SA Medical Journal

Formalin

2011-07-13T16:50:00.005+02:00

One day while working in theatre, I was allocated to the breast theatre which consists mostly of mastectomies. As a useless and mostly worthless trainee, my job was to take the breast from the surgeon and prepare it for histology by sitting it in Formalin.

That's all very well and good until I received a breast that can only be described as gargantuan. This thing must have weighed over 10kg. I carried it away with my arms buckling under its' weight. Luckily, a colleague, Henry, was there to help me. I put the breast into a plastic bag. Usually we use a syringe to fill the bag with Formalin but considering the size of the breast, that would have taken longer than the surgery itself. So, Henry and I did what any logically-thinking person would do. We lifted the huge bucket of Formalin and poured it in straight.

We underestimated the flow of the Formalin and ended up filling the bag to its' brim with it. Now, Formalin burns like a bitch, your eyes water, you can't breathe. As we were panicking, trying to close the bag, while crying tears of what I imagined to be blood, I (of course) got the giggles. And, in walked Sister Zee.

I don't know what she expected of us, but it's not like we could pour the now-used Formalin back into the bucket. I stood there laughing (and crying) while Formalin kept sloshing out of the bag onto the floor with every moment my body made. I noticed Sister Zee had watering eyes and she promptly left the room.

We eventually managed to tie off the bag, and returned it to the surgeon with it bursting at the seams with one random, huge boob floating within it. I walked out of theatre - with my head held high - before the surgeon got a chance to ask questions.

Something Smells Fishy

2011-06-17T13:55:00.000+02:00

Working in a surgical ward in the first few days of January guarantees the fact that you will see many "New Year's Eve/Alcohol-Induced" injuries. Living in South Africa, these injuries are mostly the result of assault.

Night shift handed over to me, and because I was dreaming of my warm bed, I didn't hear exactly what they said, but gathered that a patient, Brian's, belongings were in the fridge.

I went to go put a name tag on what I assumed to be colddrink or something along those lines. However, upon opening the fridge, all I found was a brown paper bag, within which was a polystyrene cup. In the polystyrene cup was a nose. A human nose. Trying to (quite literally) put the pieces of this puzzle together, I went on a quest to find Brian. Indeed Brian had no nose. I don't know what else I was actually expecting. His nose had been bitten off in a fight.

The plastic surgeons soon got to work and realized it would be difficult (and kind of disgusting) to re-attach a nose that had been in a polystyrene cup in a fridge with temperatures that aren't really regulated. Plus, it was kind of old and shrivelled up.

Instead, the surgeons decided to perform a skin graft and basically just cover the open flesh and bone (rather than let Brian look like a person instead of Michael Jackson). This is the part I never quite understood. They took a skin graft from the back of his head - on his scalp. A scalp which was, I might add, covered in hair. I performed wound care for Brian and it really didn't look too bad until a couple days after the op, when his nose started sprouting little black hairs. A few more days passed and Brian eventually had a totally hairy nose.

Suddenly though, the hair had disappeared. I was so happy for Brian until I found him in the bathroom shaving his nose with a razor. That explained that, then.

Momma's Boy

2011-04-07T15:18:00.001+02:00

As a nurse, it is not uncommon to have some mildly crazy people walk into your life once in a while. As a nurse named Andy, this tends to happen way too often.

One night, we received a male patient who had been close to ODing on all sorts of drugs. The type of guy that would smoke a teddy bear if it could get him high.

OD patients are renowned for being very difficult and they usually RHT (Refuse Hospital Treatment). This guy came to the ward, screaming and shouting at the nurse transferring him over. We managed to get him into bed and put up a drip. A couple hours later, after walking the hallway searching for ghosts, I saw a trail of blood. I followed the trail like I was a fat Gretel following a trail of Jelly Tots and it led me to the entrance of the ward and our lovely patient trying to escape. I might add that he was pulling on the door that said "PUSH".

The smart ass had ripped his drip out, not realizing that he would leave a trail of blood apparently. He continued to be extremely uncooperative and we couldn't find an awake and functioning doctor to prescribe sedation. So, we did the next best thing.. We called security.

Within 5 minutes, we had ten burly security guards in the ward. The short, skinny patient started shouting insults at the guards. Bad idea. After some manhandling, the patient started screaming that he wanted his "mommy".

I managed to track down "mommy" and she came into the ward. The patient embraced her for a long time and then started yelling insults at her too. He really doesn't learn.

The highlight of my night was when he started asking if his "mommy" could stay overnight with him. I had heard it all! At this stage, I had better things to do with my time, like making a Cup-a-Soup. Later, I realized I hadn't seen or heard from the patient or "mommy". This time, my investigation led me to find him and his mom squeezed into the tiny bed together, spooning. Talk about a close relationship. Now, I had seen everything too.

Night Shift Naughtiness

2011-03-23T11:57:00.001+02:00

Night shift in a government hospital is when things *really* go down. When fun can occur at any moment. Where there is no Matron checking up on you. Where you can discover ghosts and mysteries.. Or so I thought.

