Friday, January 29, 2010

Sluice Room Sperm

Working in Orthopaedic Ward means lots of urine testing due to the high risk of patients developing kidney stones and urinary tract infections thanks to a 'wee' term called "urinary stasis" - sorry I couldn't help myself with the pun.

Myself and Cindy did urine testing together. I took a urinal from a patient and we met in the Sluice Room to do the test. I poured the urine out into a clear measuring jar and it looked a bit cloudy. We put the test stick in and noticed that the cloudiness was actually sperm which started clinging to our test strip.

We stood in the Sluice Room giggling and gagging for ages. I can't handle urine. urine with sperm is on a whole other level. Even thinking about it now - three years later - makes me want to vom all over my keyboard.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Manny the Mortician(s)

There are two morticians in the hospital, both with the same name - Manny. They smell vaguely of cabbage and death in a bone marrow stew. Either they never wash their hair, or they rub their heads on decomposing dead bodies, but their hair is literally dripping with oil, sweat (and occasionally faeces). You hardly ever hear them speak, but when you do, you can be certain that they will crack a really insensitive joke and burst out laughing - displaying their missing and rotten teeth. I remember being distraught after seeing and caring for my first dead patient, and through my tears, I saw brown teeth smiling at my 'special delivery'.

The scariest situation is when you get into an elevator with one of them. It's just you, a mortician, and a cold body covered in plastic and a green cloth. As you can imagine, not much conversation goes down. In fact, I have never said a word to either Manny for fear of them stealing my soul. Now, imagine actually getting stuck in the lift with one of them. Considering this is a government hospital, it is safe to say the lifts will stop working a couple times a week. I say I take the stairs to maintain my fitness. This is a lie.

If you go down to the morgue, you have to be careful because if the morticians see you walk into one of the big fridges, they hide under the trolleys and grab your leg unexpectedly (meaning you literally need a change of panties). These big fridges are the freakiest thing. They are so cold, and you just see bodies piled on top of each other. Occasionally, a stupid, dumbass nurse will get a body bag for a patient that is too small, and instead of wasting it and getting a bigger one, they will cut a slit through the top of the bag and the bottom so that all you see are feet and tops of heads sticking out. Ever heard of frostbite?

Word on the hospital corridor is that you can hear the sound of ghosts singing at the morgue at night. I walked there on my own one night in an attempt to see, or hear, a ghost. Truth be told, all I heard was my own screams as I ran back to my ward - Cindy had thought it funny to hide behind a wall and jump out at me. :(

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Pee On Your Own Time!

Admission wards are known for being hectically busy. You are constantly moving patients out to other wards and spend all your time admitting new patients from Casualty. The only reason it's nice is because it actually gives you something to do, rather than sitting on your arse drinking tea all day (for which South African nurses are renowned).

One day, I was working a twelve-hour shift (which, I'm sure you've established, is my definition of hell) in an Admission ward. Typical of my luck, it was coming to the end of my shift and at 18:45 I received a new patient to admit. If you work hard enough, you can finish a PROPER admission in about 30 minutes. So, I wasn't too bothered, 15 minutes extra isn't all that bad. The patient was a man with suspected Tick Bite Fever. I, being the over-achiever I am, decided to help out the doctor by drawing bloods, getting a urine sample, etc. Getting the blood was simple (I find simple pleasure in sticking a needle into bulging veins), but getting the urine was a whole 'nother story.

The patient told me he needed to pee, which was awesome because that way I could kill two birds with one stone: he gets relieved, I get pee. I bring him a urinal and go back to file auditing. I could see he was having trouble, so I left the room to give him some 'privacy'. I got back to him five minutes later (most likely because I was trying to convince permanent staff not to leave me alone in charge of the ward) all cheerful *time to go home* "Mr. Peters, are you done?". He huffs and puffs, still holding the urinal to his groin and squeaks out "No." I learnt a little tip to turn on a tap to help someone pee, so I did this while sneakily looking at my watch. It had already hit 19:20. Behind the closed curtain, I could still hear Mr. Peters huffing and puffing. I stood for another five minutes, looking around the room, peering out the window, trying not to whistle, hoping for a miracle in the form of a Golden Shower of pee. Seriously, its 19:25 - he can pee on me if he wants, as long as he pees. No such luck. I go up to him, and ask what I can do to help.. WHYYYY OH WHY DID I DO THAT?! Mr. Peters says: "I'm just struggling to hold it, can you hold it for me?" I thought he was talking about the urinal which I immediately grabbed, but noooo he needed me to hold his penis. Yep, you read that right. So, I awkwardly grabbed a pair of gloves and gently gripped his manhood. We stood there for close to 10 minutes waiting for him to pee. My free hand was force-feeding him water and diuretics in an attempt for some gold beneath the rainbow.

A couple different positions and tactics and he still hadn't peed. It was past 8 by this stage and eventually I thought "Screw it". I work too damn hard just for a freaking drop of pee. I left him with his urinal and with the situation now the responsibility of night staff. Believe you me, by that stage I needed to pee like a hippopotamus and ran back to the nurse's residence clenching.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Night Duty Nightmare... Again

As has already been established, night duty is where the real shit goes down. Cindy and myself were in a Medical ward together and were honestly the only two staff members awake. The permanent staff who are IN CHARGE find their sleep more important. Of course, with this luck, lots of things went wrong but we loved every moment of it.

I had a semi-comatose patient falling in and out of consciousness because his blood sugar levels were extremely low - I couldn't even get a reading on the machine. This is never good because they go into coma and ultimately die without immediate interventions. So, you have to do everything you can to keep that person alive. I put up numerous 50% Dextrose in 50ml (sugar water) through his IV line every five minutes and his blood sugar levels would just not increase. Next best thing, is to get him to drink it.

That's right: get a semi-comatose man to drink sugar water. So there I sat with a 50ml syringe filled with this potent sugar water. I put down the sides of his bed, jump onto the bed and cradle his head under my arm and on my lap. Every time he'd gain consciousness (even if only for a second), I would quickly push some sugar water into his mouth. Oftentimes, he would quickly close his mouth - which makes me think he was totally faking it - and the sugar water would run down onto my nice new pants. Other times, he would take the sugar water into his mouth, start breathing through his mouth before swallowing, and spit the sugar water all over me.

I honestly think I ingested more sugar water than he did. Plus, after the amount of his saliva I must have swallowed, we may as well have been French kissing. Eventually, after much fighting the system, and trying to learn Zulu words to tell him what to do, he got better.

I left the patient, smiling in his bed, with my pants stuck to my leg, and an eye sealed closed - all thanks to the sugar water - while swearing in Zulu.