Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Society's Wh%$#

Today, I was working in the Psychiatric Emergency Center. A patient that I had not seen walked over to me, said he couldn't breathe, needed to go to the medical ER, and get a nebulizer treatment. Keep in mind, he got out of a chair and walked about 20 feet to tell me he couldn't breathe. When I told him I would order a PRN rescue inhaler, he said, "Nah, I don't need that, I have a nebulizer machine in my belongings." (When patients come onto a psych unit, all their items are stored in a secure area.)

I asked him why he needs to carry a nebulizer everywhere he goes. He said, "Well, I never know when I'll have trouble breathing. And, I never know when I'll find some crack." So this guy taught me something new today: When you open your airways, crack gets you even more high. Needless to say, your Medicare dollars paid for that nebulizer.

This story is good if it stopped right there. But oh no, my droogs. He proceeded to tell everyone how he had HIV and was "Society's Wh*%&" (a derogatory term for a woman who has sex in exchange for money). During his maniacal rant, he asked the nurse if he could see Psych Doc again. "Why?", the nurse asked. "He already said you can have some Albuterol."

"Well, it's just that I haven't been taking my psych meds like I'm supposed to," he stated. "Can Psych Doc come back out here and spank me for being a bad boy?"

I love this job.

-Psych Doc

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blahahaha

tracy said...

Hee. So....did you....? i'm sure i don't need to, but just had to ask.

Thanks, Psych Doc.

Bet you can't wait to open your own private practice...or go into research.....

tracy said...

"Spank the Monkey"! Priceless!

Crazed Nitwit said...

I used to think I would make an excellent psych nurse. Not anymore. I'm never violent but in my head I wanna take some of the psychotic hypochondriacs DOWN!! Let alone sexually deviant types. I would think you'd need xanax to deal with some of these peeps. Heh.

ShrinkingDoc said...

There ARE worse things he could have asked for. But, I'm sure you know that.

ERP said...

Yeah, that albuterol crack/freebase thing is an old trick we see.

Anonymous said...

The more I read your posts, the less certain I am that I want to be a psych nurse. :-(