it started with a hospital policy that out of the blue was printed and posted at the door of the staff restroom. i’m not sure if it was in all the restroom doors all over the hospital, or just in our unit, but it was quite an interesting read.

i know that the charge RN took her time reading it, because i went to the restroom twice, and the door was locked. when she finally came out on my third attempt to use the restroom, she looked all weird. “you read that one yet?” i haven’t, so i took my time in the restroom too.

to make the page long single spaced hospital policy short, it just reminded employees that dating or having a relationship with a patient is not allowed. when you develop intimate feelings towards a patient, you have to wait six months after his hospitalization before you go out and have dinner. it is a totally different story altogether if you two are already dating before the hospitalization. it concluded with the warning that this inappropriate behavior can be a reason for termination.

well, it’s either the administration is watching Grey’s Anatomy and was horrified with what intern Izzy did, or the whole thing was just a coincidence. whatever it is, this thing is not really one of my worries. you see, i don’t really take it seriously when male patients have their TV on the Jazz channel, and they ask if i’d like to dance. i find it very unnerving yes, but never exciting.

then…there is this thing about to be implemented next month in our unit. we will not have a PCA (patient care assistant. they are called CNA-certified nurse assistant before, and i agree with the change of name because really, nurses don’t need assistants) if our patient census is lower than 21. we are a 26 bed unit, and at present, we have 1 PCA if we have 21 patients, 2 PCAs if we have more than 21.

to me, this is both good and bad news. good because i do want to see other nurses change their attitudes about the call lights. when we have a PCA, a lot of nurses believe that it is SOLELY the PCA’s job to answer call lights. to these nurses, it doesn’t matter that the PCA is busy and they are not, they will NOT answer the call light. period. they will wait for the PCA, while they gossip away their time, because it is not their jobs to answer the call light. pardon my language, but for me, this is just plain, simple BS. i have gone to nursing school just like everybody else, and i have not heard anything about this rule. as far as i know, when the call light goes off, especially if it is my patient, it is my responsibility to find out what the patient needs. period. when the PCAs are gone, maybe these particular nurses will unlearn this ridiculous belief and start answering their patient’s call light the moment it goes off. that’s really good.

bad news because when you have a total care patient, there are certian things you cannot do by yourself. if all the other RNs are busy with their patients, you are left with no option but to wait till someone is available to help before you can do anything. let’s say i need to turn an immobile 350 pounds patient, i can either wait for two other nurses to be available to help me, or try to be heroic and break my back, or just not turn the patient at all. in the end, it’s the patient’s loss. that’s really bad.

then… a college classmate who has been trying to get pregnant for a few years finally had an IVF that didn’t succeed. just like any stupid person who is eager to comfort a grieving friend, i tried to be helpful. to be honest, i don’t know if that’s what i did.

when she said “maybe God didn’t really mean for me to have children”… i told her that maybe she is right. when she said maybe she “will have kids at 45 just like her aunt who had unsuccessful artificial insemination a few times in the 1980s, then got pregnant when she stopped trying, at 45″… i told her yeah, she’s only 35, so she still has 10 years of possibilities. when she said she doesn’t “want to try again and be in denial about the glaring fact that this ”having children thing” is not really for them”… i told her yeah, you’ve tried the fertility drugs, the shots, now this IVF, maybe you are right. when she said she “could save up again and try another shot at IVF just to make my mother in law happy”… i told her yeah, trying is not a bad idea.

it was a phone call that lasted about 30 minutes, but i felt like it took forever. clearly, i didn’t know what to say, so i should have not said anything. unfortunately, instead of shutting my big mouth up, i kept blabbing along, saying yes, and no, and maybe, till my head hurt. the next day, i emailed her to sort of apologize, and told her i didn’t really know what to say but that i will be praying for her. she emailed me back saying she is completely fine. she said she knows that people expect her to be devastated, but really, she is very practical and takes things as they are without any drama. she said she is honestly okay and does not really need to be comforted.

i take that message to directly mean i am one of the “people” who annoyingly expect her to be devastated when she is not, and that i should take off and leave her alone, now. so i didn’t reply to the email, which i know she will appreciate, but still, that does not stop me from feeling stupid.

then… i had to open my legs to that yearly Pap smear again. it was probably rude of me to tell my OB that i do not really look forward to seeing her, but i was just trying to be honest. if it is not considered immature, i could have kicked her face when she was doing her job, inserting that dreadful looking thing called speculum. as expected of any reasonable adult, all i could do was bite my lip. and when she did that quick rectal thing, i did what was expected of me, which was to bite my lip some more. if you want toknow the truth, what i really wanted to do was scream profanity to her smiling face and to the face of her expressionless assistant. my discomfort aside, my OB is really a very nice person.

then…tomorrow, we are going to a funeral. this guy, a distant relative of my husband, who is in his late 70s, died a few days ago. he was doing his usual morning walk, when he was run over by a car whose driver surely didn’t care enough to stop and see what he/she has done. 

this is the second hit and run case i personally know that happened in this city this year. the first one was early last year. a guy in his 70s, was doing his morning walk with his wife, and they were crossing an intersection when a car run him over. if i remember correctly, he died on the spot.

what is freaky is the fact that this is the same city where my dad lives. it is more freaky because just like the guys who died, my dad is in his 70s, and he walks every morning, everyday. the thought of him being run over is terrifying, but what can i do to stop things like these from happening?

then…

well, you get the picture. the week that started with an interesting read on the restroom door will end at a sad funeral. i can’t really say that’s extraordinary, but you have to throw in the fact that everytime the phone rings, we get a jolt. this is not news to those who have experienced selling their houses, but yeah, there is no way you can walk around your house half naked when any moment, some pairs of scrutinizing eyes are on you, and on your bathroom.

here’s hoping your week was extraordinary, in a good way. or that your weekend will not start with a funeral, because somehow, for some bizarre reasons, it can make the whole weekend a little darker.