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Account of how I spent my valentine's day


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"Valentine's Day"...Saturday, February 14th 2004.

How did I spend this day? Well, I was assigned to the Emergency Room, graveyard shift rotation...11:00 pm - 7:00 am. It started out unusually calm & quiet. too unusually calm & quiet.

I arrived to find someone in the "suture" room, already being treated. Patient 1 was a 20 yo waiter who broke a glass at work & lacerated his finger, requiring 7 sutures. VERY nice polite patient, nice simple case.

Patient 2 was a 32 yo kitchen chef who accidentally autoamputated his distal left thumb. He tied a paper napkin around it to stop the bleeding & the nurse who unwrapped it to clean it was careless & didn't realize that the thumb tip was still stuck to the tissue & threw it away in the garbage. So the doctor just cauterized it & the patient was OK. Again very nice, polite guy, easy case.

Then came patient # 3. The beginning of the end...of my sanity.

A 44 year old male with a stubble beard & dissheveled blonde frosted hair was brought in following overdose on antipsychotic medications. He said he'd been taking "pretty pink pills" & reeked of alcohol. They told me to go take a history from him.

He said he was a former registered nurse. I said "that's nice". He said he had been to the ER many times before. I said "that's nice". He then said he was Jewish & homosexual & the 2 were conflicting & that he was tired of living & stated that his "mind voice" was telling him that he was too good & that he was going to lose his mind. I said "that's not very nice".

At this stage, he became combative & agressive & had to be tied down. While trying to make sense out of the absurdity of this ridiculous situation, the doctor was inflating latex gloves like balloons & throwing them over the curtain onto the patient while asking the nurses if they heard about the weather forecast of "glove rain". Then, right after the patient mentioned he was hearing voices, the doctor (behind the curtain) started speaking with a really low voice saying "This is GOD...stop being a queer gay". The doctor then came in & asked the patient (who was still inebriated) if he preferred dildos or broomsticks). I couldn't take anymore & burst out loud in laughter.

Then something happened that made my blood run cold & put ice in my veins...

A nurse came up to me, handed me a jar, a wooden stick & a small piece of folded paper (guess what for?). They said they needed a "sample". I said "oh crap". They said "that's right, literally CRAP!". They asked me to perform a rectal exam to check for occult blood.

So I say to the guy "Ok sir, you're a nurse, you know how this works. Please turn to your left side. He said with a "½ cough/½ chuckle, "ho ho, yes I know..." My rotation partner asked me a question before I was about to begin & the patient suddenly went nuts & angrily shouts at the top of his lungs, "WELL COME ON SWEETHEART, STICK IT IN !!!". I won't speak of anymore after this. The memory hurts my brain & makes me want to vomit awfully & violently.

Why was such an experience necessary, why was such an exam necessary? It wasn't. The doctors had already done the exam before I did!!! It was an exercise to remind me that in this point in time, I am what is known as a "scut monkey" (aka a medical student who runs around like a monkey getting things for people & doing whatever the superiors tell them to do).

I was spending valentine's day giving a rectal exam to an insane psychotic violent drug abusing suicidal alcoholic gay jewish man. You know, I did very well in behavioral science / psychiatry classes & I believe the teachers did a good job of preparing me well for how to deal with the issues of suicidal tendencies, alcoholism, psychoses, sexual deviance, religious conflict, violent aggression & substance abuse...but not simultaneously in a single indivual patient!

PS. at one point, Patient 3 needed to urinate again, & started yelling at me to get the urinal container thing (which was 75 filled from his last urination). I placed the container at a comfortable enough level for him to relieve himself & he freaked out all of a sudden shouting that he wanted to see the face of whoever it was who closed the curtain around his bed. "Show yourself, I wanna see your face you @#%$#!%!!! he yelled. "I'll screw you, I'll scrooooooooooooooo yoooooo !!!

In his fit of rage while wildly thrashing about like a fish out of water, his knee caught the end of the urinal containter I was still holding, shifting its position from a nice safe vertical 0°, to quasi-unsafe 45°, to a dangerously horizontal 180° (recall that the lid was uncovered & 75 % filled to capacity) sending a yellow tidal wave of urine all over the bed, thoroughly soaking the patient, the bed & most of the floor (but luckily not on me). I had had enough & asked the doctor if I could please go home to cry & he mercifully said OK. I thankfully walked away & consequently slipped on the urine slicked floor.

Sunday, Feb 15th 2004...

The following night, a 66 yo male (found disoriented after falling in his bathtub at home), was brought in, & put in a bed. He kept shouting that he wanted to make a very important phone call so they obliged him & moved his bed by a wall-mounted phone. He picked the receiver up very cautiously, looked at it studying it's architecture & design very carefully, then licked it once & lost control of himself pushing all of the number keys individually then trying to push them all simultaneously. They tried to subdue him & asked him what the number he wanted to call was? He said it was very important. They asked him again "what are the numbers". He couldn't remember the number but kept insisting on calling anyway, as it was very very important.

He later shouted that he had to go to the bathroom. The nurse told him, go ahead, you have a tube in you for that (a "foley catheter"). He said, "no, I have to do #2". The nurse pointed to me, so I brought the patient a bedpan, which he accepted with a thank you & a smile, threw it back at me & then proceeded to defecate on the bed. I went to get the nurse again (who had stepped outside to smoke & relieve his obvious stress) & returned to find the patient playing with his feces trying to sculpt things out of them & then throwing them at the floor & walls laughing like a hyena on crack. Being open to artistic expression myself, I tried to point out that feces is not the best choice of medium for sculpture. He thanked me & threw a piece in my direction.

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...i started.......i wont lie....but then due to my rapid cycling attention deficit........i started hearing my own rendition of the national anthem in my head...which warped into yankee doodle dandy.....and there i was....staring at the page...

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