Wednesday, January 7, 2009

favorite quote of the week

I had my monthly weekend shift at the hospital last weekend and am trying to increase my confidence on taking the really sick patients in the CCU. So I took a 46 year old man that had arrested in the cath lab and was getting better but still pretty sick. English is not his primary language and it was hard to assess his mental status because I couldn't tell if it was a language vs. cognitive barrier. WEll half way through my twelve hour shift Mr. Crazy train flew off the handle and started kicking and taking swings at me, thus I had to restrain him. Needless to say it was a VERY long 12 hour shift. It was as if he was a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Since we are able to choose our patients for the day, I have yet to take him again and its seems rightfully so. Now that he is getting stronger it seems as if his "problems" are more of a cultural nature, as he is from a country where women are not viewed as equals to men. So he makes tons of EXTREMELY inappropriate comments, most of them sexual in nature, and demands the nurses to do things left and right. So the quote of the week from him was last night when he told his nurse (who was not me) to "get the doctor right now or else I'll break this bottle over your head!" At least he kept me awake all night with his rediculous demands, and kept me laughing!