Patients are charming sometimes

I had a rare species today . . . a kind, polite patient. He was oriented, independently mobile, able to feed and toilet himself, and just generally awesome. So kudos to you, Mr. UK, you win the award for my favorite patient ever so far. You beat Mrs. Vicodin because, well, you didn't cry even once, and you remembered where you were from hour to hour. Which it wasn't her fault that she didn't, but it makes it so much easier when patients don't flip out because they forget where they are and why they're there.

Of course, the floor was not without craziness. One patient was screaming her head off all day (not mine, praise Jesus) and finally some little spindly old COPD'er got sick of it. He was sitting out by the nurses' station in a chair and he ripped off his nebulizer and yelled "SHUT UP BEFORE I COME IN THERE AND SMACK YOU IN THE HEAD!".

It worked, which was even funnier.

There was also the drug addict patient who informed one of the other students, in all seriousness, that she was going to be getting plastic surgery to have her "excess skin" removed.

Ms Morphine: *grabs her giant fat roll* See all this excess skin? Do you see it?
Student: Uh, yeah.
Ms Morphine: I'm getting it all removed. Because it's just skin, you know? I lost all the fat. I need to get all this skin taken off.
Student: Uh huh.

Ah, patients. At least she wasn't mine. *evil laughter* Of course, now I'm totally paranoid - my last two patients have been pretty easy, considering. No isolation, no dressing changes, no straight caths, no PEG tubes . . . My next patient will probably have all 4. Just you wait. And they'll be a drug addict, too, just to make sure I pay my dues.

Also, I thought I'd add this lovely link to a website about a Koi-assisted water birth. You read that right. The Nurse K forums produced it and my God. I can't imagine I ever considered that there would be other ways to birth a child. The Koi are beautiful healers, and I cannot even conceive the very idea that they would not be wonderful midwives. I am going to start work on my own Koi pond immediately, so that when I finally have a child the preparations will already be made, and my Koi and I will have had plenty of time to bond and grow together.