Oprah Moments

Life has been full of Oprah Moments lately. I learned about Oprah Moments from my friend Kate when we were skiing a few winters back. We were just about to get on the ski lift and she excitedly announced she was ready for some Oprah Moments. She explained that Oprah Moments happen when you are sitting quietly on the lift and rising above the trees and everything is silent and cold and you can see the entire valley and you start feeling very profound. Everything looks clear and beautiful and you are aware of your own heart beating and you feel simultaneously very alone and incredibly connected to everything around you. I think Oprah moments happen for her when she is skiing down the mountain too, but I am unfamiliar with this bliss because I fundamentally dislike skiing as I stumble down the hill making WIDE turns on either side of the trail, avoiding any movement faster than 2 miles an hour. Calling them Oprah Moments is a joke, but it stuck.

My Oprah Moments have been happening daily now that Spring is here. It’s becoming clearer each year that I should leave this climate. I don’t realize how truly miserable I am all winter until spring shows up and I feel like someone has taken a plastic bag off my head and I can suddenly breath again. If I lived in a wintery climate year-round, it’s possible I would have taken my own life by now. Spring shows up and all of a sudden I mysteriously start working out again, cutting calories, eating healthy, flossing my teeth, washing my face, reading, turning off the [godamn] tv, listening to more NPR, looking for ways to get involved in society, thinking about going back to school (mind you, i’ve been out of school for less than a year), wanting to have sex again, etc. etc. Life becomes FULL of Oprah Moments. DAMN YOU WINTER! I’m a shell of a person for five months every year and, each spring, I’m surprised to peak out of my crusty lizard suit and re-discover such an inviting world.

Posts in my mind.

Someday, there will be a technology where I can compose my blog posts without actually having to go home and type them. I probably post something everyday . . . in my head. As I walk home from work, or as I sit on the subway, I compose these incredibly witty posts which never make it to the actual blog. Mostly, I stumble in the door, grab the labtop, crawl into bed with a corn muffin, and watch online episodes of ‘My So-Called Life’ until I fall asleep [which usually happens by 9:30AM]. Then, I wake up anywhere from 5 – 6:30 PM, go to work and start all over again. By the time I make it to work, I have forgotten my clever post from that morning and begin gathering fodder for a new post which will never be written.

I’m the worst at blogging ever.

But, just as I believe that SOMEDAY, I will be a regular teeth flosser, work out 5 times a week, eat four servings of vegetables a day, and wash my face daily . . . So too will I post on my blog regularly!

Chapter 1: Ms. Crazy (an epic tale)

I am hesitant to write this post because I know that, in writing, I will never do this story justice. This story needs video and sound, especially. I have debated bringing a tape recorder to work, but I know that the privacy issues there are insurmountable. So this is just the shell of a story really.

My most favorite patient is a man named “Unknown White Male” (UWM). Recently, he has become a daily (and sometimes twice – daily) visitor to my ER. Occasionally, his bed label says, “Unknown White Male,” and other times, he is lucid enough to tell us his actual name. We’ll call him Mr. Macenroe. Mr. Macenroe has been my actual patient four times, though I see him daily.

Encounter # 1: The story actually starts on the street. As I emerged from the subway, four blocks from work, I spotted a homeless man standing on the corner. His pants were pulled down to just below his genitals and his penis was swinging in the wind and dripping urine in a puddle at his feet. He had a thick, discolored beard and was spitting and screaming incoherently like a caged beast. Pedestrians were giving him a very wide berth. I thought to myself – Hm. This man will probably be my patient later.

About five hours later, I got report from the triage nurse that I have a filthy ETOH (drunk) in Isolation Room 14, waiting for me. “Oh, and just a warning, he is a spitter.” Thanks triage nurse.

Remember, we put actual Isolation patients these rooms [TB, Meningitis, bed bugs], but we also keep VERY stinky patients or VERY psychotic patients in there. Sometimes, on a really bad, busy day, we will put 2-3 of our regular drunks in one isolation room, close the door, and hope that, in 12 hours, they will have all disappeared [ie. stumbled out without being seen].

I peeked in the room and saw him [of course!] naked from the waste down, tied to the bed from each wrist, mouth covered by a surgical mask. His substantial yellowish-brown beard spilled out from the sides of his mask and his crazy eyes darted around the room (for more on crazy eyes, try this ). He was still screaming incoherently.

So basically, I was in for a really great morning. Through the window, from 4 feet away, you could see that his scrotum was HUGE. Probably 4 times the size of a normal sac. I chose to ignore him for the time being, deal with my other patients, and then devise a plan of attack for treating this guy. Among my list of orders written by the doctor: rectal temperature and IV. Thank you doctor.