My first experience of night duty was in a medical admissions ward (busy one night and quite literally dead quiet the next night when you aren't on intake). Thankfully, I was allocated into this ward with one of my best friends, Christa.

Over my years of studying, I had heard many ghost stories from within the hospital walls. And what better time to explore than during night shift? The one surgical ward had the most incidences: doors slamming closed, patient buzzers ringing in empty rooms, lights flickering.. Some may say this is due to poor workmanship and cheap products - this is public sector afterall. But I was, and am, in denial.

In went Christa and I to explore. Immediately upon entering the ward, we heard soft moaning coming from the kitchen. A ghost that died from 3rd degree burns after an urn fell on her!? No. In we walked to find about 7 staff members fast asleep. One was even sleeping on top of the warming drawer. The moans were actually snores.

We quickly moved on to a medical ward renowned for deaths. Christa sat to prevent varicose veins while I explored. Walking past a room, I saw someone tall standing next to a bed, looking over a patient! I closed my eyes tight and when I opened them again, he was still there! Jackpot! My first ghost sighting! I ran to call Christa. When we got back, I hurriedly switched on the lights to catch him in the act of possibly murdering the innocent patient. It was a drip stand. A drip stand draped with the innocent patients' jacket.

Leaving 8 annoyed, angry and now awake patients with contagious conditions, we gave up the ghost hunt and finished with a boring, uneventful and murder-free night. We sat and watched a DVD, but every time we heard the 'click-clack' of a surprise-visiting Matrons' heels, we ran into a room to pretend we were very busy with patients. You would think that (after years of training), matrons would be smart enough to wear shoes that don't announce their entrance into the wards?

As 5AM rolled on, and feeling too guilty to sleep, I resorted to throwing objects into Christa's open mouth as she was passed out at the nurse's station. Prestik, pieces of paper, elastic bands.. Running out of throwing material, I resorted to a bunch of keys that had most probably been dropped in urine and faeces countless times and got a slam dunk! Don't know how I thought she would sleep through that though. I quickly pretended to be asleep with a slight smile on my face.

Locked-up Loonies Part 2

2010-12-05T13:39:00.002+02:00

Ah, Maxwell. Such a smooth talker, who suffered from Schizophrenia.

The day I met Maxwell, he came up to me and without even introducing himself asked: "Are you married?" When you're a female working in male lock-up ward, you are always married. Otherwise, they'll steal you and take you back to their bedroom and stuff you under their mattress.

Maxwell told me many stories of his wives, his BMWs, his riches. None of them were true. What was true, however, was that Maxwell had an affinity for us female nurses. One day, Maxwell was elegantly lying across a table and when I walked past him, he called me a "beautiful, sexy angel". Whenever I walked past an open doorway and looked in, Maxwell was staring back at me. It started getting awkward when he would suddenly appear next to me when least expected (surprise!) or when he would attempt to hold my hand.

While working in our hours at this hospital, we had a room in which we could sit and type up our findings of our patients. The assignment load was huge, and we could use any spare moment to work on our projects. We had spent a big part of the morning working on these assignments, and then all went out to grab some lunch together. On returning to the room, we walked in, sprayed deodorant, had some girly talk and sat down at our computers. Suddenly, in my peripheral vision, I saw a dark silhouette in the corner of the room, glaring at us. Maxwell. Under my voice, I muttered: "Whatever you do, don't look at the corner of the room". My friends looked anyway. Caroline screamed. Some of us jumped a metre away from him. One friend ran out to call security. Maxwell simply asked "Why didn't you invite me for lunch?" Needless to say, security had to tackle him and pull him out of the room while his nails dug tracks in the carpet.

Later on that day, my super nifty bladder failed me and I needed a pee-break. I walked out the room and had the distinct feeling of being followed. I started walking faster and just before I got to the bathroom, I had a quick glance over my shoulder. Maxwell. He grabbed me and pinned me against the wall. I let out a meek: "Sister?... Doctor?" trying to find someone in charge who could possible take away the bright light at the end of the tunnel. Luckily the Sister-in-Charge found me, grabbed some Haloperidol and put Maxwell out of his misery. *side note: I wish I could have received the Haloperidol*

They started drugging Maxwell heavily. Apparently I was a bad influence on his psychosis. Maxwell took a bad reaction to the sedation one day and we needed to move him to a room closer to the nurse's station. Only problem is, we were 4 skinny nurses and one 90kg man. You do the math. This resulted in us putting a sheet under Maxwell and sliding him along the floor all the way through the ward to get him to the room, leaving a trail of drool behind us.

Maxwell slowly started getting better, but he still loved us nurses. One day, we were leaving work, and as we got to our cars, we looked behind us only to find Maxwell following us with a packed suitcase and a bottle of juice. He insisted that he would be coming home with us. Once again, security had to tackle him and take him down. You would think security could have just not opened the gate for him in the first place, no?

The last time I saw Maxwell, I was no longer working in the ward but at a Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic. I saw him running on one of the fields, non-stop. He had lost a lot of weight, and was looking good. I asked a Doctor why he was running so much. The Doctor replied that Maxwell believed he had been entered to run the Comrades marathon.

