Heard on the unit

Otherwise known as the evening shift edition

"Don't touch me!" Mr. U.
Mr. U. (short for Unhappy) is not liking the fact that his bowels are not moving. The dreaded combo of pain pills, cardiac (and other major organ problem) history, and new injury aren't helping either. I tried a suppository after he agreed, but I could not get the stool removed prior to insertion, like I usually do, so the suppository works.

Well, something worked, because about an hour later, Mr. U. passed not one, but two small baseballs of stool. That had to hurt more than the suppository! I made sure to alert the doc that Mr. U. definitely wants the stool softener.

Why he wasn't already getting it is a mystery to me.


"When you gotta go, you gotta go." Mr. C.
Mr. C., an old injury patient talked to Mr. U., his neighbor, about using suppositories, but  Mr. U. didn't want to hear it. Mr. C. just shook his head. One of these days, he'll come around, Mr. C. said. His neighbor, thankfully, was asleep.

"Whooooaah! Whoooah!" Mr. S.
Mr. S. likes to moan in his sleep. I woke him up to take his pills and he was startled. "Why did you wake me up? I was watching SportsCenter," he says. "I woke you up because I thought you were practicing for a Halloween party or working at a haunted house." I replied. I heard this while I was down the hall, minding my own business charting on one of our workstations on wheels.

Another one of our patients was talking about ghosts and what he'd read about them at our place. We suspect there are plenty, and many patients have stories of shadowy figures in their rooms, mostly on night shift.

Stay tuned for more interesting comments from the Hotel.

Happy hump day to me!

Well, it's not really Wednesday, but I'm on the downward slide of my evening rotation, so this is always a good thing.

My patients have been pretty good and I'm secretly hoping we're fully staffed tonight so I can ditch the med wagon, even if it means I get another patient. I have one good one and one wacky one, so hopefully, if I end up with a third, it'll be a good one to tip the scales and keep my sanity.

I got acquainted with a new drug yesterday--the belladonna/opium suppository. One of my patient's gets this for his pain (he's a quad who's been getting up a ton for therapy since his debilitating illness). He's quite a character. At least, he's liking his CPAP now, but he still needs his "muscle relaxer" once he's ready to put it on every night at 2300. I found out that his "relaxer" is not Baclofen or something else, but rather, good old Ativan.

I still feel cruddy, but with rest and fluids and good old Mucinex, I'm tackling work pretty well. All this resting makes me feel like I'm slacking at home, but I'm hoping it'll pay off later and I'll be done with this virus soon enough.

I'm still working on my CRRN stuff. Since this is the first week of the year, I'm going to have to start a countdown.

More later on that...gotta get ready for work!