Google translator please...

Does anyone have a recording of someone saying the Hindi word for "fuck you AND your mama"? Because I'm pretty sure that's similar to what my patient yelled while he punched me in the face half an hour ago...

I got the iv anyway (first try, with no one helping me), I should just have a title on my badge that says "I win, always"...

Apparently I'm fit to teach others...

So they told me that I'm being assigned as someone's main preceptor, which means I get to show them how to be a nurse and how to do our job.

Is it wrong that my first reaction was, "I don't know if you guys know how inappropriate I really am...." ?

I'm actually a little bit terrified. Part of how I work is so not by the book, and I am totally not a policy and procedure bitch.

What if this person has no sense of humor? What if they do some dumb shit and people blame me?

There has to be someone more qualified, right?

I would really like to know this backstory

I got floated to a different unit last night. On the side of a trash can *inside the employees-only rest room* it said, "please do not pee in me", with a sad face underneath.

Overheard...

Coworker 1: "She asked that lady? That lady's as confused as the day is long."

Coworker 2: (pauses for a beat, then) "Oh, man. The day is REALLY long."

IT'S FRIDAY!!!!

Alternate title: I wonder what this guy does on Mondays...

So I was getting ready to leave and (in my night shift stupor) almost bumped into a patient walking with a tech. They kept walking (in between knots of doctors doing rounds and groups of nurses giving shift report) and when they got across the unit, I guess the guy saw the board where it says the date and other basic info.

He excitedly yelled, "IT'S FRIDAY!!!" ...

And proceeded to tear off his gown (he was, of course, nude underneath) and continue walking around the unit. Well, for a few seconds anyway.

On my way out after seeing this, I heard someone say, "well, some of us celebrate differently...".

Next best thing to a your mom joke

Me: "... And I'm going to be your nurse tonight until around 7 am."

Patient: "ok. Go easy on me, I just drove a really long way."

Me: "You did? Where did you come from?"

Patient (deadpan): "My mom."

Just a one-line vent

Ok, maybe more like one paragraph. Or two. Or... Fuck it.

Sometimes this place is so achingly sad I feel like I carry it around physically - as if it accumulates in my bones and changes the way that I move. I feel so much heavier after a few days of sadness around here. There is just so much hope. It kills me.

An aside: I don't like saying a patient "expired". I hate how that sounds so much. How about, "they've been trying to die for a month and finally won"? Or "patient died"? We call it a time of death, why do so many people say such quaint, stupid things around death?

I can't help but feel like I'm a cog on a conveyor belt sometimes. I love my job a lot, and sometimes I hate it a lot. Probably not for the reasons you'd think.

We can't do much about long term un-interpretable suffering. I can help you with pain as long as you're able to say something or look uncomfortable, or give me some kind of sign. If you're in a long term altered state of consciousness, sometimes we can't tell. Did that hurt? When you moved your arm there, were you trying to tell me something? I can't tell for sure. I am trying so hard to make this comfortable for you, while your loved ones crowd around and sit in the waiting room and talk, try and figure out what to do - what the chances are, what they mean. Can you hear all this? Do you know what they're saying? If I somehow miss a sign that you're terribly uncomfortable, that this is prolonged and endless torture ...

... Would you forgive me? ... hell, will you forgive me?