Locked-up Loonies Part 1

2010-12-03T20:36:00.007+02:00

One of the hardest moments in training to be a kick-ass nurse is the specialization in Psychiatry. Not only because you remove all the masks you are wearing to disguise who you really are, but because you work with people who want you to die.

We were all nervous, yet excited, to find out where we would be placed within a certain Psychiatric hospital. I was particularly nervous because I am very scared of the unknown. I went (with Ariel) to our beautiful, very understanding lecturer and asked her not to put me in a specific ward. What happened? I was put there anyway..

Male lock-up Ward.

That's right. Big, scary men. Big, scary, *crazy* men who are so out of control, they are under constant guard and are locked inside. Now, maybe this was my lecturer's way of showing me what I can accomplish. Or maybe this was her way of enjoying some of my suffering. Sadist.

We walked towards the ward holding hands. The glass windows were shattered. There were men standing at the windows watching our every move. The big white gate was unlocked by security for us. I walked through that ward with my back to the walls at all times, and when I came to a corridor I would dive across (stealth style) to the other side, holding my pepper spray like a gun. The Sisters decided we should all meet our patients. We walked into the lounge where they were sitting. One by one, they introduced themselves. A lot of them seemed totally normal.. Except for the occasional one that would just walk out the room or randomly start screaming. My favourite patient was a man named Sam, who suffered from Schizophrenia. At his turn to introduce himself, he promptly stood up and shouted: "Secret Prime Minister, Third Division", waved, and sat back down. He came and greeted us all individually, and excused himself. He walked out the room and back in through another door and introduced himself all over again. Later on, he came up to me and said "If I knew you were coming, I would have shaved." He walked off like a man on a mission to go shave, until I found him in the courtyard picking at blades of grass.

While watching over the patients during lunch (making sure the anorexics ate and that the depressives didn't slit their wrists with the plastic cutlery), Sam came up to me with a couple sachets of black pepper and informed me that it's brilliant for preventing heart attacks. Ah, where would I be without my Sam? After I got to know Sam a little better, he informed me that his mother gave him a blowjob. And that he enjoyed it. Sam was so very sweet, he would try feed me his food, or steal me an apple from the kitchen because he was always convinced that I must be hungry. Exercise time with Sam was the highlight of my stay at the hospital. Exercise releases endorphins (feel-good chemicals) but in Sam's case, they made him perform very.. erm, effeminate moves. Halfway through exercise time, he would stop and sit on the floor. However, when it was his turn to demonstrate an exercise move, he would jump up excitedly and perform weird dance moves ala Michael Jackson on tiptoes, hands on waist, shaking his hips.

Another man I met was Harry. An old guy with Alzheimers. Harry loved to exercise, despite barely being able to walk. I can still hear Harry chanting in his ex-smokers, Portugese-accented, voice: "Wunnn, Toooo, Sreee.." Harry was extremely hyper-sexual and grabbed my bum every time I walked past him. I didn't know this at first and went up to speak to him on our first day there. He looked at me slowly, told me I was beautiful and put his arm around me. In the next instant, he had a crazy moment and tried to strangle me. Harry used to sit on his own swearing in Portugese. God forbid you ever got close to him, he would either try slap you or try to have sex with you. Good thing my pimp hand was strong. I think Harry knew how to piss me off as well: by sitting down. Once Harry sits, there's no chance he's going to get back up easily. He would shout "Nurse! Nurse!" until I would come pick him up. I would stand with my weak little arms under his sweaty pits, inhaling his dry urine smell, while he tried to nibble my earlobe. *shudder*

Sam and Harry were a breeze in comparison to another patient we encountered: Maxwell. Stay tuned for Locked-up Loonies Part 2. ;)

Suction Scourge

2010-10-16T22:21:00.002+02:00

Picture this scenario: You're a student. You're a nurse. You are allocated to work your first day EVER in an operating theatre. Exciting times. We all thought we were big shots. We took some photos in our scrubs and were loving that we could for once wear amazingly comfortable shoes to work. We slipped on our hats and booties and watched while some incompetent morons put the booties on their heads..

It was this first day that I met Sister Zee as well, just by the way.. She didn't seem quite so insane on first impression. However, when she handed out meatballs with maggots in them to her colleagues for lunch, I started to catch on.

Anywho.. My story takes place in an operating theatre working on an old beggar whose diet was so poor that his intestines were necrotic and dying. Parts of his intestines were black. *shudder* When the surgeons realised what they were dealing with, myself and Ariel had to spring into action and set up the suction unit so that they could start suctioning all the crap inside the guy. Now, bear in mind, this is our first day, we don't even know what a suction unit looks like, let alone how it works.

Good thing Sister Zee was there to help, screaming at us and telling us we are all morons. Nonetheless, being the geniuses we are, Ariel and I figured out what the unit looked like (we found one pre-assembled). We gave the unit to the surgeons who started doing their thing. Standing at the back of the room, making "I'm going to vom vom" faces complete with finger in throat, we heard a commotion at the bed. The suction unit was full and dangerously close to overflowing. Shit. Sister Zee was shouting. We panicked and stood dead still not quite knowing if we should find another suction bag or run for our lives.

