man candy saturday

sex brought me to the ER

Just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder, I see an advertisement for a new ER reality show: "Sex sent me to the ER" on a cable channel coming this month to a TV near you. No doubt this will be a real laughfest...

I've been in the ER a long time and I have, for the most part, missed out on sexual shenanigans that brought patients in, although I have heard stories from my co workers. Mostly along the line of somebody put something up their butt and they can't get it out and oh by the way, its still buzzing for everyone to hear.  People getting stuff stuck on their johnson and it has to be cut off.

Hearing these stories amuses us, but seriously ya heard one of these you heard 'em all.  Whatever. Mostly we just look at people in these situations as stupid.

This is brought to you by the same people who do the show "Untold stories of the ER".  They contacted me once and encouraged me to send in an unusual story.  The kicker is they want you to be on the show to be part of the story.  Ah...no thanks.  So I'm wondering will that be the case with this show?  Will the doc or nurse be on the show?

Lastly, what kind of person would agree to have their sex problem stories be told to the world at large? Morons, that's who.

where evil lurks

They live in the basement, back in a dark, damp corner.  Thats them with their laptop, sitting on their cot, conniving against us.  They exist in the shadows, never coming out into the light. They slink around the hospital... unseen but always looming, always waiting, ready to pounce. Who are they?

They are the people who make your life a living hell.   The people who MAKE THE CHANGES. (ThE EVIL cHanGerS)  They are the ones who decide to buy the stupid new products because they get a good deal.   They change the electronic charting to "make it better".  They come up with irrelevant new policies.

Of course ThE EVIL cHanGerS make twice the money you do. They haven't seen a bedside in 20 years. They have a lot of letters after their name. They wear REGULAR clothes.  They like to gather in groups to scheme about new changes. They seem to breed like rabbits.

They buy things like the new .5 mg Dilaudid syringes which take a rocket scientist to figure out how to use and actually come with a video to explain it. They buy IV tubing in which connecting tubing to a saline lock or connecting a piggyback requires 20 attempts. They change charting to "become more efficient".  The thing is it requires 20 more steps to complete. It makes charting a blood transfusion akin to building a nuclear reactor.

They give us more gray hair. Make us want to go running screaming from the building.  Want to wring somebodys neck.  Make us spend the majority of our time away from the patients filling in blanks.

They are  ***ThE EVIL cHanGerS****.  Some day the nurses will rise up.  They will hunt them down and there will be hell to pay.

ain't no flo

I got to thinking: Why do I do the blog?

I have been doing the blog for 8 years now. I'm one of the few that are still around when I started. I miss those other guys. (Tex, Nurse K, hood nurse, scalpel, etc.)

This blog started as a place to let off steam.  I have been a writer all of my life.  So it was a natural thing to do.

At the core of this blog is the idea of presenting a realistic picture of what it is like to be a nurse, particularly an ER nurse.  To tell you how bizarre it really is to work in the ER. To tell my fellow nurse, hey you are not alone. I go through the same things you do on a daily basis. And lastly, to give my opinion on stuff related.

Perception and reality in nursing are at the opposite ends of the scale. What the public perceives about who nurses are and what they do is way out of whack.  I think they still perceive us as florence nightengale types who fluff pillows, hold hands, soothe fevered brows and are always smiling and caring while they do it.  When in actuality, nurses are highly educated, tech savvy multi taskers who hold the medical system together. We keep you alive. End of story.

Even nursing students have no idea what they are getting into.  They learn an idealized version of nursing in nursing school and are often shocked by the reality. Healthcare corporation executives, doctors, mangers, etc. hold expectations of nurses that are impossible to meet.

People who become nurses care. We probably care more about people than your average person. Otherwise we couldn't do the job.  So we have a gooey center. As the reality of how damn hard this job is sets in, we develop a shell around the goo.  We have to if we are going to survive. We are in one of the most demanding jobs you can have.  Changes happen daily and many times they are not small changes. Technology becomes more complex. Demands on what we have to do increase daily. Every single day of being a nurse is stressful and challenging. Lives depend on us. A mistake could kill someone.

And then there is the taking care of  people part. Oh yeah that. Most people are nice. Then there are those are shitheads.  There are more in the world than you think. They are just plain mean, manipulative. We have to deal with them whether we like it or not.

So this is the reality of nursing. Its what I try to communicate here. A lot of people, including a lot of my fellow nurses, would rather pretend that nurses are florence nightengales  I just can't do
that. I ain't no Flo.

no goodbye for Dad

One of the hardest things about my job is watching families deal with elderly Mom or Dad. Dad is, lets say, in his 80's.  He is in bad shape for various reasons.  He isn't going to get better.  In fact, he is going to get worse.  He is worse today.

Here's the thing: he's full go.  He is so fragile that if CPR was performed, several of his ribs would break.  He would never get off the vent. In other words, its time to just keep him comfortable and enjoy the time that has left.

Of course thats not going to happen. Family is not ready to let Dad go.  Daughter is crying during Dads current visit.  Everybody else is tearful.

Dad says he feels fine.  He sits on the ER cart getting treatment that anyone would find uncomfortable.  It has become a habit for him to be brave for the family. He doesn't want the kids or his wife to suffer.  When the doctors have asked him about resuscitation he went along with being a full go.

So Dad will keep coming in, spending repeated visits in ICU.  Family will keep hoping that somehow he will get better.  He won't.  This will go on until one time he arrests. We can't revive him. Family is devastated.

They didn't get a chance to say goodbye. To tell him what a great Dad he was.