Nursing

Tough Guy Bob

Several years ago I hired a remarkable young man. He’d completed a rigorous drug rehab program and afterward managed to convince the Louisiana Board of Nursing to allow him progress into clinical courses despite a history of drug use. He was concurrently monitored by the impaired nurse program and passed many random drug tests. He was required to attend regular Narcotics Anonymous Meetings and was given no assurance of licensure upon successful completion of all these requirements. He soldiered successfully through all this and was licensed.

I was fortunate enough to hire Bob in my acute dialysis unit. An excellent nurse, he was a quick learner and valuable staff member. In addition to nursing, he had a passion for music and was deeply involved in his church’s music ministry. I was fortunate to have him on my staff for a couple of years. I asked him how he was able to resist the lure of drugs. He told me he’d traded drugs for the high of music. I really learned a lot from him.

Some time later, my husband and I ran into Bob at a music store. I was so happy to see him, I hugged him tightly and kept my arm around him for a bit. He was clearly uncomfortable and kept looking at Bud. It had never occurred to me that a young black man might be uncomfortable being hugged by an older white woman accompanied by her husband. Of course, I introduced them and told Bob, Bud knew how much I thought of his work and accomplishments. I am so grateful to have known Bob.

It’s been a while

Bud and I have been together for 73 years. This is our first photo together. I am the baby on right in fitst row. He is the little boy behind me. The photographer has us facing the sun, so we are shielding our faces. I remember always being posed facing the sun. Who know the rationale behind that?

Bud’s mother came to help out when I was born. She often said she should have pinched my head off when she had a chance. Live and learn. Our families were friends, so we grew up playing together. He was a nice boy, never mean to girls, so I always liked him.

He first started coming to visit on his own when I was seventeen. Our family was generally confused as to whom he was visiting. My sister and I thought he was interested in her, so I went to my room and read. I was always looking for a chance to read, anyway, since Daddy kept us really busy on the farm. My brother thought Bud was coming to see him.

The matter was further complicated since Bud had bashed his left thumb with a 24 lb. hammer . The doctor pushed the ball of his thumb back in place until it was approximately thumb shaped, stitched it to his nail, and splinted it. One week to the day, while he was still splinted, a sprocket fell on his right foot, breaking it. Consequently, he was effectively disabled on the right and left side, though his job kept him on, probably out of guilt. He didn’t feel much like a suitor during this period.

The next week, he pitched his crutches in the back of his truck on the way to the doctor. They blew out. He retrieved them but one had suffered the loss of a rubber tip, not optimal for a lame guy with no grip due to a smushed thumb. Bud managed to hobble in the doctor’s door before hitting a slick tile. One crutch went one way, one the other. Pulling himself up on receptionist’s desk,he inquired “Is there a doctor in the house?” It must have been horrifying to the staff who were trying to remain professional.

So, he did finally live through the indignities of his injuries. All the while, I got a good bit of reading done while Phyllis and Bill courted him. I suppose I was inadvertently playing hard to get. When he eventually got off the crutches, he asked me out. I don’t know which of the Swain kids was most surprised, me, Phyllis, or Billy.

We got married two years later, while we were still in college.

Nursing Slip Up

I was reporting back to a doctor on his agitated emergency room patient I had just been caring for.  Meaning to say, “He was really bucking and fighting.” I got tangled up and said “f–cking and biting.”  Trying to recover before the doc reacted, I snapped back,” but fortunately I didn’t get bit!”

Uh Oh!

I used to moonlight at an urgent care clinic. Mother called me at my regular RN job one day to complain of an earache. Like I always do when people ask advice, I recommended she see a doctor. She decided to go to the urgent care clinic where I sometimes worked. I called to speak to my friend, Judy, who was working that day. I asked her to surprise Mother by telling her she had to have a full internal pelvic exam. She knew Mother, and was delighted to pull a little trick on her. Sure enough, she showed Mother to the OB/GYN exam room, telling her to prepare for a full exam. Naturally, Mother was stunned, protesting she only had an earache. Of course, my friend quickly gave the joke up.

They turned the tables on me. Judy, the nurse called me. “Linda, your mom was so shocked she fell and her head. She’s gonna have to have stitches. You are gonna have to come see about her.”

“Oh my God, I never dreamed that would happen! Let me get someone to cover for me. I’ll be there as soon as I can. At that, They started laughing. The last laugh was on me.

“Help, I’ve fallen and can’t get up!”

Help! I've fallen and I can't get up.

Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.

Please don’t read if you are easily offended.  This is nursing humor.

My husband I are both retired RNs so we frequently spot errors in commercials.  The other evening, one of those frequent “Help, I’ve fallen and can’t get up!” commercials came on.

Bud watched the poor woman intently for a moment and said, “I know damn good and well she didn’t fall.  She didn’t piss her pants.”

He knows whereof he speaks, having worked on a physical rehab floor for more than twenty years.

My Condolences

imageOne of the hardest parts of  being a nurse is comforting and supporting the bereaved family at the time of death.  Normally, family members are heartbroken, grieving at the death.  On a few occasions, I witnessed something different.  Mr. Jones, an elderly patient owned a successful insurance agency. Every morning, he donned freshly laundered silk pajamas.  When discharged,  He wore a fine finest suit, shirt, shoes, and hat and took great pride in being noticed.  He bragged of buying a new Cadillac every year, dining at the most prestigious restaurants, and enjoying a membership at The Country Club.