Zee threw a bag at us and we ran forward and tried to replace the bag. Except we weren't quite smart enough to know to turn the suction off BEFORE changing the bag. We ripped the suction tube out and the guy's rotten intestine juices spilled out all over the suction unit and the floor. Like I said, we are geniuses. We get the new bag in, and all is calm again.. Except 2 minutes later, another bag is full - but we didn't realize. By the time we turn around, we find that it is overflowing onto the floor and starting to spray out. Intestine juices were everywhere, including on the surgeons shoes - which he didn't find to be particularly amusing. This only made us laugh harder, so while trying to suppress our giggles, we stood at the suction unit changing bags regularly every 2 minutes, before they got even close to full. Although, admittedly, there was a little part of me that wanted the same thing to happen every time. It's always fun for the person that doesn't have rotten intestine juices all over them.

Nancy

2010-04-19T20:43:00.000+02:00

A few weeks back, I had the privilege of working at a Non-profit Organization Special Care Centre that specifically helps severe to profoundly intellectually and physically disabled children and adults. Each client had their own unique personality, and I grew to love them all.

One of these clients is a girl called Nancy who has Down's Syndrome. I think Nancy had a severe hatred for Ariel and myself. We may have been the instigators of this hatred, however. Nancy likes things certain ways. She likes to get her way too. She is a strong girl and loves to work out on the rowing-machine (I would know, I was manipulated by those muscles more than a number of times). The bruises are gone but the emotional pain is still present.

Nancy would never let myself, Ariel or Cameron change her bedding and I mean NEVER. Being the typical Florence Nightingale trained nurses we are, we know that hygiene is important, so Ariel and I decided to change Nancy's bedding while she wasn't looking. Big mistake. Just as we managed to pull the duvet up, Nancy walked into her room and freaked. She shoved me to the side (those muscles) and ripped the new bedding off, and went into the dirty laundry to find old sheets. Yeugh. I'm 95.6% sure she took someone else's urine-soaked sheet.

Nancy constantly wears a bandage on her arm - for no particular reason - and looks like a 'cutter'. She wore the bandage for so long that she got heat rash underneath it. The sister in charge removed it and all hell broke loose. Nancy ran up to me one day, grabbed my wrist (those muscles) and dragged me to the Sister's office screaming "COME!". She then demanded that I tell the Sister that she needs her bandage. I didn't do that and boy oh boy she started hurting me (those damn muscles, again!). Nancy is considered to be the Matron of the sanctuary - that's how in control of everything she is. She insisted on making the beds with us in the morning, and after we made beds, she would inspect our handiwork (and would usually pull everything off and do it herself because our three years of training apparently made us absolutely useless at making beds).

I remember very clearly a time when Nancy pulled a sleeping girl, Lisa, out of bed so she could remove the linen. Lisa nearly landed head first on the floor, but just walked straight to the bathroom without even batting an eyelid. Lisa is autistic, but for some reason, I kept calling her an atheist.. But that's a WHOLE 'nother story.

My favourite memory of Nancy is from 'Music Time'. Music therapy is used to help rehabilitate the clients and Nancy freaking loved it. On Monday at 15:00 you were guaranteed to find Nancy in the main hall headbanging while beating a huge round drum. God forbid you take the drum, or her drumsticks away, because she will beat you down - those damn muscles.

*Note: If you have money to spare and would like to donate to this incredible organization, let me know and I'll give you the details. They really do need all the help they can get, and I am witness to the fact that they change lives on a daily basis.

Let's Use Logic

2010-02-21T20:35:00.000+02:00

MDR-TB is a multi-drug resistant form of Tuberculosis or TB. It's bad news, because it's very difficult to treat. Working in a Medical ward, I was checking over the various diagnoses of our patients and found one who was a Query MDR-TB. She wasn't, however, in any form of isolation and was sharing a cubicle with three other patients.

I confronted the Sister of the ward, and asked her why this was happening and if we could please move the patient into an (already available) isolation cubicle so that no one else catches this deadly disease. "No, you can't do that, because she is only a query MDR-TB. If she is confirmed, we will do something." I'm sorry, but my logic (which no one at this goddamn place seems to have) is that if she is eventually confirmed to have MDR-TB, it means that she had it all along and will most likely have spread it to everyone she was in contact with: patients, nurses and doctors. Two days later, her test results come back. Confirmed MDR-TB. In two days, the chances are very high that she gave it to every patient in that room as well as to the nurses treating her. Yet, we wonder why this disease is spreading so easily. I was a very good, selfish nurse and avoided that cubicle for the entire time that patient was there.

Look at me now, TB-FREE!

Casualty Catheter

2010-02-16T19:43:00.000+02:00

In the Casualty Resuscitation Room, a Sister was teaching us how to insert a male catheter which is much more dangerous and risky. It requires more skill and care than a female catheter. She inserts it, talking the hind leg off a donkey (apparently I attract people that feel a need to speak to me non-stop), has to grab a catheter bag to attach to the pipe and let go of the pipe that was in the bladder by now. Pee rushed out and sprayed all over my uniform.

