Juicy Nurse

Snort That!

2010-01-07T15:52:00.005-05:00

But don't snort this......COCAINE!

I am fascinated by people who use cocaine. Can someone please explain this to me? I am not stupid and do realize that health care providers are probably among the users, but at least they are doing it with the complete knowledge of the consequences! Over the course of my 8 year career, I have seen the saddest stories, but one of my patients stories really hit home, just recently.

We will call him patient "fucked", because this was clearly where his life was headed. Basically, I came into work one day to find an absolutely hysterical wife. She had a 6 month old baby at home and was called to the hospital to find that her husband was completely strung out on drugs. He was a high profile man, with a great job, lots of stressors and a sweet, fairly new family. At first glance I would have labeled him homeless and in need of a psych facility. He was soiling himself (shitting himself), slurring, spitting, and just absolutely restless. His blood pressure was dangerously high, he had fever and was sweating like a pig. This man was sick, dangerously sick. On top of his withdrawal, he had severe asthma that was exacerbated at the time so his airway and constantly dropping oxygen levels were in need of immediate attention.

The interesting part.......his wife had NO idea. She truly did not! I spent so much time talking to her and she did NOT have a clue. We did a cat scan on this man's brain and it clearly showed that he was using cocaine ALL of the time. His brain matter had actually started to change because of all of the cocaine that he was using and his wife did not know that he had ever even tried the drug. To make a long story short, he eventually came out of his delirious, disgusting, psychotic state and was in COMPLETE denial, refusing any and all help. He actually sat in front of me like the very successful business man that I am sure he was when he was not shitting himself, and had me almost convinced that he did not have a problem......it was truly unbelievable at how manipulative he was once he was coherent. He refused all treatment options and went home with his wife, and although I am sure things are not good, he has not yet returned.....to my knowledge. If only he could have seen himself!

That was just Patient Fucked's story, the gentleman that I took care of just months before him, tried cocaine 1 time and had a brain aneurysm and eventually died. He was young and at a party. His mother kept him on life support for a very long time because she just could not believe how something like this could happen.......he was curious, I guess......I don't really get it because I have no curiosity for drugs, but after seeing things like this, how could you?

I could continue to tell you very similar stories, we see University students all of the time that are in with strokes and heart attacks SOLELY related to cocaine use. Some of these patients use cocaine all of the time and some don't......it does not really seem to matter, it is a gamble every time!

I love to drink! Drinking makes me very happy, but I am proud of that and enjoy doing it with other people, in moderation, of course.......I think, that is actually debatable, but anyway, how come people are ashamed of using cocaine? I am not ashamed of drinking, smokers are not ashamed of smoking? Why is cocaine a bathroom stall drug? That is so damn stupid! As if we don't know what you have done when you have been in the bathroom for a long time with 2 other people and you come out acting as if you drank a case of red bull!

So back to what I don't understand......

If cocaine is something that you choose to do, why is it such a secret? Do you think about the dangers of doing cocaine as you are doing it? Are you even aware of the risks or are you secretly hoping that you will, in fact, someday be Patient Fucked? Maybe for some people, being Patient Fucked is just easier!

Any thoughts? Stories?

JUICY NURSE SHIRTS

2009-09-11T10:20:00.001-04:00

DANGER! STUDENT NURSE SHIRTS from Zazzle.com

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PENIS!

2009-09-07T08:34:00.003-04:00

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND.......THE PENIS!

I have to talk about this! I know the men followers will probably not enjoy this, but it needs to be discussed. I have seen so much PENIS in the last 8 years! I did not realize in nursing school the variety of PENIS that I would be exposed to, I mean in the text books......a penis is a penis, but in the real word the PENIS is always an interesting surprise!

I have seen big penis, small penis, hidden by huge bush penis, "that's it?" penis, peek-a-boo penis, smelly penis, dirty penis,oozing penis, uncircumcised penis, young penis, old penis, swollen penis, uncomfortably hard every time I walk in the room penis, paralyzed penis, white penis, Jewish penis, Asian penis (not good), I can't find your penis because you are tooo fat penis, famous penis, HOLY SHIT that's a large penis, penis, and the SURPRISE, I am a white man from the waist up and a black man from the waste down penis!

