April, 2008 Archive

the upside of marrying someone with the same job as you is obvious.
you literally speak each other’s language.
you understand, exactly, what it means when one of you says “i’m sooooo tired.”

i am not saying that if i married somebody who works in an office i will be this clueless apathetic bitch who will shrug my shoulders if my husband comes home tired and weary. i am just saying that when my husband comes home with this long, worn out look, he doesn’t even have to say the words, i know right away that he had a horribly long night. i can vividly picture what went on, and i can honestly look him in the eye, tell him “i know exactly how you feel” and mean every word.

when he said he spent over two hours talking to a completely paranoid patient who won’t calm down because he thinks every person who is looking at him, or is holding a pen or a paper is recording his every move, i know exactly what he meant.

when he said he ran out of ideas on how to deal with a patient with OCD who flushed the toilet every 30 seconds, i know how helpless he felt.

when it comes to frustratingly defective systems that suck, we discuss it, sigh in unison and try to renew each other’s enthusiasm by listening and agreeing to each other. we pretend we know everything and discuss grand ideas on how to fix the unfixables. we get a good laugh out of that. our arrogance, i mean.

we whine about coworkers who do not understand what it takes to be called responsible. we decide there is nothing we can do about them, but there is something we can do about us. we  complain about the same things. we criticize the same despicable behaviors. we get a good laugh out of that. our immature attitude, i mean.

we live in irony but we complement each other. he hates nursing with a passion, but he is a living proof that even when you do not love what you do, you are still capable of doing your best. i love nursing with a passion, but i come home from work and whine about this and that, a living proof that somehow even when you love what you do, you are not immuned from the frustrating realities you encounter.

i’m sure it wouldn’t be that bad if i married somebody who does something that i’m completely clueless about. after all, it’s mainly about commitment, right?

i’m not saying our marriage is perfect just because we are both nurses.
i’m just saying, the upsides make our lives easier. and i’m glad.

i checked if he was on call on my next schedule. i planned to call off if he was. yes, i will waste my paid leave just to get away from him! he thinks he is God! man!

i am so mad.

not because he sounded like he didn’t know what to do with the issue i have been paging him about. not that.

he was so rude i felt like strangling him.

i hate to say this, but what is so wrong with admitting he didn’t know what to do? why did he have to be rude and imply i was being inefficient by calling him and doing what i was supposed to do?

this early, i already feel sorry for his future patients as an attending. seriously, if he could be this arrogant as an intern, one can only imagine the endless possibilities of his future actions as a certified jerk.

i’ll spare you the boring annoying details, so you have to pardon the early bad language. i just have to get it out of my system. or else,  i might not be able to sleep. yet i have to, because i still have one more night to complete my three nights this week.

dr. K, i hope you change.
if not, i hope i never see you again.

i took a test of patience and i failed it. again.

you probably remember her. L, the patient we had to restrain because she was consciously trying to pull out tubes so she can “rest”.

she wasn’t wearing her speaking valve but i have taken care of her a few times that i got pretty good at reading her lips. anyway, she had been off restraint for two days but the whole day, the day nurse told me she was so agitated and was constantly asking for pain medicine that she got so frustrated with every little thing.

she would call and hit the side rails with the call light nonstop to express her emotion. although i am not justifying those who tend to ignore her by waiting a little while before they answer her call, i can totally understand why they do it. i mean, if a patient calls with such urgency for the nurse to take off or put on a blanket, that pretty much defeats the definiton of urgent.

i came in and she was hitting the side rails with the call light, so hard that i almost thought the little thing will break into pieces.

“L, i’m here and would really like to help you. i know you are calling for a pain medicine. i have checked your chart and there is nothing i can give you at the moment. you just had you IV pain medicine 20 minutes ago, and your tablet pain medicine is not due until 9 tonight. i will try to call the doctor if there is something more i can give you, but you have to wait a little bit.”

that was our first exchange.  the next exchanges were practically the same. every 10 minutes or so, she would call, and she continued hitting the siderails with the call light. and it continued to puzzle me because she totally understood what she was doing.

when i was about to lose it after a couple of hours of the banging, annoying sound, i asked: “do you mind if i ask you to stop doing that? the second you push the call light, i’m here, banging the side rails isn’t really necesarry. i’m here now. we need to respect other patients who are trying to rest.”

i realized that was the wrong thing to say, because she got more angry and in action, threatened to pull out her trach and feeding tube.

that threw me off the wall. frankly, in a perfect hospital, no patient should do that. i mean, why would you threaten your nurse with something that will have ill effects on yourself? the idea that she was implying was apalling to me. she was almost smugly saying “you better do what i say or i will pull the tubes and you will surely be in trouble!”

in a perfect hospital, a nurse should never succumb to playing games, but i was at my wit’s end, and i thought i didn’t have a choice.

