What the Random....

By nature I am a very private person and tend to keep my thoughts to myself (unless I'm in just the right mood and then all bets are off). Being in the medical world there are A LOT of things that I have seen, done, witnessed, heard that I can never repeat - which is fine. But it occurred to me that I can share some of my experiences that don't violate HIPAA and I don't have to keep everything to myself - so here goes...

• I have had to put several patients in restraints; I will never forget the first time I did that (they were being a hazard to themselves and for their own safety had to be restrained but I felt so guilty doing it even though there wasn't another way and we were out of options)
• I traded in my red scrubs for light grey; while at first I didn't like the red because I felt like I drew too much attention to myself, it really grew on me after awhile and now I really like it, I do not have such feelings for my grey scrubs though they are quite comfy
• While I was sitting with a patient, his wife and daughter were talking about how it was her birthday and how her 26 year old son would be 27 in September and how he was almost 30 and how she couldn't believe how old he was. I didn't tell them my age – I don't think of myself as almost 27, that's 9 months away, let alone almost 30. Couldn't help but laugh though. I was telling a friend about it and she said that she doesn't mind rounding up because her husband is in his early 30's and by saying she's almost 30 it doesn't make her seem as young – I'm older than her by six days – that may be all well and fine but the difference is, she's married, has a kid and another on the way and I'm not, when guys find out my age they deliberately stop talking to me
• An early 20's trauma patient said that 26 was “too old for sex”
• I got another proposal of marriage, this time by a 70 something man who thought it was 1820 and had no idea he was in the hospital
• While playing chess with a patient on suicide watch he told me that he'd done it because he wanted to “quite while he was ahead”; he'd worked in a couple of nursing homes and saw what the residents were like and he didn't want that for himself
• a patient with dementia told me that she “doesn't have a screw loose” and she “isn't mentally disorientated”
• My boss sent out an email a little while ago because she's concerned that some of us have been doing more patient sitting than floor work; she asked if we're asking to be sitters and if we feel comfortable telling the staffer/charge nurse no. If I sat every single shift on the same floor than it might be a problem, but whereas I'm only sitting about every third one typically on different floors – I don't mind so much. They specifically told us not to ask to be reassigned – how is this any different? They send us where there's a need and it's my opinion that patient sitting is as important as working the floor – it requires a different skill set that is often disregarded. It reminded me of a conversation I had with my auto mechanic the last time I took my Saturn in to be fixed. He'd told me how he was impressed how cheerful and patient I was every time I'd bring my car in to be fixed(which was a lot) – how I'd just sit and wait four to six hours while they did their thing only to be given increasingly discouraging news each time. Working hospice I learned how to be patient – that carried over to dealing with my car and thankfully it's also carried over to patient sitting. You are more or less sitting with one to two patients for eight to twelve hours, you can't leave and there's limited mobility – patience is needed in abundance – from working hospice and dealing with my lemon of a car I have some. I still get irritated but I'm working on keeping it under control