Things I find unacceptable

Talking on your cell phone in the restaurant bathroom. Loudly. While you're peeing.

That's.just.gross.

Awkward and Uncomfortable

Awkward and uncomfortable hospital moment last week:

One of my patients was a 70 year old woman . . . who looked like she was 45. She had had a lot of work done, and it was very obvious that she didn't want to look old. Her hair was my color and up in pigtails (which drove me crazy) and she had so much mascara on I began to wonder if there was some kind of surgery for that as well. I would lose her heart and lung sounds every time I moved my stethoscope into her bosom area, since, apparently, silicone does not let sound through.

So, near the end of my first day with her she asked me to bring her her black bag that was in the cupboard. I did, and she started to rummage around in it. Much to my surprise, she pulled out two pairs of lacey underwear and told me that she would feel so much better once she "got her panties on". Firstively, I very, very hate that word. With a holy passion. Secondively, I don't really need to know that much about you.

Here's where I got even more uncomfortable. SHE ASKED ME TO PICK OUT WHICH ONES SHE SHOULD WEAR!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate myself for the words that came out of my mouth in response. "Well. These ones would compliment this little pink stripe in your gown nicely."

Seriously? Seriously!?!

I left the room after making sure she didn't hurt herself putting them on. (Yeah. That's right. I had to watch a 70 year old woman put on her unmentionables.) I grabbed some Purell and found myself wishing I could disinfect more than just my hands.

My advice to you is this: Please don't let vanity take over so much that this becomes you in 40 years.

I had to put my finger up someone's butt

It was awkward. But she wanted it. So I did it.

She was 75, and fixated on the fact that she hadn't had a BM 2 days after surgery. That's completely normal, but try telling her that. No. Seriously. Try. Because she couldn't hear me. She kept telling me she wanted an enema. Well, the only other laxative prescribed, other than the docusate, senna, and milk of magnesia, was a suppository. So that's what we gave her. I lubed it up, and shoved it on in. Just so you know, you go up and over to the left.

She had a BM a little later, but wasn't happy with it.

I felt like smacking her.

I've been remiss

Oh my gosh!!!! I can't believe I forgot to tell you!!!

One of our first days in Med-Surg (it might have been our very first day, actually), we were talking about things you have to do before a patient goes down to surgery. She's talking about how you have to make sure to take their glasses off, their dentures out, their rings off (or taped), their earrings out, you know. The usual. And then! She says "Oh, and you'll have to take out their penile piercing if they have one." What the hell? Who on earth does that? My friend Becky told me that she looked over at me at that point in time because she knew what my reaction would be. She said my face was hilarious and that I was just staring straight ahead.

Seriously. My advice to you is this: don't marry a man with a penile piercing. It will only end in heartache.

I officially hate med-surg paperwork

I do, however, love cute little 90-something year old men who say 'hurry . . . hurry!' when the nurse is helping him to the bathroom.

He was adorable.

I do not, as it turns out, like having a patient ask me if I want to spoon.

Dear Women of the World

Leggings are not pants. Neither are opaque tights. I don't care how opaque you think they are. They are never opaque enough to take the place of pants. Especially when you choose to wear them with a very short skirt.

Case in point:

I was walking into the Buckley Center (where I have most of my classes) behind this girl who . . . well . . . let's just say she should not have been wearing a short skirt that barely covered her bum, let alone the semi-opaque tights underneath it. And that's it. That's all she had on below the waist. To make things worse, her skirt and tights didn't seem to like each other, so the skirt had started to ride up a touch. To make things worser, her bag and coat made the skirt go up even further. As she climbed the three flights of stairs ahead of me, I had the distinct pleasure of slowly finding out what color underwear she had on. In case you're wondering, it was purple (Go Pilots!). I was torn between telling her and letting her go on with her day. And then I realized, no, this is how you learn.
How will she ever learn that tights (which she perhaps thought of as leggings) are an undergarment, not a proper outer garment. She also needed to learn that that length of skirt was not appropriate.

I gotta tell ya. There's nothing like getting a face full of purple underwear at 9:40 in the morning.

Find a Happy Place

Well, the day finally came. The day of swabbing. I cannot tell you how awful it was to hear my professor describe what we would be doing today. It all started out so innocent. The throat, the nose, some inanimate object, and then...the anal swab. So, here's how it went down. She tells us about the different swabs and the different broths they have to go into to incubate, and she describes what needs to be done for each swab. She tells us how to swab the throat, the nose, the inanimate object...and then she tells us that we'll want to go somewhere private for the anal swab. Really? Really? We'll want to go somewhere private for that? And I loved that she made it sound like it could be anywhere. Like we weren't all going to make a beeline for the bathroom. She also kept telling us that there didn't need to be any penetration, that there was plenty of bacteria in the area around the anus. Fantastic. That's just wonderful. And so reassuring. So, two of the other girls at my table and I decide to do the anal swab first and just get it over with. We grab a tube of broth, the swab and head to bathroom. We swab in silence and go back to the lab room. We put our tubes of broth in the incubator and continue on with our swabbing experiment. We were almost done with the experiment when one of my lab partners realizes that we used the wrong broth for the anal swab. ARE.YOU.FRICKIN'.KIDDING.ME!!!!! So, we grabbed the correct broth, another sterile (for now) swab and head back to the bathroom. I must say, it was faster the second time around. I've also never felt so violated in my entire 27 years, and the sad thing is that I did it to myself.