“L. i understand that you are frustrated. i  just want to remind you that pulling out those tubes will not help you in any way. if you continue to do that, even if i don’t want to, i will be forced to restrain you.”

nicely said. calm and firm.

she shook her head vigorously, begging off the restraint. for a second, we exchanged a look of mutual understanding. then, out of the blue, she started hitting the siderails. this time, with such passion, my ears started to hurt.

i imagined raising my arms in the air.
what i did for real was turn around and leave the room without saying a word. the remainig hours of the shift were proofs of professionalism. by that, i mean i took care of her because she was my patient, but i distanced myself to the point of denying her a sense of empathy. the routine went on like this: she banged the siderails everytime she called. i asked her what she needed  and i gave it without any hint of compassion.

just when she needed compassion most, i did not have the energy to give it. i am embarassed to admit it, but it is the truth so i’ll say it anyway: my compassionate spirit flew out the window when my patience was sucked out from me.

where can you find patience when you REALLY need it?

_______________

as for the comments on my last post, thank you.
it is fiction. just like this one, and this one.
my husband reads this blog. that should explain everything.

i thought putting friday fiction (as explained here) on the title was enough. i apologize if it was misleading. it’s just that sharing the fictional stories inside my head as a first person narrative is what i’m very comfortable with, and has sort of become a bad habit that is not easy to break. i do have plans to keep posting fictional stories in the same style, (as i said, just to indulge myself) and will appreciate suggestions on how to avoid confusion in the future.

thank you again.

how do you tell your husband that his dad is a lustful old man?

i mean those little seemingly innocent back rubs that last a little longer, feels a little tighter, when you only intend to get a quick hug. those creepy looks that seem to peel off your clothes when his son is not around. those accidental bumps and hits on the private places. those kinds of things.

it’s not that i didn’t make excuses. i always told myself that i should be ashamed for feeling uncomfortable. i reasoned out that their family is the complete opposite of what we are, and their being touchy feely is just normal to them. besides, it’s not like i am the prettiest among his daughters in law. if i have never heard anything from them about him taking advantage, how can i even entertain such a thing? i always felt dirty remembering his looks and touch, but i felt worse mentally accusing him of being a pervert.

last week however was a totally different story.

they were visiting, and as usual, he was playing with the kids. we were waiting for my husband to come back from work, and after all the running around, i ended up napping on the couch. it was unplanned. the TV was on, and some show about room makeovers was glaring.

i thought i was dreaming about something. the scene was a little bit blurred. in my dream, i saw myself sleeping on the couch, and there he was, the man i learned to call dad, staring. he had this very familiar shirt on. i thought it was weird that he was wearing that exact same shirt that i saw earlier, but i didn’t bother to ask him. i don’t know how long he had been standing there, a couple of feet away from me. all i knew was, even in my dream, the kind of look he was giving me was not the kind of look a father-in-law should be throwing at his daughter in law. it gives me the chills to say this, but i can’t be wrong. his gaze was sexual in nature.

he started moving towards me, his right hand directly aiming for my thigh. it was at this moment that i struggled to wake up. you probably know how that feels. when you have a bad dream and at a certain point you realize it is a dream, and you will yourself to wake up because you can’t handle whatever it is that is happening or you assume will happen.

i kept telling myself i needed to wake up. i was breathing so fast i almost thought i was going to choke on my own breath. when i finally woke up, he managed to remove his hand from my thigh, and pretended he was putting back the little decorative pillow on the couch.

i didn’t say a thing. it was not out of lack for words to say. it was that i was clearly aware that for every word i would have said, there will be certain repercussions, none of them good. i looked at him, unaware that i was crying. he had this sorry look, and he attempted to talk, to reach out. i didn’t let him. i felt like i was burning. my throat closed, my eyes flooded.

i was able to convince my husband that i was just tired. i managed to escape the ritualistic goodbye hug when they left. i didn’t remind the kids to say goodbye to their grandpa, they did it on their own anyway. they were used to the routine.

how do you tell your husband that his dad is disgusting?

it’s not one of those things you practice in your head. it’s not one of those things that is easy. like when you tell your husband, “honey, the faucet is leaking” or “the light bulb in the bathroom is broken”. those kinds of things are easy to fix.

how will he fix this one?
he worships him and everything that he is. i hate to burst that bubble.

to make matters more complicated, our three kids adore him. i hate to break that relationship.
what about his wife? she trusts him to the core of his being. they have been together for over thrity years. i hate to ruin those years.

but for the life of me, i cannot stand a single minute in his presence. i just can’t. i know that hate is a very strong word, but i actually want to invent one that is stronger.

when i say i don’t know what to do, i really don’t know what to do.
should i keep quiet and suffer in silence?
after all, it’s not like he raped me. what is a little touch, right?
should i tell my husband and rock the boat?
am i ready for the unspeakable changes?

for the nights and days that i have been emotionally restless, you would have thought i have at least done something. i haven’t. the more i think about it, the more i am convinced that i do not know what to do.

then it dawned on me.
i realize now that i have a better understanding of people who commit suicide without the usual suicide note. i’m not saying they were molested by somebody they can’t tell others about, (not even the ones they love, who love them in return) i’m just saying something life changing might have happened to them and they just cannot make up their mind on what to do anymore. i know that feeling.

all of a sudden the idea of death seemed relieving.
is there a difference between wanting to die and wanting to kill yourself?

i do think there is, but i’m not sure what.
for the record, i don’t have plans of killing myself.
i just want to escape.

to a place where the memory of last week can’t follow me and haunt me to do something, or do nothing.