It is true what they say about the black man. I have seen A LOT of black man penis and it is NEVER small. From the time these penis's enter the world they are HUGE. It is UNBELIEVABLE! The little black babies have penis's that actually flop up over their belly buttons. When I worked in pediatrics, I was shocked at the head start that these little black babies get....they are ahead of the game from day 1!

I once had to take care of a famous Miami coach. In between juggling his girlfriend and wife, we would chat here and there. He asked me to get him some pain medicine and when I did and came back to the room, I opened the door and I saw him standing up with the urinal in between his knees. I quickly thought to myself, "that's weird....why is he holding the urinal in between his knees?" Then I realized, "HOLY SHIT THAT IS HIS PENIS ALL THE WAY DOWN THERE" It is TRULY AMAZING! I have never seen anything like it and instead of quickly closing the curtain or running out of the room, I stood there like a little girl seeing a penis for the first time. I was truly shocked and I eventually stuttered my way out of the room, dropping the medicine, staring at the penis and walking out of the room backwards like an AWKWARD mess!

I guess in nursing school they just figure that a penis is a penis! They do not warn us of all of the interesting penis that we will encounter in our careers for fear that we will giggle our way through nursing school. Sometimes we find a nice surprise, sometimes it is small, sometimes it is smelly and sometimes it is truly freakishly large......they all work the same way but at the end of the day.....NURSE'S LOVE A GREAT PENIS STORY!

SAYING HELLO

2009-06-26T08:32:00.008-04:00

Why say goodbye when it could be HELLO

for I'm free of this pain, now I lay with a glow

Why say goodbye when you know this is right, this feeling,

this freedom there is no longer a fight

Dear family and friends, I know that your mad, I know that this hurts and I know that your sad

But for me it's not goodbye you see, it's simply just HELLO

New friends, new faces, all new places,

that's all you need to know

Goodbye is such a lonely word, one that I'd rather not hear

So now that I'm gone, please say HELLO

for me and my last tear!

By: Susan Elmore

All The Ladies!

2009-06-14T17:41:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess I can not leave the women out! After the Penis post.....that would not be fair!

Ladies......your junk is disgusting! For god sakes.....TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!

I am up in everyone's business ALL of the time and I have to tell you, it is AWFUL! I have actually offered to PAY someone to put a Foley catheter in a women for me! I HATE IT! Where is the freaking hole man?.....no wonder men are so confused! Don't get me wrong, I KNOW anatomy! I know where things are SUPPOSED to be.......but the older and fatter you get the more FREAKING CONFUSING it is! There is NO text book urethra for a women! "Why isn't any urine coming out?", we wonder......."oh, i know......BECAUSE YOUR IN THE FING VAGINA!"

It is the most disgusting.........I don't mean to offend anyone, but the thinner you are the easier it is, not much, but a bit easier. We do not have stirrups when we(nurses) do this.......we HAVE to be able to hold the legs back, maintain sterile technique and insert the Foley catheter........if you are not able to help us at all, it makes it very difficult.......smelly.......and sweaty......!

Like I said, I would rather pay someone.......does that mean I am prostituting my services?
JUST DO US ALL A FAVOR AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!

Wasn't it the grandmothers of the world that said, "make sure you have clean underwear on when you leave the house because you never know!"

Angel of Death

2009-06-07T11:14:00.004-04:00

I took care of a man in the hospital once that was admitted for "stomach pain". We were never able to determine the cause of his "stomach pain" however his stay seemed to have more to do with anxiety and reported pain. Since pain is subjective you can never assume that someone is not telling the truth. He stayed an incredibly long time because he continued to complain of this severe pain that he was having. He would ask for a pain narcotic every 3 hours on the dot and he would also request a Xanax as often as we were able to provide it.

It was obvious to me that his "stomach pain" was more involved then just the mystery disease we were working up. He appeared chronically sad and very anxious. I could tell that he was uncomfortable in his own skin.

Again, I got to know this man quite well because I spent 13 hours a day with him, 3 days in a row. I think that I may have been the only person that put any effort in to getting to know him.

As it turns out we had some things in common because he lived in my neighborhood. I guess this opened the doors of trust between us. I came to find out that he was the single father of a 12 year old, his wife had recently lost her battle to cancer.