The time finally came that I needed to face Mr. Unknown White Male and his various problems: psychosis and superhuman scrotum. I gathered my IV stuff, the rectal thermometer and a box of gloves. I very nicely asked the doctor to come in the room with me and help me out since he was the one who wanted this rectal temp so much. I grabbed a hospital police officer and another nurse, just for good measure. From the looks of it, the restraints were loosening and I did not want to end up like my colleague who lost her front teeth recently at the hands of a drunk patient.

We opened the door and, totally needless to say, the smell was retched. Unknown White Male stared us down as we approached, grunting and screaming while his scrotum bulged. The doctor, amusingly, tried to interview Unknown White Male about his past medical history:

MD: Sir, do you have any medical problems?
UWM: (roaring) MY PUSSY MOUNT SINAI MEDICAL CENTER FAGGOTS TRYING TO STEAL MY FUCK YOU FUCK YOU TAKE OFF THIS MASK SO MY PUSSY BREATHS FUCKING FAGGOTS (pausing to take a breath) IM A DOCTOR!!!! A DOCTOR FROM MOUNT SINAI BUT MY PUSSY FAGGOTS!!!!!!!!!

Amazingly, we were able to put in an IV with the doctor restraining one arm, hospital police splayed across his legs, and myself and another nurse wrestling with his other arm. I moved around to his feet with the thermometer and in one swift movement, lifted his 37 pound sac in my left hand and stuck the probe in with my right.

FUCKING FAGGOTS GRABBED MY SCROTUM GRABBED MY SCROTUM LET GO OF MY SCROTUM YOU FAGGOT THOSE ARE MY BALLS MY BALLS!!!!!! PROBING MY ASS THESE FAGGOTS! ALWAYS PROBING MY ASS!!!!!!!!!

[Note: If anything, I am underplaying his colorful language and the CAPS just don't do his screaming/spitting justice]

For a brief moment I thought to myself, “I really don’t want to be doing this. I dont want to hold his man’s testicles and I don’t want to be near his anus and I’m not sure how I got to this point in my life where this is actually MY JOB. This is what I get paid for? I have chosen to do this?” The thermometer beeped. No fever. Of course. I threw a sheet over him, which he, of course, ripped off.

We left the room, exhausted and covered in spittle……

Cringe moments

First of all, this is such a genius idea:

Cringe Readings

So, I had my own cringe moment the other day at work and I have been trying to hide under a desk ever since.

I had a patient who was horrible and psychotic . . . so basically that’s the start to all my stories. In any event, this particular patient had a panic value on her chart, meaning one of her lab values was dangerously high or low. I was SO busy that night [no "lunch" break until 4AM] and the patient was not in ANY acute distress, so I was not particularly worried.

I glanced at her lab values and saw that, in her CBC (complete blood count), SOMETHING was only 18. I didn’t recognize the lab value immediately and noted that her H&H (hemaglobin and hematocrit) were OK. Good, no blood transfusions tonight; at that point, that was all I cared about. So I pushed the panic value to the back of my mind and continued on with my 56,000 other tasks. Eventually, I meandered over to the attending physician to let him know.

Just a side note: The physicians can see the panic values as well, so it was not as if this woman’s life was in my hands until I let him know. Really, he should have known already from the blinking red microscope symbol next to her name.

So I say, Hey Dr. Flong [not his real name], Patient psychotic with a headache has a panic value – can she be seen soon? [she had not yet been seen 6 hours after arrival]

Dr. Flong: What’s the panic value?
Me: Ummmm (shit, shit). Something obscure or something. I don’t know – I didn’t recognize it. Plt or something? Whatever it is, it’s 18.
Dr. Flong [to the resident standing next to him, both of them trying to act like I don't exist]: Oh, her platelets are 18. Maybe you can see her next?
Me: Ok, great, I have the IQ of a ferret. I’m going to go gouge my eyes out. Thanks.

I mean, come on! PLT!!! PLATELETS!! That would be like a stockbroker saying to his boss: “Hey, so I saw this thing on the news this morning; something about a DOW? It’s low or something. I mean, whatever it is, it must be obscure because I haven’t even heard of it.”

I have been cringing every 40 minutes since this episode.

A note on cringing: When I do or say something stupid [usually at work], I feel the aftershocks for at least 3-7 days afterwards. Thinking about it feels like a bolt of lighting and, frequently, I will visibly shiver, twitch, or do a Tourrette’s-like yelp until the cringe-feeling passes. Anyone else? Is this just part of my generalized anxiety problem which I refuse to address or do normal people do this too?