She is theoretically my boss, so it's not like I could just smash her head into a wall. All I could do was give a fake smile and say "Oh, hahaha, it's fine, don't worry about it. Hyuk." I spent the rest of the day avoiding urine and conniving over how I could take my revenge.

Chicken Soup for Andy's Soul

2010-02-05T15:49:00.001+02:00

Max was a 27-year-old patient who had a stroke (yep, extremely young). He lost his ability to talk and he lost control of the right side of his body.

Good thing that whenever his restraints came loose on his left hand, he ripped out his drip, ripped off his nappy and tried to rip out his catheter. I actually found it extremely amusing to see a half-paralysed man showing three (big) nurses at a time who was boss. You know how you speak to animals, and babies? Not because you think they'll answer you or understand what you're saying, but just because it's what you tend to do? I did that with Max. I used to have fat conversations with him (or should I say, myself) about whatever was going on, whatever was annoying me, what was happening with my love life - it was my own personal therapy. That poor, poor man - I never know when to shut up.

One day, I was rubbing his back when he turned to me and very softly whispered, "Where's my wife?". My heart broke. After three months of not speaking, he chooses me to be the one to say his 'first' words to, and he misses his wife. I phoned her straight away and she came to see him immediately. I stood by and watched tears of happiness running down their cheeks.

Yep, the cynical nurse can be touched by simple things.

Sluice Room Sperm

2010-01-29T19:47:00.000+02:00

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.

Manny the Mortician(s)

2010-01-22T16:22:00.003+02:00

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. :(

Pee On Your Own Time!

2010-01-17T17:07:00.002+02:00

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.

Night Duty Nightmare... Again

2010-01-11T21:32:00.000+02:00

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.

Sister Zee

2009-10-20T18:45:00.001+02:00

Theatre was interesting for a number of reasons. I had to work 50 hours in theatre, which I completed recently. On our first day there, after orientation about where everything was (which I couldn't care less about considering I didn't want to fetch anything - I just wanted to see blood and gore), a sister came up to us and introduced herself. "Hi guys, I'm Sister Zee." She seemed pretty cool. It was only later I realized that she suffers from raging Bipolar Disorder. She can be heard screaming from the opposite side of the theatre at some unwitting student nurse, she can be heard making orgasm noises when the electricity goes off (which happens unsurprisingly often in this hospital), she can be seen throwing things like Pencil Drains at nurses..

On a boring Sunday, with ZERO cases for theatre, my fellow colleagues and I sat in the recovery room. I played Sudoku for a while and then had wheelchair races with Ariel, while the others watched a movie on a laptop. Luckily for us, Sister Zee was on a warpath and found us. "THERE ARE SEVEN OF YOU SITTING HERE! There were five of us. THERE'S LOTS TO DO! There was nothing to do. EMPTY THE SHARPS BUCKETS! Done already. STOCK THE TROLLEYS! Finished. NEXT TIME, YOU WILL BE THE PATIENT! THAT IS MY SINCERE PRAYER - THAT NEXT TIME, YOU ARE THE PATIENT!". Is that a threat? We later saw her sitting in a chair rocking backward and forward, whispering, "Next time, you'll be the patient" over and over again. Maybe it isn't Bipolar as much as it is insanity?

Just one look at her eye make-up and oily skin and you would swear yourself to celibacy (whether male or female). Although, from the orgasm noises, I would say she must be pretty damn good in bed.

A week or two later, Sister Zee was looking for some fellow nursing students who I know for a fact piss off back to their rooms and sleep for most of the day when they should be working. They magically arrive back at work when it's time to get signed to knock off for the day. Sister Zee informs me that they are useless and in their rooms "wanking" when they should be working. "NEXT TIME, THEY'LL BE THE PATIENT!" I get the effing point, woman.

Maggots for Breakfast?

2009-10-16T19:01:00.000+02:00

I once had to change an old man's nappy, before transferring him to a different ward. So, I take off the dirty nappy and open his legs to wipe him and I see holes in his 'gooch' area opening up - they must have been about 4cm deep and I could see into him. That's generally not a good thing, what with all the TB, sputum, vomit and crap found in a Medical ward.

I opened his legs wider to further inspect whatever damage was present and maggots started running out of the holes and started going everywhere. I gagged. I went to call the Sister-in-charge and she tells me, "Just close him up with a new nappy and take him to the other ward." I do as told by my senior.

In the other ward, I informed the staff about the maggots. Their jaws dropped and I swifty got the hell out of there before they could change their minds about accepting the patient.

I now wish you all a very pleasant breakfast, lunch or supper. x

No Crazy for Me Today!

2009-10-14T10:12:00.000+02:00

Myself, Cindy and Ariel often sit outside the main entrance of the hospital on concrete steps. Firstly, because the cafeteria smells like shit and secondly, because the Canteen only sells Food Poisoning. The psychiatric patients on the second floor often look down at us sitting in the freedom and tend to take a liking to me and wave at me constantly.