There was more there though and I was able to identify that from the start. Like I said before, this man came across as if he was just being tortured on the inside. He was restless......mabye because of his "stomach pain" but I was not convinced of that.

As I built our trust he started to open up to me about his wife. They had just decided to seperate when she was diagnosed. He decided at that time to stick around to help her through her battle. She fought endlessly for 2 years and finally made the decision to have Hospice care at home......as most of them do.

As this man began to discuss her final days he became noticably upset. I stuck through the conversation with him despite my incredibly long list of things to do with my other patients. I began to wonder where the story was going, I knew the end result, she had died, why was he so fixated on her final moments.

He became very strange! Guilt, terror, regret, peacefulness and confusion came over him all at the same time. He was now staring into the corner of the room and speaking to himself. His sentences were hard to follow because they were scattered. I could not figure out what one statement had to do with another........until I heard him say, "she couldn't take the pain anymore." I don't know why this statement brought me back to the converstation and made me understand his pain, but it did. Suddenly I felt the pressure of an elephant on my chest and I was frozen with fear that I had uncovered what it was that was making this man so anxious and ridden with guilt!

He helped his wife die. She asked him to because she, "could not take the pain anymore" and he did. He gave her some of the narcotic that was in the house from Hospice. She asked him to, he did not want to, but she continued to ask for days. He watched her suffer day after day after day and he finally decided to put her to rest, her wishes of him.

She was layed to rest but now he lives with the pain and guilt of what he did. He was in physical agony.

I was very uncomfortable with this conversation because it was wrong and right on so many levels. How could I judge him? I have seen people die from cancer. Some do it peacefully but some are just in excruciating pain, it is awful!

If you truly loved someone and they asked you to do this for them, would you? If you did, would you be able to recover from the anguish that it causes?

I am not sure I would be able to do that, but I do know that getting to know this man made me sure that I would not judge him because he did.

Is this a crime? Yes, actually it is! Society would call this murder!

THE UNSPEAKABLE

2009-06-03T20:37:00.007-04:00

Several months ago I stayed at work until almost midnight "cleaning up" a man that came from a nursing home and may, very well, die of nursing home neglect. This man was unable to communicate much at all because he had suffered a devastating stroke in the past leaving him unable to care for himself. As if this was not sad enough, he presented to me with the UNSPEAKABLE!

This man had a rash that covered his entire back, buttocks, groin and legs. This "rash" turned out to be burns from urine and feces that burned his skin only because he sat in it for several hours without being changed. He had ulcers, open and infected, on his ears caused from the oxygen tubing that stayed in the same position for so long that it actually wore through his skin and caused ulcers that became infected. His scrotum was the size of a volleyball and his penis was swollen and oozing. The Foley catheter that he had in his penis had remained there so long without being changed that bacteria had actually eaten a path in between his penis, scrotum and bladder. He had a tube for feeding (G-Tube) that was ulcerated and oozing with a dressing on it that had not been changed in weeks. He could barely breathe when he got to me. We did everything we could to support his oxygen level, just to find that he had a piece of pita bread lodged in the back of his throat......about the size of a hockey puck! When we were able to finally pull it out the smell was so foul that I actually began to dry heave in a nearby trash can. This smell was only a bit comparable to the smell that you can only imagine was coming out of his penis.

I was SO disgusted when this man fell on my list of things to do for the day. Clearly not because I was upset to care for him but only because it broke my heart EVERY TIME I walked into the room. He did nothing but stare at me. He locked his eyes with mine in a way that assured me that he could understand everything that I was telling him.

I immediately called social services, his family, and the department for children and family services. I cleaned this man from head to toe, with the assistance of many others. I stayed with him until midnight, not because I was busy, or overworked or covering for another nurse, but because what happened to him took away all of his pride and dignity. This man deserved a voice.....an advocate!

We took pictures and filled out paperwork and cried with family and talked about it in the break room and lost a little sleep here and there.........but ultimately, what happened to him was UNSPEAKABLE! Abuse at its finest, most disgusting and most difficult to prosecute!

This case is so sad and will NEVER leave my mind. I don't know what ended up happening to this man. I assume that infection probably took over his body and that he has probably passed on, but I don't know for sure. This is the case of many patients that we see and treat in the hospital. They impact our lives and we never forget them. We impact their lives, i assume, and then we only hope that things get better for them.

