January, 2006 Archive

the police came. she died. i floated. my butt hurt. video charting. i’m bipolar. colon cancer.

all those things. in my mind. all at the same time.

the police came last tuesday. apparently, our burglar alarm went off. they were trying to check if everything was okay. well, it is not everyday that i get a visit from good looking, buff guys who wear really tight police uniforms. so even though the security alarm went crazy by going off in their monitoring system and not in our house, it was a pretty interesting encounter. not because of the guys, but because the idea of a police in the house is just weird.

the patient who called me “Katie” coded. and died. she was just in her early forties. i got the chills when i found out last night because it dawned on me that she actually knew what she was saying. the “very tight casket lid”, getting her things ready because she is “going to heaven”, that she cannot leave right now because she is “waiting for the undertaker”. they didn’t make sense to me, but they did to her. now i totally believe that i will know when it’s time for me to go. when i start asking for my pretty powder blue dress, make sure the casket lid is the right size, okay?

i floated to the transplant unit last night. it was my first time there. pretty interesting place. they call the doctor when the kidney transplant patient has blood sugar above 150! the day RN, bless her heart was very nice for letting me know that. in my unit, we only call the doctor if it is above 400!

i was paid warming my behind in there. that’s usually the case. if you float, they give you the easy patients. so i got three post transplant patients who were all candidates to go home the next two days or so. before midnight, the chair was already burning with my heavy ass on it doing nothing.

the night only got a little interesting when the staff there started talking about “video charting”. no more documentation. no paper. no computer. everytime you do something for or to the patient, you talk to the camera, and the camera documents it. imagine the possibilities! and imagine the chaos! nurses, you think this will happen in our lifetime? or are we so behind that other hospitals are already doing it and i am clueless about it?

i’m manic depressive. self diagnosed. but let me clarify. just because i get extremely lonely in the middle of a happy crowd, or that i get really hyper in the middle of a very slow night does not mean that i can’t take good care of my patients. no thanks, i refuse to be medicated.

i found out that an acquaintance, who is in his mid 30s, was just diagnosed with colon cancer. what? i can’t get his face off my mind because last year, he saw us in the street when we had an accident, and he offered to take us home in his car. sweet, healthy looking guy. but obviously, cancer is no respecter of health and sweetness. i am not thinking it will kill him, i am just a little concerned that it will change their lives like it was never changed before. his wife, his two young boys. cancer sucks, and it makes me sad.

the thoughts in my head make me sad.

crying does not take the sadness away.

so no, i did not cry.

i just keep the thoughts in my head.

the last time i worked was one of those nights.

the nurses were frustrated at other nurses. the doctors were tired and cranky. and yeah, the patients were mostly confused, or wished they were.

to go into the details of the reasons why everybody is not happy would be redundant, and boring.

what was interesting (to me at least!) was the thought that occupied me as i slowly felt my varicose veins pulsating.

i wanted to be rachel ray. she is on at the food network everytime i’m at the breakroom before my shift starts. she talks and cooks at the same time. i can do that. talking is one thing i can do while doing all other sort of things at the same time.

then, i wanted to be samantha brown, of the travel channel. she is everywhere, this girl. trying every hotel in the country, saying ooohhh and aaahhh as she admire the hotel lobby and soak in the beauty of each hotel room. i bet you i can say ooohhh and aaahhh better than she does when i actually have that massage she gets at every hotel spa.

of course i wanted to be seinfeld. can you imagine making people laugh like that? like he is not even trying, but he’s just funny.

and who does not want to be oprah? i want to be her when she gives away surprises. i might be peeing in my pants in excitement all the time, but it will be so worth it to surprise somebody with something. i cannot even imagine the feeling. that must be what they call nirvana.

so i guess that means i want to talk, to cook, to travel, to get massages, to make people laugh, to surprise people. and get paid doing it.

not everyday, but only on nights like the last time i worked.

all the other days, i still want to be a nurse. and yes, some of the people i work with think that it is completely pathetic.

that i love what i’m doing most of the times, that is.

“KATIE!”

her voice sounded desperate. i knew it was my patient in room 4. i stopped charting.

“katie, you have to help the poor thing! my baby! his head got stuck in the machine! oh Lord Jesus, please help him!”

“what happened L?” i asked.

“i was just trying to wash our clothes, but then andre, he’s always into everything. i don’t know, he was just here. the next thing i know, his head is inside the machine. oh Lord Jesus, please help my baby!”

