today

People ask me sometimes what it's like to be a nurse. I can't ever really find the words to describe the kind of stuff I deal with everyday. For example, lets take today, a very typical busy busy day on the unit.

Today, I put an elderly man on and off the commode and bedpan 5 times. Every time I took him off, his son would call back 5 minutes later and say that he had to go again. The last time I told him that he didn't have to go. That's when he pooped the bed.

Today I helped another nurse wheel a 825 pound patient out to be discharged. He was in the bariatric wheelchair that caught on every single wrinkle in the carpet and bump in the flooring. At one point, we almost tipped him out of the chair onto his head. When we finally got him to his van, he had to lay in the back seat on the floor, and we couldn't close the door because his belly was in the way. I tried to block him with my knee so he wouldn't fall out onto the pavement as he tried to hoist himself backwards into the van. While doing this, I realized that I could very likely be crushed to death.

Today I had a psychotic patient in 4-point locked restraints. He screamed at me. He said I was torturing him. He ripped off his gown and his sheets and insisted on being naked. He called me "peaches" and asked me out on a date. He finally fell asleep after I gave him many, many drugs.

Today I had an elderly woman with dementia. Her family insisted that she has to eat even though she can't swallow. She spit her pills back out at me. She grabbed my stethoscope and wouldn't let go. She tried to hit my extern. She tried to crawl out of bed. And her daughter was obsessed with her pooping. So I was supposed to give her an enema. That definitely didn't happen.

That was today. And that is nursing in a nutshell.