His son, Junior Jones was in his late fifties and had always worked for Daddy.  It appeared Mr. Jones was none to generous nor kind to Junior.  Junior dressed in cheap clothes and drove an ancient compact car.  It must have been miserable since he was so tall he had to fold up like a jackknife to fit in it.  When Junior came to the hospital to consult with Daddy about the business, Daddy was condescending, snide, and critical, never showing Junior the least respect.

One the morning Daddy died, we’d called to notify Junior his father’s death appeared imminent.  Junior came streaking into his father’s room just moments before Mr. Jones’ death.  I offered my condolences.  Junior ignored me, opened the drawer of the bedside table, dug out the keys to his father’s Cadillac, his father’s checkbook and left the room without speaking.  A nursing assistant who was a friend of the family walked him out to the parking garage.  He handed her the keys to his small car and drove off in his father’s big, black Cadillac.  That was different!  I guess he’d had enough.

Mrs. Johnson Sets Me Straight

imageThe time I spent getting to know my patients was the best part of nursing.  As a hospital dialysis nurse, during the course of a four-hour treatment, we had a lot of time to talk.  One of my favorite patients was a lively little seventy-year old lady, the mother of twenty-one children.  I never knew what she’d have to say.  When I expressed my amazement at her having so had many, she told me, “It wasn’t so bad. I had a set of twins, so I was only pregnant twenty times.”

“You must be proud of your kids,” I answered.

“Huh,” she snorted.  “Ain’t half of ’em worth the powder it’d take to blow ’em away.  I gotta keep my purse right with me.”

“Oh.”  I had no other response to that.

She was always full of wild tales about getting the best of her “old man” who was twenty years older than she.  I inferred they had a warm relationship, but she straightened me out when  I expressed my condolences at her next treatment after his death.

“Mrs. Johnson, I ‘m sorry to her of your loss.  I know you must miss your husband.”  I dreaded the lonely times ahead for her.

She cackled.  “I’m glad that old devil from hell is gone.  I thought for sure he was gonna outlive me.  My daddy gave me to him when I wad’n but thirteen years old.  He beat me ever’day long as he was able.  I was so proud when he got old and stoved up so I could take a piece of a firewood to him any time I got ready.  I mean to tell you I whooped him many a time.”

She always gave me plenty to think about.

True Love

imageJerry and JoEllen had been childhood sweethearts.  He had Cystic Fibrosis but did really well. He and JoEllen drifted apart while he was in college. JoElllen had left an abusive husband and was struggling to raise two toddlers on her own by the time they reconnected.   He was well-established at his engineering firm and anxious to offer JoEllen and her boys a solid life.

Things were going well for them.  They were buying a house and planning a wedding when Jerry became jaundiced.  He was found to be in acute liver failure as a result of his long and complicated medical history.   I met them when it was my privilege to be  his nurse.  JoEllen never left his side if she didn’t have to. They were such a loving couple.  It was heartbreaking to know their future together couldn’t be too long.

When it was obvious Jerry was becoming rapidly worse, they made arrangements to get a marriage license so they could marry before his death.  They were married just a day or so before Jerry died, but not before he was able to make sure JoEllen and “his” boys would be well taken care of.

Curtis, the Church Lady, and Pecan Pie

imageWith thirty years in nursing, you can well imagine I have my share of strange stories.  I worked in acute dialysis in the hospital, so knew my patients very well.  We talked about their lives, familis, dogs, whatever was on their minds.  One of my favorite patients was Curtis, a huge man, perfectly delightful, but developmentally challenged.  His thinking was about on the level of a eight-year-old.  Curtis had somehow gotten credit at a furniture store, bought a houseful of furniture, and not made a single payment.  He was being hounded for payment, so decided the best course of action was to go in the hospital, where he wouldn’t be bothered. When he told the nurse at the outpatient dialysis clinic he needed to go to the hospital, she explained he couldn’t be admitted unless sick.  He did some thinking and called her back to his chair telling her he had something for her.  (I can’t imagine how she fell for that.). He dropped an impressive lump of excrement into her outstretched hand and was admitted into the psychiatric unit of the hospital in short order.

He was happily ensconced at the hospital, soon moved to the medical floor.  One day he walked into my unit asking for a large patient gown.  He went on his way.  Curtis was not on my mind when I heard a lady out in the hall exclaim. “Oh my God! Take it!”  It seems she had been bringing a pecan pie to her hospitalized friend from church when she encountered seven-foot-tall Curtis, walking naked down the hall, looking for hospital staff to help him with his gown.  Curtis, hadn’t seen a pecan pie in way too long.  He dropped the gown, grabbed the pie and raised a clumsy fist when the poor woman resisted.  She gave up on the pie and fled shrieking.  Eventually, the whole thing smoothed over.  Curtis had his pie and his gown.  The hospital gave the lady another pecan pie and an apology.  By the time Curtis got home, his furniture had been repossessed, so he wasn’t harassed any more.  They all lived happily ever after, except of course for the nurse who got a handful of doo-doo.