The last post got me to thinking about some moments as a nurse when I'd found it pretty awkward & really just didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
When I was studying nursing I worked as a personal carer in a nursing home on weekends. I was working my first late shift & had been directed by one of the more senior staff to go & put a uridome on a certain gentleman. For those who don’t know what a uridome is they are also called condom catheters – as they are put on like a condom and hooked up to tubing & a bag for urinary drainage. I went in to the gentleman, explained what I was going to do & proceeded. The first thing I noticed was that he had had an orchidectomy – in other words he had no balls. The poor man also had one of the smallest penises I’d ever seen but finally after a great deal of effort I managed to get the uridome to stay on. I then proceeded out down the hall to the nurses’ station where I was met with a chorus of laughter, the whole thing had been a set up & they were all quite surprised that I had succeeded with the task. I managed a smile but found the whole thing to be quite cruel….not for me, but for the poor man I had just practically molested!
I was dealing with my first rectal impaction – in other words I was looking at having to manually evacuate excrement from a person’s anus. What eventually came out resembled a small brown baby. I don’t know what possessed me to flush it down the toilet but the thing got stuck! I think I can leave the rest to your imagination.
I was working on a surgical ward in Mackay, an elderly gentleman had an acute onset of delirium & I was trying to get a ward test off him to test his urine for a suspected urinary tract infection. I had just gotten a phone order for haloperidol due to his behaviour which was keeping the other patients awake. He didn’t much appreciate the jab from the needle in his arm. The next thing I knew he was standing stark naked in the nurses’ station where I was sitting writing notes. He informed me, in his guttural German accent, that he had the urine specimen that I wanted. He then proceeded to pee all over the front of me…..it was a lovely moment.
I was on night duty working in a dementia unit & a piercing scream came from one of the rooms, I raced in to find one of the women sitting bolt upright in bed, looking in horror down at her leg (she had had an above knee amputation years before). She then informed me that a thief had been in the room, an accusation that I needed to take seriously whether she was demented or not. Apparently a thief had crawled through the window, taken her leg & then crawled back out again…..What do you say to something like that?
I was a student nurse, my first (& last) time in theatre. The woman on the table was having major abdominal surgery (I can’t remember what exactly). The surgeon, wanting me to get the most out of the experience, thought he’d give me an anatomy lesson & proceeded to recoil her intestines out for all to see “here is the ascending colon, the transverse colon, the descending…..” “Are you okay?” were the last words I heard, I’d fainted. I decided surgery wasn’t for me.
When I was studying nursing I worked as a personal carer in a nursing home on weekends. I was working my first late shift & had been directed by one of the more senior staff to go & put a uridome on a certain gentleman. For those who don’t know what a uridome is they are also called condom catheters – as they are put on like a condom and hooked up to tubing & a bag for urinary drainage. I went in to the gentleman, explained what I was going to do & proceeded. The first thing I noticed was that he had had an orchidectomy – in other words he had no balls. The poor man also had one of the smallest penises I’d ever seen but finally after a great deal of effort I managed to get the uridome to stay on. I then proceeded out down the hall to the nurses’ station where I was met with a chorus of laughter, the whole thing had been a set up & they were all quite surprised that I had succeeded with the task. I managed a smile but found the whole thing to be quite cruel….not for me, but for the poor man I had just practically molested!
I was dealing with my first rectal impaction – in other words I was looking at having to manually evacuate excrement from a person’s anus. What eventually came out resembled a small brown baby. I don’t know what possessed me to flush it down the toilet but the thing got stuck! I think I can leave the rest to your imagination.
I was working on a surgical ward in Mackay, an elderly gentleman had an acute onset of delirium & I was trying to get a ward test off him to test his urine for a suspected urinary tract infection. I had just gotten a phone order for haloperidol due to his behaviour which was keeping the other patients awake. He didn’t much appreciate the jab from the needle in his arm. The next thing I knew he was standing stark naked in the nurses’ station where I was sitting writing notes. He informed me, in his guttural German accent, that he had the urine specimen that I wanted. He then proceeded to pee all over the front of me…..it was a lovely moment.
I was on night duty working in a dementia unit & a piercing scream came from one of the rooms, I raced in to find one of the women sitting bolt upright in bed, looking in horror down at her leg (she had had an above knee amputation years before). She then informed me that a thief had been in the room, an accusation that I needed to take seriously whether she was demented or not. Apparently a thief had crawled through the window, taken her leg & then crawled back out again…..What do you say to something like that?
I was a student nurse, my first (& last) time in theatre. The woman on the table was having major abdominal surgery (I can’t remember what exactly). The surgeon, wanting me to get the most out of the experience, thought he’d give me an anatomy lesson & proceeded to recoil her intestines out for all to see “here is the ascending colon, the transverse colon, the descending…..” “Are you okay?” were the last words I heard, I’d fainted. I decided surgery wasn’t for me.
2 comments:
Not sure whether to laugh or cry...great storytelling...the life of a nurse sure isn't pretty. I remember Mrs. Tallents saying to me when I was 16 that if I wanted to be a missionary (yes that was a loooong time ago) I would need to study to be a nurse or teacher...it wasn't a difficult choice at the time. But teaching wasn't pretty either! A teenage male student with schizophrenia and a severe intellectual impairment once trapped me in a room and became very imposing. This was unsettling to say the least. Friends that continued on teaching have scars from bite and scratch marks. Of course despite my woes and those of my friends we (and I am sure you agree) typically feel most sorry for the students (or patients) involved- for what life has dished out to them. I felt the kind of teaching I was eventually close to signing up for was a blend between nursing and teaching and I didn't have the strength for it (or the heart to see what some people go through everyday of their lives). I take my hat off to you Sue and thank you for everything you and your colleagues do everyday, every year for years and years of your lives! N U R S E- giver, carer, humble worker, not adorned with praise or accolades, holds-together the ugly, nurses us to health. Oh nurse, nurse without a name thank you for your care, your heart, your mind- I am now well because of you and I failed to stop and see this until now. How selfish Nurse I have been.
Don't romantacise us Jan - we're not angels or saints.Some of the nastiest people I've ever met have been nurses, nursing can make people hard....really hard.
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