Tales from the ER

Where to even start. I'm still working here with crazy stuff nightly but I don't find the crazy stuff so crazy anymore. Accustomed I suppose. I also don't find gross things so gross anymore so I get nervous about writing tales because what if I make one of you fine people puke? I don't know you've been warned up front.

When did Riverton become a homeless community? We've had so many recently. I think since we treated the first one so politely she went out and told all of her bum friends that we would see them and they could stink up our waiting rooms no prob. Sweet of her. In the last month alone we've had 6 homeless all together. I'm going to start directing them to LDS hospital, don't they know how it works in Ut?? One came in and went straight to our bathroom..when another pt pointed out that this man had left the door open the triage nurse went to check on this man. He was all bent over as if he was sleeping on our toilet so she said loudly, "sir, are you ok?" After she gathered that he was just fine she said, "ok I'm just going to shut this door ok? Ok." When he finished his biz he came into our waiting and proceeded to sit. All night. He wasn't too sketchy or anything so I wasn't nervous but he did appear extremely comfortable and never once glanced around like, "should I be here??". If I had I would have looked at him with a knowing, "no", but he didn't. Security finally kicked him out the next morn and I guess he started yelling out random numbers..haha that's why I didn't talk to him.

The other day I had a couple come walking out from the back so I thought they were leaving. I did my "take care!" but they looked at me like I was crazy. The lady started wandering the waiting room and I realized she was wearing 2 hospital gowns and a coat and smelled TERRIBLE! The husband said, "we got to get her seen, we got kicked out of Lehi Walmart because she hasn't showered in 4 days and she's wearing the same clothes she pees in and the cops told us we had to get the hell out of town and so did the Springville police and so we just have to do something with her, it's anxiety she's having an anxiety attack but we were seen at the other hospital and they didn't help us and we're living in our car and she kicked the window out and..." (notice how there are no periods in that? It's because there were no periods in his sentence.) Finally I interrupt and start getting her info. Meanwhile a couple other pts come in and take a seat waiting to be helped so I'm trying to get her through quickly. Then all the sudden she stands up and starts going after one of the other pts. Without missing a beat the husband grabs her and throws her back in a chair and tells her to sit down. She cursing at this lady so I had a nurse call security. I had to change her name which was WAY more complicated then it should have been and then I told him to take a seat and the nurse would be right out. I call up the next pt..which was the one she was yelling at..and started to do her reg. The lady stands up and walks up right behind her and starts yelling that she needed to realize. Turns out the crazy homeless lady thought her husband looked at this lady and that's why she was yelling at her. To make a VERY VERY long story short...er, she was here all night back and forth and stinking every bit of clean air up. Her husband harassed me all night by showing me his skulls that he's found all over that will change the world. (a new species of bird, a dinosaur head, a two headed frog, oh and a gorilla. They looked like rocks to me...what do I know.) They've been here 2 times since then that I haven't been here for but every night I live in terror they're coming back. Pray for me.

A lady came in the other night and started walking right to a seat. I told her to come to my desk and she said her mom was coming. She was plenty old enough so I said...."ok, well what are we seeing you for?". She told me abd pain. I instantly thought to myself, "oh allllright, calm down then". She sat on a chair and I waited for her mom. Once her mom came in a looked back to the lady and she was lying on the floor. Seriously? Come in with abd px, leave with herpes. Get off the ground. Her mom tries a couple phone numbers but I can't find her. I ask for her name and the mom doesn't know it because it could be maiden or married and she wasn't sure. While I was trying to work with that, the mom is hounding me about she needs a nurse stat and we need to get her to a room right then. Listen lady, we can't get your over dramatic daughter anything until we know her freaking name k? Chill out and this will go faster. I finally find the girl and change her name twice to what the mom says it legally is and got the triage nurse. I love this particular triage nurse so much because she's so blunt and amazing. She comes out and sees her pt on the floor so she says, (picture a east coast accent) "ok, get up off the floor for me and come in this room." Once she gets back I find out her name is something different from what the mom had told me so I had to change it again. Meanwhile a chest pain of the right age to be worrisome comes in so they have to go back first. The lady lays on the triage floor and is like screaming. The nurse shut the door but the mom kept opening it and telling me that we had to get a dr in there. "We're going to lose her!", she shouted many times. Anyhoo they get her in a room finally and apparently she "lost" all control of her bowels and instead of going to our bathroom/going in a bed pan/calling the nurse she'd just go on her bed and use the blankets as toilet paper. Then she'd call for another blanket. That poor janitor. I found out later she actually was going threw withdrawal so she was detoxing which kinda answers all my questions. Next time she wants to quit drugs...let your mom know so she knows your not dying and let us know when you come in so we can get you a room with a bathroom. Kthanks.

Wow I realized I have so many I could put up but then this post would be way too long so I'll leave it at what we got. Hope you enjoyed my crazy ER life. I'm sure they'll keep coming so til next time.