“what are you waiting for, standing there doing nothing? help the poor lady’s kid for Christ’s sake.”

i looked at mrs. S, the patient on the next bed. she was just as concerned. especially because at this time, L started crying.

“L, you are in the hospital, your son is not here, and there is no washing machine.”

“JUST GIVE ME THE SCISSORS AND BACK OFF!”

i turned around and saw the patient in room 8. he was screaming at the top of his lungs, outraged at somebody invisible.

“just give him the scissors, for crying out loud!”

mrs. S just wants to help.

“okay L, calm down.”

“katie…just get me a bigger casket…this casket lid is choking me, it is just too small…pleease?”

“L, i am not katie, and you are not in a casket..”

“JUST GIVE THE LADY A BIGGER CASKET AND GET IT OVER WITH!”

i guess mrs. S just wants things done.

and since i didn’t sign up for distributing scissors, unhauling a baby’s head from a washing machine, and delivering bigger caskets, i slowly went out of the room, confused.

no, i’m not a psych nurse. no i’m not a psych nurse. no i’m not a…

2005 that is.

what happened last year?

well, i called poison control. my two year old boy, ate the thingy in a dried seaweed pack that says “do not eat”. the guy at the other end of the line, who, i imagine, was probably having a really slow time, his feet up on his desk, listening to music, while waiting for calls from people who have really been poisoned, was very accomodating. he asked me how old was my boy, he asked me where i lived, he asked me what happened after my little boy ate the thingy. all the time, i was thinking: okay, he is going to send social services, they will take my son in custody, and i am left like a crazy woman desperate to take my son back, only because i am such a neglectful mother, for allowing my two year old to eat the thingy. the guy, bless his heart, was obviously laughing when he reassured me that it was not poison. to save myself from big time embarassment, i reasoned that it said “do not eat” in the packet, that’s why i panicked. again, he reassured me, calmly, that it only said that because the thingy is not food. okay.

then, my mother in law called 911. my father in law accidentally cut himself with a humongous mirror we were trying to put away. it was a deep cut, and in my opinion needed stitching. i assured him many times that no vein or artery was cut. i don’t remember all the things they taught us at nursing school, but i don’t think i need to be that smart to figure out, that if his artery was cut, there would have been a fountain of blood coming from his wrist. the bleeding was definitely not from a vein, since it lasted less than a minute. i explained it to him, to assure him everything is okay, and we should probably just call a taxi, if they can’t drive to the urgent care. when the paramedics came, my father in law was all dressed up to go to the ER, waving at the front lawn. the paramedic who was driving the fire truck, bless his heart, was containing his smile, and said he hates to charge us 1200 dollars for the ambulance, when we can just drive to an urgent care so they can look at the cut. my father in law insisted that the paramedic look at his cut, and assure him that he did not cut his vein. “no, not a vein sir, you just need stitches.” to which my father in law breathed a big sigh of relief, and thanked the paramedic endlessly.

then, before the year ended, my dad mispelled my name, and the names of both my kids. not that i expect his memory to be flawless at 75. it’s just that it is mind boggling how he remembered all the spelling of the names of the other 7 children, and the other 13 grandchildren, and accidentally forget mine and my kids’. i suppose i didn’t really care, but i’m allowed to wonder, right?

at work, male patients high on dilaudid or confused to the point of taking their gowns off, have told me i have a very pretty face, and they would not mind divorcing their wives to take me home. a number of patients, who mouth incomprehensible words, have told me to go get them a nurse who understands english, and some patients told me they do not want an asian nurse who are only good for wiping white butts.

at home, i still want everything that has labels, to face forward. every little thing in my cupboards still faces me, arranged in order of height or size. i still want all my knives in the drawer to be placed in the same direction, the sharp side of the knife on the left. i still wipe the mirror with windex the minute i see a blot of dried water in it. and no, i still don’t care if the windows are dusty, as long as all the plates and the throw pillows are facing a certain way.

i am still clueless as to how men, all the guys i know in general, and my husband in particular, can say goodnight, and after a fracture of a second fall into a deep deep sleep.

other than that, everything in between was a series of uncountable blessings of good health, overflowing love, and met needs. i have no real, logical reason to complain.

so i guess what i’m saying is this: after a year, i am still the same. blessed and happy, but still a paranoid mom, an unreliable daughter in law, a not so important daughter, a desirable/undesirable nurse, a neurotic freak, and a clueless woman/wife.

but…

one good thing about the new year is that it is a new beginning. who knows, i might be a better person this year. i’m keeping my fingers crossed.