An Unexpected Occupational Hazard: The Nurse Gets Rattled

At the rural New Mexican home where I do home-based nursing care, the pace of work and the 360-degree view of the mesas, mountains and sky is quite different from other nursing milieus. While home care may not always seem glamorous to those in the ICU, trauma or other specialties, sometimes things happen that make me realize how interesting this specialty can truly be.

Bat in a Basket

So, there I was this afternoon, innocently playing the part of Public Health Nurse Extraordinaire, when I decided to reach for my laptop and sync it with the town network. But, lo and behold, a furry little bat had decided to make its home on my laptop bag, and as I stood, aghast and dumbstruck, it began to crawl and creep in its inimitably bat-like way around the top of my file cabinet.

Closing the door behind me, I calmly made my way to a colleague's office. He's a health inspector and sanitarian, level-headed and pragmatic, and I recruited him in my bat-catching endeavor.

Meanwhile, while said colleague ran in search of heavy-duty gloves, my boss and our administrative assistant insisted on seeing the bat, peeking in behind me as I reopened my office door.

"Don't touch it, Keith. You can't. Please don't," said my boss.

By now, the bat had descended to the table next to the file cabinet and I feared I might lose him. I dashed to the kitchen, found a small wicker basket (the size that might, for reason of illustration only, hold two medium-sized lemons) and rushed back to my office to see the creature still lurking (in quintessential bat fashion, I may add) on the aforementioned table.

At the very moment my favorite health inspector/sanitarian arrived with heavy duty gloves donned, I raised my basket into the air, took three steps---not two, but three---and trapped the bat with a rapid descending basket-like arc.

The bat immediately began to squeal like an otherworldly creature from the Lord of the Rings, and my sanitarian colleague slid a piece of cardboard beneath the now quivering basket. Holding our prey tightly between the cardboard and wicker with our four hands, we traipsed through the Health Department to a blessedly large window intelligently opened by our boss, and the bat in question was released into the cool June New England air, landing with a confused yet simultaneously gentle thud on the roof below. Moments later, he (or she) lifted into the air and vanished into the trees.

Resting on our bat-catching laurels, we returned to our individuals duties, each to his or her own desk once again, and the bat summarily forgot all about us and its adventure inside a local municipal health department.

They don't teach you this stuff in nursing school.

Nurse Pre-Vacation Syndrome

Diagnosis: Nurse Pre-Vacation Syndrome (NPVS)

Etiology: Co-dependence, inadequate toilet training

Signs and Symptoms:

*Delusions that one's patients will probably die if you leave them in the care of others

*Possibly realistic fears that paperwork and charts on your desk will mate and multiply in your absence

*Memories of previous vacations in which said vacation was spent recovering physically and emotionally from the amount of preparation needed in order to take a vacation in the first place

*Resentment of co-workers who are not about to go on vacation

*Feeling like this will be the last vacation you will ever take "because taking a vacation is too much work"

*Already planning what you will do when you return to work

*Inordinate amount of time spent on Mapquest

*Distractedly gazing out the window

*Telling your co-workers that they can call you on your cell-phone with questions about difficult patients while you're away

*Lottery fantasies

Treatment/Goals:

1) More frequent vacations (practice makes perfect)

2) Re-read Codependent No More

3) Leave cell-phone at home "accidentally"

4) Take even more vacations

5) Quit your job

6) Read Codependent No More again


Prognosis: Especially good if you adhere to treatment goal #1.

Nurses Need to Listen Carefully

This story just in from a friend in Connecticut, author unknown:

An elderly male patient is lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, still heavily sedated from a difficult four-hour surgical procedure. A young student nurse appears to give him a partial sponge bath

"Nurse," he mumbles from behind the mask. "Are my testicles black?"

Embarrassed, the young nurse replies "I don't know, Sir. I'm only here to wash your upper body and feet."

He struggles to ask again, "Nurse, are my testicles black?"

Concerned that he may elevate his vitals from worry about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment and sheepishly pulls back the covers.

She raises his gown, holds his penis in one hand and his testicles in the other, lifting and moving them around.

Then, she takes a close look and says, "There's nothing wrong with them, Sir!!"

The man pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her and says very slowly, "Thank you very much. That was wonderful, but listen very, very closely......A r e - m y - t e s t - r e s u l t s - b a c k ?"