It seems at a small suburban ER, patients go to great lengths to smoke a cigarette. There is a hospital where a gas station is across the street. Apparently quite often patients will walk over there in their patient gown to get a pack of cigarettes, butt flapping in the wind, steering an IV pole.
One guy actually drove over there with his IV pole out the window next to the drivers seat, one hand steering the pole and one hand steering the car. The lengths that addicts will go to....
I'm finally close to quitting for good after almost 10 years...
ReplyDeleteThe wake up call for me was this allergy season. I have been having asthma attacks and was prescribed an inhaler. I like being able to breathe. I don't have health insurance and I had to borrow money to pay for the inhaler. I paid my friend back using the money I would have spent on cigarettes. I've gone from half a pack a day to 1 cigarette a day (2 on a really bad day...but I don't smoke more than half of the 2nd.)
My Christmas present to myself will be quitting for good.
Quitting cigs was so much harder than quitting alcohol I couldn't believe it. Good for Anon above; you'll be so glad six months in when the cravings are gone and the synapses have reformed. I wondered what took me so long to quit about that far in but, yeah, it's a hell of an addiction. Way worse than alcohol for me-I quit that bitch in one day.
ReplyDeleteWho the hell can afford to just burn up money like that?
ReplyDeleteHi there! Keep it up! This is a good read. You have such an interesting and informative page. I will be looking forward to visit your page again and for your other posts as well. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about Emergency Care. I am glad to stop by your site and know more about Emergncy Care.
ReplyDeleteEmergency medicine (EM) as a medical specialty is relatively young. Prior to the 1960s and 70s, hospital emergency departments were generally staffed by physicians on staff at the hospital on a rotating basis, among them general surgeons, internists, psychiatrists, and dermatologists. Physicians in training (interns and residents), foreign medical graduates and sometimes nurses also staffed the Emergency Department (ED). EM was born as a specialty in order to fill the time commitment required by physicians on staff to work in the increasingly chaotic emergency departments (EDs) of the time. During this period, groups of physicians began to emerge who had left their respective practices in order to devote their work completely to the ED. The first of such groups was headed by Dr. James DeWitt Mills who, along with four associate physicians; Dr. Chalmers A. Loughridge, Dr. William Weaver, Dr. John McDade, and Dr. Steven Bednar at Alexandria Hospital, VA established 24/7 year round emergency care which became known as the "Alexandria Plan". It was not until the establishment of American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), the recognition of emergency medicine training programs by the AMA and the AOA, and in 1979 a historical vote by the American Board of Medical Specialties that EM became a recognized medical specialty.[2] The first emergency medicine residency program in the world was begun in 1970 at the University of Cincinnati[3] and the first Department of Emergency Medicine at a U.S. medical school was founded in 1971 at the University of Southern California.
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If I had a dollar for every time a patient got nasty with me then blamed it on needing a cigarette, I would be much better off than I am now. Too bad we don't get to blame our off moments as nurses on our addictions we haven't gotten our "fix" on recently.
ReplyDeleteI get a couple of such type of patients once in a while at a 24 hour urgent care in phoenix. I agree with you. If we'll charge them a fine, we will be richer. They're like kids, quite a handful.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. It is sometimes hard to believe that these people, despite the dangers will still go to lengths to get their addiction appeased.
ReplyDelete