I kept seeing the same patient for a couple of weeks. He would wave at me every time he saw me and he would gesture over and over that I must come up and visit him. No thanks, not ready to be murdered today! I haven't seen him in a while. Maybe he was discharged. Or paralysed by a tazer or all the anti-crazy pills. Or sitting outside my bedroom window right now, watching me.

The Psychiatric Ward is very interesting and very scary. Rebecca and I would often sit outside the Psych Ward during a tea break. We would sit watching the patients walking around expressionless, take photos, prod at them with a pole.. That sort of thing.

These patients often try to escape through a locked gate (get the logic in that?) but this doesn't turn out well because security guards beat them down with batons. If the patients aren't running at the gate like a battering ram, they are running up and down the corridors with security guards chasing after them. Those bitches are fast.

Once, I had to enter the ward ON MY FREAKING OWN. I walk in and a big, sweaty man runs straight up to me, introduces himself and gives me the biggest hug. He smells like baby vomit. He then grabs my hand and gives me a tour of the place. "This is where we eat, this is where we get tazered, this is where we can smoke, this is where the elephants eat the pineapples.." I'm pretty sure I had a couple tears running down my face at this stage. All I could think was "I don't want to dieeeee!". I eventually got away from baby vomit guy and walked towards the nurses station. The really crazy patients are locked in their rooms behind bars and all you hear is simultaneous screaming and laughter.

I think I need to be admitted there after that experience.

A Man in Woman's Clothing

2009-10-12T11:55:00.000+02:00

One of my duties in a Surgical Ward is to prepare patients for surgery. There was a woman dressed in a green, flowery dress that I was instructed to go help.

I grabbed a theatre gown, went into the cubicle and closed the curtains. "Amanda, I'm just going to help prepare you for theatre, let's get you dressed into your theatre gown first." So, la da dee dee da, I'm busy daydreaming about what job has the best pay, when I notice her covering herself awkawrdly. Suddenly, everything started adding up.. The deep voice. The lilting gait. The 5 o' clock shadow. The inability to walk in heels. And then I saw it. Major penis. (She, umm, I mean he, would have had a rough time at an all-girl boarding school with that penis.)

A-man-duh!

Inter-costal Calamity

2009-10-11T21:04:00.000+02:00

Inter-costal drain insertion in the UK, US and other developed countries is a surgical procedure performed in the Operating Room (OR). What you are about to read would NEVER happen on Grey's..

In South Africa, there is such a large amount of Gun Shot Wounds and stab wounds that it is a routine procedure performed in casualty rooms (and even the ward) while the patient is fully conscious. Thus, these beautiful wounds are the warm, moist breeding grounds for infection.

I watched a doctor insert one in casualty with a small amount of local anaesthetic in the area of insertion. The woman had been raped and stabbed in the chest and was understandably not feeling very affectionate towards the male species in general. Good thing the doctor inserting the drain was male.

The procedure involves cutting through all layers of skin and piercing through the muscles between your ribs, straight into the lung. Extremely painful. Although we were trying to hold the patient down while she screamed "What the fuck do you think you are doing!?", she managed to get in a couple punches, focusing on the doctors' very large nose. Bruised and battered (more so than the patient), the doctor eventually got it in, resulting in a big WHOOSH of air - blowing his hair back in a way reminiscent of a model on a gusty autumn day photoshoot.

A Buttocks Bomb

2009-10-11T12:38:00.000+02:00

Giving an enema is high on the list of things that no nurse ever wants to have to do. Now that I'm higher up in the nursing ranks, I have made a promise to myself that I will always delegate the job to a junior.

You lift the buttocks with your non-dominant hand and insert the enema with your dominant hand. You then have approximately three seconds to get the hell out of there to avoid being, um, sprayed/splashed/painted/decorated.. Whichever way you view poo.

When inserting the enema, you sort of feel like a member of the Bomb Squad. You never know when she might blow.

Agnes

2009-10-11T11:39:00.002+02:00

My first night EVER in Labour Ward would just have to be dramatic. I seem to bring drama with me wherever I go.. Throughout most of the night, we heard a woman screaming and swearing next door - but I wasn't too bothered - it's not like she was my resonsibility.

At around 02:00AM, they transferred her to Labour Ward. "Agnes" was kicking up a fuss, screaming and going on and on, but I was busy watching deliveries and wasn't really involved. I started getting worried when I didn't hear her screaming anymore, so I went to go look for her. I find Agnes in a bathtub, full to the brim with water, lying spread-eagled - one leg hanging out of each side of the bath. She just stared at me with blank eyes. Knowing that she was a bit of a psycho, I felt geniunely concerned for her, so I pulled up a chair next to her and delved deeper into New Moon.

After about an hour I realized that with my luck I would be performing a waterbirth, so I thought it best to check exactly how dilated she was, etc etc. Agnes gives me permission (which is a miracle, because no one has been allowed to touch her up until this time). So, there I am.. Bending over a spread-eagled woman, with surgical gloves that only go up your wrist so far, performing a vaginal exam. Disgusting water was running into my glove, but her position at least helped me get a good idea of the fact that she most probably wasn't in labour - however, I was still new to everything at this stage and wasn't sure.. It was at that stage that I realized the water was ice cold, and I convinced Agnes that she should go lie in her bed. She agreed.

