Nurse.... or Boxer??

Once again, time has managed to slip away from me and I have no clue where the last week has gone (I think I saw Time's tail peeking out from my laundry pile downstairs. My laundry is a hungry hungry beast and it eats everything in its path).

Speaking of hungry beasts and time slipping away, I know that at least 8 hours of time went into reading "The Ruins" by Scott Smith. Ugh. I don't do horror well, and now I'm deathly afraid of the hops vine that takes over my back deck each summer.

I had an incident at work last week that I refrained from posting on till I had time to work it over and recover a bit. Besides, I had already complained to high heaven about my bladder and I think that it's unfair to unload more than one major complaint per week here :) .

We got a new patient on the unit with end-stage cancer that had metastasized to everywhere... he was coming from home, where his wife was playing around with his meds "just a bit" to make him sleep (he was not a jolly green giant sort).

Any of us would have drifted happily off to the Celestial Discharge after the first dose of narcotics that she was administering...

Well, we got him onto our unit, on an evening shift, on a weekend. We gave him his meds on a schedule. His body wasn't used to that, and threw an all-out psychosis. Into other patients' rooms, mad as h-e-dubblehockeysticks. I got in his way. He punched me, then aimed for my face. I blocked, he grabbed my wrists and twisted. Dr was phoned, refused to certify, wanted to try a few sedatives first. Security guard came up, got pounded, nurse on nights got hit... pt finally went to sleep after the family came in and convinced him that this was not a "homosexual place" and that we weren't out to recruit him...

Long and short -- Dr. Oncall should have got his butt in to assess his pt. Let him face the wrath.

Our team of nurses was wonderful. I had awesome support and hugs and chocolate. I had to fill out an incident report for worker's comp if there ends up being damage (just 3 big bruises... hopefully no wrist nerve damage). My manager was amazing the next day and raised a royal pile of sh!+ for me.

But I tell you, after that night, if I could figure out any other way to pay off my student loans, I would not have gone back to nursing.

It's better now. I've had a few good shifts to remind me of why I love my job. The patients and families on our unit (end stage cancer symptom treatment, comfort care in death) are for the most part amazing and fascinating. It's such a privilege to help with this stage of life. And we do laugh a lot along with the tears.

So all in all, it's all good and I'll be fine. As long as the vine on my back deck doesn't eat me.