I Scare Myself Sometimes ...............
I probably shouldn't be allowed to work some nights. Last night was one of those "Zombies from Hell" nights in the ER.
Most nights you get drug seeking Zombies, belligerent bastards and ignorant oxygen thieves, taking up space in the ER from people who really need to be there. Nothing unusual about that.
Sometimes, something ratchets up what I call, "The weirdness factor", to incredible levels. It's like being in the audience at a Jerry Springer Show taping.
Let me give you a little run down of the types of folks I was dealing with.
The EMS scanner dispatches an ambulance to a residence for a 53 year old woman who had fallen in the shower. At 8 o'clock in the morning. And injured her finger. JUST her finger. Nothing else. 12 hours ago. Of course EMS are forbidden to tell these Zombies, to go pound sand, so they bring her in and drop her with me. I have them take her straight to the waiting room up front for some "fluorescent Light Therapy". This is therapeutic for me anyways.
After 45 minutes or so of light therapy, I Triage her and chew her a new one about abusing the EMS services. It's like talking to a 185 lb Chia Pet with home made tattoos. She gets her rings cut off, Xray and a splint on her broken finger - And then asks me to call the ambulance to take her home.
AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I told her absolutely not and went thru my whole schpeil about abusing the EMS system again, Yada,Yada, Yada. She's pissed now and bitching about how is she gonna get home. A refrain from telling her what I'm really thinking, but send her out and tell her to call a cab from the waiting room. She screams at me and tells me to perform a sex act I'm sure I'm not limber enough to pull off.
It went down hill from there.
Two young females, sisters I think, come in demanding immediate attention because one of them has a kidney stone and is dying. That would be the one chewing gum and text messaging while I'm trying to Triage her. Ummmm, pardon me if I don't get to excited about the possibility of you dying right in front of me here. I got her into a room and gave her a cup to pee in just so I wouldn't have to look at them. Doc orders some tests and a scan for her alledged stone. 48 minutes after walking in the door they are complaining about how long things are taking and "We never wait this long in XXXville Hospital". I asked them if they thought they were in the drive thru at McDonald's. They failed to see the genius of my humor. Then implored me to perform the same impossible sex act as the first Zombie and left.
I'm on a roll!! My customer service ratings are starting to look like Ted Kennedy's man tits.
Now all this crap is going on while we are trying to care for actual sick people too. A drug seeker with a "Migraine" is thrashing around out front scaring the registration girls, so I Triage her to get her out of their view. I've got a good memory for those people and have seen her before. I didn't get to the Doc and he ordered a big slug of narcotics for her and these were administered by the other nurse. Oh well. Upon discharge time, I asked her where the driver she'd told me she'd had was at. She started giving me some BS and I told her she had to have a driver or I was gonna make her sit there for at least 4 more hours. She got on the phone then and told me her sister was coming to pick her up. Great. Let me know when she gets here. I know she's gonna bolt and drive off all jacked up on Narcs and I'm pissed. I pulled her into the room and called her on her BS. She denies driving herself in and continues with the whole, "My sister is coming, but she can't come in 'cause of her kids are with her in the car. I'll wait outside the front door for her." Shit. I don't have time for this BS. I told her she was lying and I knew it and that I was gonna call the cops if she drove off. Thinking ahead, I advised her not to come back too. She slid out as soon as my back was turned and drove off on a motorscooter. She didn't tell me to do that impossible sex thing tho' and hopefully, she won't be back for awhile.
While I'm in the middle of starting an IV, Some AssMonkey starts screaming out in the hall. No, not yelling, really screaming. Seems his young girlfriend has had a bellyache for 30 minutes and having to wait 12 minutes in the Triage area was to much for him. I finish up taping my IV and hang the fluids and go see what's up. The unit clerk has called the Cops already. Bless her. This guys about 20 - 22 and totally out of control. Screaming at the top of his lungs that his girl is gonna die and not using the nicest language. Scares the hell out of all the patients and families. It should have scared me but for some reason it didn't. I was calm and tried to de-escalate him, but it wasn't working to well. I think he was fixin to pound my ass when the cops showed up. I just told them to get him out of there so I could see what was bothering his girl. He just couldn't get himself under control and ended up starting some crap with the cop and earned himself a night in jail.
This was only some of what I had to see last night. All while trying to care for real sick people. It's that way in every ER in America. It's difficult to do a good job for those who really need it with all this other crap going on. We try. We really do. Keep this little story in mind when you have to wait for test results and such. There's always these distractions that keep us from doing the job properly.
