, you need to weigh me at 4am? Cause, I’m pretty sure I’m going to weigh the same around 7″.
CN: “We need to get this done, and you really should take those off, they’re bad for your skin”. (As she tries to RIP OFF one of the EKG lead pads that was left on me.
Me: “OUCH! That’s ok. I’ll take them off…… in the MORNING”.
CN: “I like your hair. (Cue the Twilight Zone music right about now)… has it always been that thick or is it just growing in that way now?”
Me: “Who knows.”
I should say that about 15 minutes later she came back in to ask me if I knew what my weight was because she had forgotten to write it down. I was starting to wonder if she hadn’t snuck out of the psych ward and stolen a nurses jacket on her way to wandering the halls. It could happen.
When Dad came back to the hospital in the morning, I replayed the story for him. His response? “I don’t know why she had to go and do that. The other nurse weighed you last night… by pushing this button on your bed.”
Update time… the liver biopsy done yesterday indicated the spot on my liver was indeed another melanoma site. Dr. Flux Capacitor enjoyed my popcorn humor and said he was confident he had removed all of the dangerous tissue. He used the radiofrequency ablation technique. Here is an explanation of the process http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=rfa&bhcp=1 . Chemo is set to start on the 29th.
Since today is the 2 week point from the first set of surgeries, I’m including some pics from then and now.
SURGERY #1 BANDAGES SEWN IN
POST SURGERY AUGUST 29TH 2008
Here are some pictures from today… LOTS OF HEALING! Dr. ENT was just as good as he said he was!
