A full moon during the day?

Today was a frustrating work day. Everyone seemed to be short tempered, demanding, and generally unreasonable.

As a rule, I try to be as pleasant as possible to my patients. Who can stay mad when your nurse is pleasant, accommodating, and delightful to be around? Well, apparently that was not me today.

Pt A was a young woman with renal colic. And 8 weeks post-partum to boot. I totally get the fact that she was in pain, and went to great lengths to discuss this with her, sympathize and anesthetize against her discomfort. The unfortunate part of the experience was her half-wit boyfriend. He was rude, insulting, demanding, and unwilling to accept the fact that I am one person, dealing with 18 other injured individuals. At the end of our ugly interaction I had my finger in his face, telling him to get out of MY face, or I would have him removed from the department. Not a good start to the day. And all because I requested analgesic for his girlfriend and it didn't arrive as quickly as he would have liked. Buddy, roll a blunt and be done with it!

Pt B was an adult? woman who has had knee pain for 6 months. Oh My God! She had to wait 2 hours from the time of arrival until I put her in a room. When made aware that her xrays had arrived and the Dr would be seeing her, she commented that it would probably take until the end of the year! At this point I mentioned that on the brighter side of things, she had been able to walk into the department and voice her opinions, which was more then a number of our clients were able to do today. Then I put her in the chairs to free up her bed.

Pt C had an ulcer on her leg. After being seen by Plastics, she needed the wound swabbed, packed and dressed. Unfortunately, the room she was in did not allow for me to perform these procedures, so I told her she would have to wait until the appropriate room was vacated. Again with the attitude! In the general scheme of things does another 20 minutes really make that much of a difference?

And my favorite..the daughter of Pt D. The wife of a Cardiologist, she brought her mother in on his recommendation. After waiting 2 hours in the waiting room, this loving daughter had enough and was taking her mother home. How dare we keep her 89 yr old Mum in the waiting room for this length of time! When I pointed out that a 2 hr wait in the life of a 3 MONTH old ulcer was minimal and not unreasonable, she stormed out, Momma in tow.....I guess I should expect a call from the manager Monday.