I walk naked Agnes to her bed, cover her with warm blankies, and start giving her a back massage. She demands that she wants cream for her massage, which I didn't have, so I ended up using Obstetric Cream which is what we use for vaginal exams. Lord. A sweet doctor came to thank me for keeping Agnes calm, and told me I'm helping everyone out so much. I turned my back on Agnes to get more "cookie juice" as we call the cream, and suddenly hear the slap of barefeet on hospital linoleum. Agnes, heavily pregnant, was running out of the room. I ran after her, and grabbed her, but I wouldn't describe myself as 'strong' exactly.. So Agnes wrestled me to the floor, and kept running - out of labour ward, into the main corridor of the hospital, past security guards, past waiting families. Behind her were about 10 nursing staff, and 5 security guards, screaming.

It took all 15 of us to take her down.. Maybe she is a steroid freak? We got her back into the ward. Progress. The registrar (one of the main doctors of the hospital) came to see what the commotion was, and was promptly attacked by a coke bottle-wielding Agnes. Agnes then grabbed a paper punch and threw that at a nurse. Someone accidentally fell against the light switch and plunged the ward into darkness with a psychopath on the rampage. When the light came back on, there was Agnes making a run for it again, trying to crawl through an open space in the doors.

Eventually, we got her back into her cubicle and held the door shut. I looked through a crack in the door and saw her pick up a huge metal chair which she threw at the door.

This was the weapon of choice. When Agnes hadn't tried to kill anyone for a couple minutes, I entered the room to find her dancing a traditional Zulu dance around the room. She screams at me "I WANT PETHIDINE!" (a painkiller). At this stage, she was all maxed out on Pethidine and we couldn't give any more, but she went insane, screaming for it. So, I did like in the movies and gave her a sterile water injection to really test the Placebo Effect. Well, let me tell you, it worked like a dream. She slept for an hour and all was good in the world again.

I was working in another cubicle when in runs naked Agnes, grabs a delivery pack saying it's her baby, and runs off. I was starting to get pissed off, walk out to go find her and when she sees me, she puts the delivery pack down, takes my hand and says "Come". I didn't want to die, so I obeyed her command. She climbed onto bed, and made me massage her. I then decided to have a 'talk' with Agnes. She apologized and gave me chills down my spine as she said, "Don't worry, I'll never hurt you, you're my favourite. I had a dream about my baby, and she looked like you. I love you." Greeeeeeeeeat. Psycho now thinks I'm her baby.

Needless to say, Agnes went nuts a couple more times that night, which resulted in me giving her two doses of Haloperidol (an anti-psychotic) which did not work; we restrained her by tying her down to the bed with the help of every security guard in the hospital and I watched while she spat in a security guards' face.

After approximately 5 hours of drama, it was confirmed that Agnes was in fact, not in labour, and was in Labour Ward for no good reason. Where's my noose?

Colostomy Sex

2009-10-11T11:31:00.001+02:00

A colostomy is basically an opening through your stomach straight into your intestines, rather than you using your bum to go to the toilet. It happens after bowel surgery, cancers, etc.

There was a patient with a persistent infection of his colostomy which is quite unusual. I had never before seen an infected colostomy. Doctors couldn't understand what was going on - the nurses couldn't understand, even if they tried. The doctors started running tests, such as pus swabs, to see what bacterium was causing the infection..

What did they find, you ask? Semen. That's right. Semen.

The man was offering his freaking colostomy for sex, in exchange for money.

Sex with intestines. WHO DOES THAT!?

RESUS!

2009-10-11T11:00:00.000+02:00

In the hospital, when someone shouts "RESUS!", it means get your ass into gear and start CPR. The important thing to know is that you cannot perform CPR on someone who is alive. They HAVE to be dead - which apparently, some fully trained nurses don't even know.

So there I am, working in a Medical ward. I heard "RESUS!" and start running to the room like a child hopped up on cocaine, only to find one of the highest ranked nurses performing CPR on a patient who was very much alive. The sight of a nurse, sweating and puffing while performing sub-standard CPR on a live patient who is trying to fight her off is an image that makes me sleep well at night.

Trust me, someone putting their full weight (and she wasn't a small girl) behind their hands, performing chest compressions on your sternum at a rate of around 100 pumps per minute, is fucking painful.

Afterward, the nurses all celebrated (in the form of an extended tea break), the fact that the patient survived. I didn't have the heart to inform them that the patient had been alive all along.

Night Duty Nightmare

2009-10-11T00:24:00.002+02:00

It was around 2:00AM one morning on Night Duty, and I was in charge of all the Diabetic and Asthmatic patients. That means checking their blood sugar, or giving them Nebulizars and Oxygen, respectively, every four hours (and reporting to someone of higher authority if there's a problem).

