Life on the West Side

Took care of the cutest little 6 year old for the last few days at work, the poor little guy was full of lines and tubes and all sorts of after surgery scary things. I tried all my tricks to get him to feel better, and none of the tickling or funny faces or stickers or ANYTHING would make this kid talk to me, or even crack a smile. During my 2 days with him I got to know and like his family pretty well, and was in their room a lot.  Every time I was in there I was always trying with my tricks… but the little booger wouldn’t even crack a HALF smile! Then right before I was heading home on the 2nd day, his Mom came up and told me his 8 year old sister was talking to my little buddy and she said, “Your nurse seems pretty nice.” And my little mute/non-smiling kiddo told his sister,

“She’s the best nurse EVER!” with a HUGE smile on his face.

And that is what makes this all worth it and gets me through.

When I was in nursing school doing clinicals at UofM, my classmate had this cute little old lady one morning and was checking in on her.

Classmate -”Good morning Mrs. H, how is your breakfast?”

Mrs. H -”Oh it’s good, but the jam is a little bland. I’ve never had the kind from Kentucky before, I don’t think I care for it”

Classmate – “Jam from Kentucky? I’ve never heard of that either, show me”

Mrs. H hands my friend a packet of K-Y Jelly left over from her bladder catheterization… that she had put on her toast and eaten for breakfast.

Mmm me likey Kentucky jam! (blech!)

This one’s from my friend in the ER…

A very large woman came into the ER with left chest pain. We triaged her and started to do the whole cardiac work up. I had her take off her shirt and was positioning the cardiac leads to do an EKG when I lifted up her (very large, very heavy) left breast and I found… a fork.

A FORK! Under her boob!

So I pulled it out and showed her saying, “This might be causing your chest pain.” You know what the woman said – she said,

“Oh! I’ve been looking for that! Thanks!”

Seriously?!?! Do you often lose your silverware when you fall asleep eating in bed?

I texted this to my sister Sarah and we were both so baffled by it, we thought it should be shared with the blog world…

I was working at the hospital yesterday and a patients Mom said to me, “I need to feed my baby and I need to eat lunch. I can’t do both at the same time. Can I borrow your boobs to feed my baby?”

Umm… WHAT?!?!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty certain you have to have been pregnant or lactating to nurse children. Last I checked, I’ve been neither.  Also, last I heard, hospitals stopped using “Wet Nurses” a long long long time ago.