I thought of this man 2 weeks later when I admitted a mentally challenge female from a nursing home with severe bruising to both of her inner thighs, her chest and her upper arms. I did for her as I did for him, as I will do for the next one.

When will the unspeakable stop? How do those of us that deal with it all of time, move on?

All we can do is give these people a voice.

I SEE DEAD PEOPLE!

2009-05-31T14:50:00.004-04:00

Death, allow sad and devastating at times, is also quite bizarre. I have seen a lot of people die. I have seen slow, painful death, horrible unexpected death and peaceful, pain free death. One thing remains the same.........you know when you are going to die!

The story I would like to share with you today is about an elderly women that I was taking care of in the hospital. She was in her 80's and confused most of the time but not so ill that I expected her to die. I had been taking care of this women for 3 days in a row and felt as though I new her pretty well. She had been admitted for some stomach problems, nothing to serious. On the 3rd day that she was in my care, she started having full conversations with people that I could not see.......we call these hallucinations. She spoke only Spanish so I had NO idea what she was saying but I knew that she was talking to people because she was calling them by name and pointing to them at the end of her bed. This was a new development because I had not seen her do this in the 3 days prior. When her daughter called to check on her, I told her that I was concerned because she was talking to "Maria, Josiphina and Jorge" When I shared that information with her daughter, she said, "Maria, Josiphina and Jorge? Those are my grandparents and my aunt." I said, "Oh, ok, well maybe she is expecting them to visit her. Are they supposed to come by?" Her daughter said, "No! they are all dead!"

I was VERY alarmed at the time and I will tell you why........PEOPLE know when they are going to die. When they start to do weird stuff like this, as a nurse you REALLY have to pay attention. I immediately called the doctor because this women was a "full code" meaning she did not have a DNR in place and should she choose to meet her long dead relatives, we would have to make every attempt to save her life. Lucky for me, the doctor did not think I was crazy and agreed to call the family to have the "END OF LIFE" discussion.

She died later that night................

Farting is funny

2009-05-25T12:07:00.001-04:00

I recently had a patient, sad case actually. She was in the car with her family and a tire blew out causing an accident that left her completely paralyzed from the neck down. Devastating! She was quite a large patient and her size made it difficult to move her around in the bed. One afternoon I had to insert a foley catheter in her and I needed help because she had no control of her legs. I brought in 3 other people with me just to help but as it turns out, her legs were not the only thing that she did not have control over. Every time we changed her position she would FART so ferociously it was hard to contain our laughter or concentrate on what we were doing. Whenever I am nervous, or uncomfortable or scared, I start to giggle and although I contained myself in the beginning, her farting became so out of control that I was unable to control myself as well. You have to understand one thing, these were not just simple farts. She was a large women, on an air mattress and the sound coming out of her was vibrating the entire bed. THEY WENT ON AND ON AND ON. Just when I would convince myself to ignore them she would do it again, longer and louder. I hate to admit this but in order to compose myself I actually had to make up an excuse to leave the room. I know that this makes me sound like a horrible person, this patient was sooooo sweet, but I got the giggles and it was just hard to contain.

As a nurse we are expected to just deal with these situations that really are funny. I could not even talk about it at work for fear that someone would think that I was heartless, after all, her situation was devastating, but it was also just plain FUNNY! FARTING AT ITS FINEST. Its ok to get a good laugh about this right?

Shift Change disasters!

2009-05-24T13:30:00.000-04:00

I mean really! Does EVERYTHING have to happen at shift change? Sometimes I think that the universe is out to get us! Gonna have a baby......I bet it will be at shift change! Gonna stop breathing.....I bet it will be at shift change! Gonna get an admission......I KNOW it will be at shift change.

I can have a perfectly good day, and then right around that dreaded time all HELL breaks loose! So I ask, why? Does this happen on purpose! As if we have not put in our time, held our pee long enough, starved ourselves long enough or wiped enough ass, we now have to code and transfer someone to CCU because they could not wait until we clocked out?

I do it everytime, of course. I just only wish that those that feel the need to stop breathing wait until......um, I don't know 8 o'clock! Does this make me a bad nurse? :)