Guest Post: Meri

Forget that it's June first and pretend that it's May, any day in May. Good, now that you are pretending let's move on...It's time for May's Guest Post!! I should have really called these Friend Posts. Meet, Meri. She has literally saved my life. She's a nurse and I have no shame in asking "Hey, I have this weird pain on my side.." She just asks for my symptoms and saves my life. We met while working at a restaurant together and were always getting in trouble for chatting too much lol...Anywhoo here's Meri:

There’s drama in the hospital almost everyday.  They range from sad, dumb, silly to inspiring.  Working in the ICU most stories aren’t light enough to be told to others. But some are just strange and can be shared.  Here are some of my top picks of memorable stories to tell. 

“Her Babies”

We had a psych patient that had two tumors on her right breast.  Most people will see the doctor when a tumor is about the size of a pea.  Not if it’s a total psychiatric patient.  They let their tumors grow.  In fact to the size of a head: each.  We had to joke that if we put a camera on it, it will do face recognition.  The surgeons were happy to incise them both.  After surgery she expressed that she missed her “babies.”  

“Flirtatious larvae man”

Yes. Larvae.  Apparently he had some raw food to eat (suspect: ceviche) and the parasite traveled up from his gut to his brain and settled there and had a larvae.  CT scan proved a cocoon hanging out in his head right at the base of his skull.  We were all just so grossed out.  And he had to be flirtatious.   I mean the guy. was. flirtatious.  Smiling, moving flirtily, he acted like he was supposed to be hot.  No one was flattered but we had to watch for his neurological status for a day in the ICU- which meant we had to occasionally talk to him.    

“Fire in the vending machine room” 

One day when I worked in the ER, I was sitting in the triage area when there was a PA overhead for code red. (Code Red=Fire) “Code red triage vending machine room.”  None of us had known that there’s a fire!?  We walked less than 30 feet from us to the vending machine room to find a homeless guy who felt “cold” (it was winter) heat his socks in the microwave.  It caused his sock to burn which made a cloud of smoke that created a whole fire drill throughout the hospital. 

“Liver transplants for sale”

Sometimes we get random calls.  One caller asked if we do liver transplants. I put the caller on hold and asked my very sarcastic boss who was standing nearby for the right answer.  Her answer was, “Well we don’t but they do across the street I think at 7-eleven.  In fact, they could probably use their gift card.  Do they also want a heart too? It might be on sale.”  She’s an intense woman.  I simply told the caller “no, we don’t.”

“The 900#er” 

The 900 pound guy that was fork lifted from his home in his own bed to be admitted.  My work called me to take this assignment for a patient in the ER.  He belonged to the ICU instead of the ER but he wouldn’t fit in the elevator to get to the upper floors of the ICU so they were looking for a nurse to come down to where he was at. He also needed a CT scan to further diagnose him but he wouldn’t fit there either.  If he really needed it we would air lift him to LA zoo.  During his stay he laid in his own bed (because we don’t have beds big enough.) He died in the ER a few days later.  When he died he would not fit in the morgue; they couldn’t bury him because there were no caskets big enough, the family had to make many alternate arrangements.  A sad perspective that people don’t really hear about. 

OK, something lighter:

“Our Frequent flyer”

About once a month this homeless guy comes in.  And like clockwork he’ll come in at 8am.  His complaints are always like stomach ache, headache etc.  We check his vitals.  (Nothing is ever wrong.)  9:00 he complains that he’s tired of waiting for the doctor.  10:00 comes around and he insists that he’s hungry and we’ll give him a sack lunch.  11:00 He watches TV. 12:00 He’ll ask to use our shower in the back room then puts on his new (used, donated) clothes and shoes.  1:00 we call him to check his vitals and he would be nowhere to be seen.  This is his routine. Always.  

  

“Fulfilling Life”

Not all of them are crazy, although they might sound like it at first.  I took care of a guy about 64 years old.  He fell (no one knows how) and hit his head which created an irreparable bleed.  The bleed was so large we knew he wouldn’t make it.  But the 3 days I took care of him I found out more and more about his family.  The first day I found out that he had SO MANY family members!    They came through to see him.  All so very nice and kind despite their hardship.  And they all told me what a wonderful man he was.  Even with their graciousness I went home to tell my boyfriend with a slight judgmental eye that the world can’t sustain that kind of population growth.  That’s way too many kids from two people. Day 2 he had more family visitations where I found out that he had a total of 52 grandchildren!  This was mind boggling for me.  Day 3 my judgment was proven to be wrong.  I found out that he didn’t in fact HAVE 20 children but he had ADOPTED most of them.  Church and his faith must have told him to give to people as much as he could.  The family showed that he was a giving man and he was deeply loved.  Despite his family’s prayers for a miracle he passed away. At 0008 o’clock on his very birthday.  It seemed like God gave him just enough time to let his family say good-bye.