I come along to an old homeless man and check his blood sugar. 20mmol/l. O_o A normal blood sugar reading is 3-7mmol/l. This is not good. If it increases much more, he'll end up in a coma. I run to find the sister and can't find her in any of the cubicles. I eventually run to the kitchen and there she is with the rest of the staff members, fast asleep. One nurse is sleeping curled up on the warming cupboard (which is for food, not asses), another is sleeping on the floor. These are South Africa's nurses. ANYWHO, i wake the sister up and tell her about the emergency. Her reply to me? "Don't wake me up. Call the Doctor." Stupid cranky bitch. So I phone the doctor who tells me, "Just give 20 units of Insulin." (This decreases blood sugar levels). Now, 20 units is a crapload, considering the usual amount of Insulin given is 2-8 units, depending on the condition of the patient.

However, as a nurse, we do as we are told by the high-and-mighty Doctors, and I administer the Insulin. I re-check the sugar levels five minutes later and it isn't better. I phone the Doctor again. I am instructed to leave it, the reading will come down in a few minutes - and get hung up on. I supposed she would rather catch up on her beauty sleep, which is understandable because she sounded a bit doggish.

Five minutes later, I go to check on my patient. Dead. Nice. Plus, my damn asthmatic patients were half an hour late getting their oxygen and I like to run a tight ship.

A Reason to Quit

2009-10-11T00:04:00.001+02:00

In our first year, we were all very green and new to the whole nursing thing. A fellow nurse, Daisy, was working in a surgical ward. One day, she noticed a patient covered by all his blankets, shaking vigorously and breathing heavily.

She decided she needed to check why he was shaking - was it an epileptic fit? Did he have a high fever? So, she quickly lifts the covers of the bed right at the moment of... climax.

She got, er, sprayed. Yep, he was fapping. Needless to say, Daisy quit nursing soon after that.

P.S. I see Daisy every now and then, and she permanently has a single tear running down her cheek.

Billy the Psycho

2009-10-10T23:23:00.003+02:00

A certain ward that is not an official Psychiatric Ward has the reputation of keeping all the crazy patients in it. I had to work there for a month. On my first day, I was warned by a night duty nurse to 'avoid the last cubicle'. Being the dumb blonde (and sucker for punishment) that I am, I decided to go straight to the last cubicle. In I walk and I find a patient standing on his bed (let's call him Billy), ripping his neighbour's file apart. The neighbour just sits there with a very slight but very noticeable pout.

So, I shout at Billy to sit down. He sits, looks at me and with a sly wink says, "Would you like to go out with me sometime?" I reversed out of that room so quick, you would think I was the one who invented the moon walk and taught it to Michael Jackson.

I then saw that I was delegated to do Medicine Round. Great, I would have to confront Billy and force pills down his throat. Hesitantly, I walk into the last cubicle and find him pissing on the walls, on his bed, on the drip stands - basically anything he could find. I stood with my jaw dropped open in absolute shock, but then I realized I had better shut my mouth before he saw it as a target. Luckily, because Billy has this 'attraction' to me, he obeys all my commands: stops peeing, gets into bed, swallows all his tablets.

Thereafter, the day moved along quite smoothly until I was standing at the Nursing Station (making a list of why I shouldn't stay in nursing) when something caught my eye down at the end of the corridor..

It was Billy. Taking a shit.

ICU, now with added Polystyrene!

2009-10-10T23:15:00.002+02:00

ICU is a great place to work. It's interesting and fun, and when you're a student and an outsider, you get to see some of the insane characters that work there. One doctor, "Manny" went on a rampage one day. The night duty nurses left a patient with a temperature of 40 degrees Celcius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) all night, and didn't do much to get it down - effectively making his brain cook itself.

Hannibal Lecter eating brain on the aeroplane, anyone? It's chilling. I could practically smell the Soy Sauce.

Manny then saw a nurse putting up a 5% Dextrose in 0.45% Saline drip. He picks the drip up and looks at me.. "Nurse, what I want you to do, is go to the top floor of this hospital and throw every one of these drips out the window. You know why? Because they are pure shit." I tried my best to avoid giggling but my friends Ariel and Cindy were becoming increasingly red-faced and that didn't help all that much.

Another crazy ol' coot is one of the Sisters in ICU who eats polystyrene cups and bowls. She sits there chewing away with polystyrene remnants all over her face and clothes, content as a pig in crap. Either she is hungry and can't afford food - or just plain insane.

Religious Songs by an Atheist

2009-10-10T22:41:00.002+02:00

In one of the wards, the rule is "You come on duty, then you pray". So, in I go to the Tea Room to get my prayer on, but considering the fact that I'm an atheist, I wasn't all that comfortable doing so. I stood there respectfully with my head bowed. I couldn't sing along either way considering they were singing in Zulu.

The Sister-in-Charge then asks me why I'm not singing. "I don't know the words", I reply. Then, she asked me to sing a song from my church. "I don't attend church." I could swear I heard a couple of shocked and horrified gasps.. There was silence for about five minutes until the Sister said, "We're waiting." I had to sing. I don't know any church songs. The only songs I could think of that are remotely religious were Christmas Carols.

I broke out into Silent Night.