Tales from the Nuthouse: Lest You Think I have a Really Cool Job
 

Tonight's adventure involved a now-sobered-up-enough-to-talk-to drunk. He had actually been hauled in a couple of days ago, but was too drunk to evaluate. He was even too drunk to really haul in ... got picked up at his house and taken to a medical hospital without us even seeing him to make sure he needed to go to medical. What he had been doing was not in any way interesting or spectacular. Threatening to shoot himself "if he had a gun."

Were it not for some ethical and legal issues, I'd be willing to help him out.

Anyway, this drunk has a long history of being a drunk.

During one of his drunken escapades many years ago he suffered injuries that left him a paraplegic. He gets around in a wheelchair, and has tempted several police departments into wanting to issue a DUI as he rolls his way up a four lane highway against the flow of traffic. Unfortunately, they don't ever follow through on this and tend to bring him to my hospital.

So, anyway, he comes in tonight after two days of sobering up in a nice medical bed. I end up dealing with him and listen to his story of distress and woe over some recent losses, including his "little buddy" (a neighbor's dog that died unexpectedly), the Pope, and an ex-girlfriend, his last girlfriend before his injury. He found it necessary to explain how he was "broken" below the waist, and was "no good to a woman any more."

I sincerely doubt that he was much good to a woman before that, frankly.

So, what's the real point of the story here, you might be wondering?

I didn't have any male staff available, and drunken asshole decides that he needs to urinate. This involves some mechanical assistance. He has a catheter which thankfully he is able to insert himself.

I was hoping to just leave him with his tubing and a plastic urinal, but no such luck. The damn thing kept falling over as he tried to get things set up.

So there I was, holding one of those elongated pee-pee bottles, and working very, very hard to maintain eye contact with him as he was shoving a small bore hose through the ureter of his flaccid, nonfunctional unit.

On the upside, I did not get any urine on me.

Ah, come on, wolf! Not so bad! I've done it thousands of times and with working units, to boot! Ya know what's really fun? Scrotal ultrasounds--ya gotta tape the big buddy up and out of the way so you can scan the twins! Fun!

I thought cleaning the "science projects" out of our office refrigerator was bad. You're a bigger woman than I, wolf. I really don't think I could have done that.

That's why wolf is the Woah-man!

I went to school extra so I didn't have to do stuff like this.

I am not a nurse. I respect nurses. (most of them. the ones that aren't dirt stupid, the ones who don't prepare to do something very, very wrong in a medical sense of the word, and preface it with "I'm a nurse and I know." You get this more in older (over 50) psych nurses since they are so far removed from their nursing skills and training you really wouldn't trust them to do a bed bath.)

I had a scrotal ultrasound, and no nurse taped my unit in any way. I feel left out!

Hey wolf:

You mentioned drunk was eventually sufficiently sober to speak, but you did not mention if anywhere in this story he managed to say thank you.

So, on behalf of drunk, thank you.

On behalf of all those who can no longer do for themselves, and who depend on others to help them, thank you for your service, thank you for your compassion. It's a fucked up situation all around, and even though you're the one handling the bodily fluids and parts and endless call buttons and bullshit, the one on the receiving end would swap places with you in a heartbeat.

It sucks to not be able to help one's self anymore, and to have to depend on another this way sucks for everyone, in some way.

So, I want to say thank you.

I dunno. A job where you have to come in any sort of contact with the genitals of a drunken paraplegic warrants hazard pay. Particularly if it's the sort of place where you're likely to have poo thrown at you (or worse). wolf, how do you keep your spirits up around all the whack jobs? I'd be as suicidal as them after awhile.

SHhhhhhhh!

I don't really have an answer to this.

We question ourselves at work a lot ... why are we doing this.

One of the answers is that we have no marketable job skills.

The truth, of course, is that we do, we just don't have personalities that fit well in private industry. I say fuck all too often, don't know how a corporate power structure works, and would probably strangle myself with the bow on my peter pan collar if I ever had to wear a business suit, or even a skirt on a regular basis.

Part of my personal answer is that this seems to be what I was made to do. I had never laid eyes on a live mental patient until I walked into the hospital 13 years ago this June ... but I'm very comfortable with the population, I'm constantly in a position where I have to think creatively, improvise, and figure out how to make the impossible possible.

I don't usually see blood or body fluids, but yeah, when I do, it's a doozy.

There are a lot of people who come in hating me, thinking I'm a bitch, and making some significant death threats against me. Most of them get over it after the med levels rise high enough in their blood. I've had at least one guy try to kill me, but he only succeeded in breaking my hand.

The fact that I came back after that says a lot ... either I love what I'm doing, or I have some massive fucking bills to pay. Okay, both.

My coworkers and I always talk about getting out. Doing something else. One of them went to school for computer repair ... he has quit three times and come back after what he left for failed to work out. My other partner is getting his MBA and dreams of going to work for a real company. I went to graduate school with the intent of honing my expertise in this field. I go to additional training on Suicide, Critical Incident Stress Management, Disaster Response, Weapons of Mass Destruction not because I have to, but because I want to. I don't have a license to maintain. I don't need continuning education credits, but I love this stuff.

Our current "exit plan" is that we'll all quit when the shrink quits ... he has decided that he will retire to Ghana, where he is building a very beautiful house (we've seen pictures) to raise snails and sell them for an obscene profit to the French. We will spend the mornings tending to the snails, making sure they are properly shaded, watered, happy and free of salt, then we will spend the afternoon on the veranda, smoking the finest Ghanian weed, drinking Palm Wine, and being refreshed by the cooling breezes. I will be the Director of Snail Security, and keep the snails safe from banditry.

Unforunately, he won't be retiring right away.

Or one of my favorite variants...

Having to administer enemas to schizophrenics who either:

a) refuse to take a dump or,
b) really like having an enema... :eek:

isn't this just one guy??

I've got to think that's better. I mean, wouldn't the untaping hurt, regardless of who was doing it??

depends...one way to get gum out of hair is to use some vegetable oil. you do the math.

Um. That might be bad for the tech or nurse, but it's REALLY bad for the subject. Well, the taping might not be so bad but removing it.... YEEOWWW.