There was a muscular young man who presented to the ER following an auto accident. He was not injured. One look at him, though, and you knew he could handle anything. Then he started crying for his mommy.
So much for appearances…
Then – to complete the demolition of his first impression upon my nurses – he began to hyperventilate; breathing noisily through pursed lips. As I walked in, I heard them – much amused by his needless hysteria – coaching him, “Push! Push!” One RN turned to the other and teased, “We heard it’s gonna be a girl.”
…
Busy in the ER that day? It was like the Valium booth at Woodstock.
The rescue squad which had just bought me two patients went running out the back door.
“Another call, Doc.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A hysterical 15 years old at a local high school; throwing things; broke up with her boyfriend. They want her brought here so you can check her over.”
Other than two inch nasal hair, the thing I want most is to treat a few more hysterics. “You’ll bring her to me? You’ll fulfill the first wish of my heart: to treat yet another hysteric today? Promise? Don’t say it if you don’t mean it. Don’t get my hopes built up.”
Just when you think things can’t get any worse…
…
I saw a patient – a grown man whose name was [right hand to God] Baby Jones.
These matters are above my comprehension. Perhaps you share my curiosity.
`Baby’ told me that he had gotten his name while his mom was in the hospital recovering from giving birth to him. [This was back in the days when a woman giving birth was allowed to lie in a hospital bed at least long enough to warm the sheets. Nowadays, unless you’ve been wintering in Beirut, you know that insurance companies [mostly men, I think] have decided that childbirth is the medical equivalent of a dizzy spell. Squat down for a moment and it’s over.]
Well, mom had been sitting her room thinking of a name for her baby and sensitive to the importance of this undertaking. The nurses bought her baby into her room to nurse. She noticed the name on the bassinet was `Baby Jones’; and she figured that since the hospital staff had gone to all the trouble to name her baby, the least she could do was go along. True story.
…
A little old senile lady was brought to the intensive care unit one day about 1:00 PM. Every five minutes she would yell out, “Irene? Irene!” Turns out Irene was her long-dead sister. Well, after an hour of this screaming, the staff was getting pretty tense and harboring some animosity towards this little woman.
A nurse came into the unit at three o’clock at which time her shift began, heard what was happening and went to an empty patient room where she would not be noticed. She picked up a phone and rang the unit’s main desk about ten feet away.
When the head nurse answered, the incoming nurse said, “Hello. This is Irene. Has my sister been asking for me?”
This clever devise is called `gallows humor’ in the medical trade. But let me tell you what happened, from that point on, the woman was treated with more regard, because now `Irene’ was a humor trigger and not an irritant. Interesting tale.
…
Poor Jim Smith. My partner in the ER. He drives 2 hours to work each way. Four hour trip each day he works. And he works, for the most part, 12 hour shifts. Pretty well trashes your discretionary time.
And think of the strain on wife and family!
I have a vision of him calling home.
“Honey, this is Jim.”
“Jim who?’
“Jim, your husband.”
“I had a husband once; his name was Jim, too.”
“Honey, I’m at work at the hospital.”
“My Jim used to work at a hospital.”
Poor Jim Smith.
by Lucky Garvin
Look for Lucky’s books locally and on-line: The Oath of Hippocrates; The Cotillian; A Journey Long Delayed; CAMPFIRE TALES