Life is Beautiful

After checking my patients Vital Signs (which were all normal meaning no one is suffering from High Blood Pressure, Irregular Heart Rhythms, Fever, Breathlessness and Oxygen Deficiency), I gave them all their night pills and tucked them into bed. Next I checked all their laboratory and radiology results in the computer. So far everything really looks so good. No one needed an order for Blood Transfusion or Potassium Replacement. I thought, “Aaaah! This is the good life!”

At 23:00, a patient placed a call. He was complaining of headache again. After checking his Vital Signs again, I told him, no Morphine for him. “You need to start taking tablets rather than shots because when you go home, you will not be given Morphine. We need to get you the right pain medication that you will be using at home.”

At 03:00, the same patient called again. He wants another pain medication for headache. He got the same medication.

Then at 05:00, the same patient called again. “I feel screwed up”. (In my head, “Don’t we all?”). He further said, “I never felt so awful in my life. What is happening to me?”. So I explained that it could be the new pain medication that was causing that. So he started blaming me for making him feel that way. I said, ” you see… that’s the whole point. We have to try you on this new medications here in the hospital because if anything happens, we could fix it straight away. If you did this medication trials at home, then I bet it will make it so much more excruciatingly difficult for you.”

I called the doctor after that and discussed the patients reaction to the new medication. The doctor who was known to be very grumpy when being called during the unholy hours was actually very nice and actually listened to everything I had to say.

I thought, now this is so easy. I have 4 stable patients and only 1 unstable patient which is an actually easy, piecy, cheesy one to fix. Then I have a doctor who was very cooperative and did not give me the run-around. The patient expressed his relief after a few minutes.

At 6:00 in the morning, he called again. “Nurse, I’m really screwed up this time.” After determining what was the problem, I realized, it was time to become a brave little Filipina nurse again. “Arggh! Is there ever a night, I will not do this?”, I asked myself. Bravely, I told my patient, “Sorry but I will have to give you this suppository.” He asked nervously, “Do I really need that? Is it painful?”. I replied, “Yes, you really need it, and yes, it is painful. But think about this… NO PAIN, NO GAIN! Now don’t be such a big baby. Lie on your left side and bend your knees!”