I’m not sure how many of you know that one of the purposes of this site is to submit stories of your own, whether you are a patient, CNA, nurse, doctor, EMT, volunteer, etc. I’m so interested in reading health care stories from many points of view.

So happily, I present my very first story submission! Enjoy!

Ever had one of those days where it seems that everyone and anyone is out to get you? We get days like that fairly frequently in Emergency, especially when the moon is full or welfare cheques get cashed…

I had one of those days a few weeks back, complete with two psych patients in our resident “Quiet” rooms (AKA Our Rubber room, where the potentially violent pateints are placed to avoid hurting themselves…or others.), one psych patient in our “Pastoral Care Room”, one in the hallway (Yes Gary Filmon, Hallway medicine DOES exist) and Three Constant Care Psych patients in our “Re-Assessment” area. (We call it “The Pit”)

So, not only am I dealing with the “Normal” patients who have come in for Chest Pain, Gastro-Intestinal Bleeds, P.V. Exams and Casting material, I get to run between 7 psych patients, helping the nurses deal with each patient respectively. Two of them are not too bad, sleeping when I’m on shift and the nurses weren’t about to go in and wake them needlessly, but the other five…

The One in the hall is a little old lady who has had a stroke and has left side aphasia (In laymans terms, think Jean Chretien) and left side paralysis, needing a wheelchair to walk. Her doctor ordered Lasix for her (A pill that makes you pee until you can’t go pee no more….and then you pee some more) so she was CONSTANTLY asking for the bed pan. We had to move her to our Shower Room so that she could use the pan in relative peace, then move her back to her spot in the hall. Funny thing was, she kept trying to “Escape” from the stretcher we’d put her in because she wanted to go to the bathroom on her own…even though she couldn’t walk. She even fell asleep on the throne once or twice. Needless to say, we were up with her all night.

Our Pastoral Care guest was a “Frequent Flyer” for us. Someone who’s been kicked out of going to Community Service Homes like the Salvation Army because he’s either High on sniff or disruptive to the other residents. This man’s personal care isn’t the best either. I think he’s also a diabetic because his feet smell something fierce…like a cross between cheese and moldy bread. He’d been in to see a friend of his who was brought in by Ambulance, but ended up staying until the local Police Detachment could come and get him. He’d been drinking (of course) and went to use the bathroom in our Stretcher Bay. I found him later when the cleaning lady (Housekeeping) had asked me if there was someone in the bathroom. Finding this guy passed out with his pants around his ankles kinda split me in three ways: Annoyance, Hilarity and Pity. This guy was harder to rouse than a patient on 10 mg’s of Haldol or Ativan, so once I actually got a verbal response from him (Which consisted of some nasty words that shall not be repeated here for the sake of those poor sailors out there) I basically told him he had fifteen mins to finish up before I was going to turf him from my department. No word of a lie. Harsh, yes, but with patients like those you need to be tough.

Anyways, I come back fifteen mins later to find him passed out again on the throne. At this point, the nurses are getting slightly worried and the patients are justifiably nervous, so I make a call to the police department (Non-Emergent call center) and contact security to come and remove the vagrant from my toilet. Our psych Nurse (Who is an angel in disguise I tell ya) tells security and I to put him in the Pastoral Care room until the police come to get him, and give him a sandwich to tide him over. Well, Security and I had to DRAG this guy out of the can, but the moment he heard the word “Sandwich” he was walking, talking and heading towards the Pastoral Care room.

Our Third patient was a little old bird who was very slight and very fragile. She was also VERY demented. No really…she suffered from Dementia. Problem was, she couldn’t tell us when she had to go to the bathroom, and she couldn’t walk to the bathroom either. The Nurse gets the bright idea to give this lady a foley cath instead. They’d already tried on the previous shift to get a cath in this lady, but apparently she pinched, scratched, bit, hit, punched, swore and kicked up such a fuss that they couldn’t landmark properly to get the cath in.

So, I not only hand to hold her hands down to keep her from hitting the nurse, I also had to hold her leg open so that the nurse could see what he was doing. This pateint started off near our the end of the bed. By the time we got the cath in, she was nearly falling out the head of the bed. She’d also pinched me a couple of times, and swore so bad that she made ME blush (and I was in the Army for six years).

The other two weren’t so bad. They were actually quite pleasant to deal with and very understanding. I think they were trying to jump through the hoops so they wouldn’t be thought of as nutters.

I now affectionately refer to that day as “The International Psych Patient Care Day”…

and people ask my why I hate dealing with psych patients.

~Kaylin