Yeah, if for some reason you just can’t get enough of my ramblings with what I put out here, check out my other sites:
BikeNovice.com - A road cycling site for non-pros… hairy legs welcome!
WhosTubing.com – A site all about YouTube content creators and their subculture
GringoBogota.com – How to get around Bogotá, Colombia as a non-latino
No, I’m not referring to the three people who were swept over the edge after wading into the waters above Vernal Falls. I’m not even talking about the kind of jerk who would be posing near the waterfall with a screaming young girl in his arms while a teenage girl snapped photographs. I’m talking about the two caught on film about 2/3 of the way through this video clip, sitting on a rock in the rapids just above Vernal Falls just days after a very well publicized incident.
It makes my head spin. It boggles my mind. It makes me sure that if intelligent life comes here from another planet they’re going to exterminate us like rats for the good of the rest of the planet!
When I was a young kid I played in the street. Scraggly haired and skinny, the bright paisley pattern of my bell-bottom corduroys fighting for attention with my newly-erupted front incisors that barely fit my face, I’d tear down the block on my Big Wheel trike as fast as my legs could power me, sometime reaching speeds as high as twelve miles an hour. The other kids on the block did this too, zipping across the lanes on whatever pedal-powered vehicle was available to them, sometimes purposefully, sometimes randomly. When the occasional Ford or Dodge or Buick would appear, and we’d all yell warnings to each other (“CAR!”) as we got to the side of the street until once again there was no sign of traffic.
Granted, my town was relatively small and the street was not that busy. In most neighborhoods this social gathering of unsupervised minors would surely lead to an accident of fatal proportions. Nowadays, though, kids don’t even do this in the cul-de-sacs of pre-fab suburbs where every homeowner is a paranoid and over-attending parent. It just isn’t done.
Our street adventures weren’t limited to Big Wheel races on nice days. On stormy days, we enjoyed riding our bicycles through the puddles that always accumulated in the gutters. Sprinting down a water and oil soaked pavement as fast as we could, not a helmet in sight, we’d hit the puddles as hard as we could to see if we would make it to the other side without getting stuck or falling over. Sometimes we’d pull it off, leaving a really cool wake behind our treadless “slick” rear tire (kids bikes were build more like muscle cars than SUVs back then), sometimes we’d stop halfway through and come crashing sideways to the pavement, soaking our clothes and skinning our knees.
At a park near my house, the workmen had left a large mound of dirt after doing some improvements. At about fifteen feet high, constructed completely out of clumps of brown dirt and large rocks, with one side sloping down like a freeway offramp, it was like a miniature mountain to us kids. Of course, this became the place to go for practicing daredevil stunts and quick descents, once again without a helmet in sight. In the wintertime, this was also our sledding hill. I think that hill is still there today, although probably covered in grass and weeds by now.
From about six years of age, some younger, kids in my neighborhood were completely autonomous at play, wandering off in all directions, climbing trees, wandering through strangers’ back yards… occasionally doing incredibly stupid things like jumping off roofs, touching utility pole wires, eating berries we’d not identified, starting fires, etc.
When I was a kid, riding in the middle of our car’s front bench seat was an honor. In fact, our Buick Electra had a great flip-down armrest that made a fantastic little booster seat so I could see over the dash. Seat belts? I didn’t regularly wear those until I was in my late teens. Never as a kid. I loved station wagons because they were like big, rolling play rooms when the seats were folded flat. Pickup trucks? Sure! I love riding in the back! More people than seats? Someone’s gotta sit on someone’s lap! Oh, and when mom went to the store, she left us in the car… sometimes with the engine on!
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Image: Public Domain / Library of Congress
During my recent overnight hospital stay, I noted some things from my experience on the other side of the medical chart, mainly regarding staff behavior. For the most part, everything was great, but there was certainly room for improvement. I’m not going to mention hospital names in this text or staff names at all (so please don’t ask), but I feel it could be worthwhile to share this experience, if not just for some of my health care colleagues.
My check-in to the ER was uncharacteristically pleasant. Emergency rooms are notoriously chaotic and my past experiences with them have been less than pleasant, as a patient, as staff, and as someone accompanying a patient. The clerks were friendly and relatively efficient and careful to maintain my privacy as per HIPAA guidelines. The wait wasn’t overly long either, about an hour.
As I was taken to the exam room, however, something struck me as odd about the first ER nurse assigned to my case. We’ll call her “Nurse A.” This nurse seemed more interested in trying to get commiseration about how unpleasant some doctors can be instead of assessing me and making sure I was comfortable. Believe me, I do feel that some doctors can be jerks, but when I knew I was likely facing an imminent emergency esophagoscopy, it wasn’t anywhere near my primary choice of conversation topics. Moreover, I especially didn’t want to hear about how inappropriate some of the doctors were in the hospital where I was currently a patient!
Another thing that got to me about Nurse A was her casual talk about how I might need surgery. This was something I didn’t want to think about; not immediately, anyway. If it came to my needing surgery, I would deal with it then, and I’m a firm believer in the idea that it’s the doctor’s job to discuss surgical possibilities.
Being a nurse, I watched carefully how procedures were handled, and for the most part everything was fine. However, Nurse A seemed very cavalier about how she handled my IV medications. She first gave me Glucagon and then Reglan shortly after. Reglan, in some people, causes akathesia, which is a condition of motor restlessness, marked anxiety and/or panic, and labile affect. As it turns out, I’m one of these people. I couldn’t manage to stay on the gurney more than thirty seconds. I was up and down, pacing around, wrapping my IV and monitor cords around my body, and freaking out. According to my wife, I was making really strange facial expressions and shaking wildly.
More concerning than the physical manifestations of the drug were the things going on inside my mind. I felt an “impending doom” sensation. I had repeated thoughts of ripping out my IV and leaving against medical advice. Fortunately, a voice of nursing experience spoke up from some little corner of my brain and reminded me I’d likely be in deep trouble physically if I did that. Also, Nurse A’s mentions of surgery came into play. In my head, I saw myself getting scoped, the doctors finding some kind of stricture or occlusion that required immediate surgery, which of course my wife would sign off on immediately, then I’d be in the ICU intubated and dying of an infection caused by an undetected perforation and these would be the last thoughts I had before I died!
Yes, I know it’s crazy talk. Thankfully, the little nursing voice in the corner of my brain helped me keep it together. When my wife asked what’s wrong, I just said “I’m terrified” in a weepy, silent voice. During all of this, Nurse A was on a break. An ER tech had checked on me at one point, and was very compassionate about what was going on, but was understandably powerless to do anything immediately about it. Thankfully, he mentioned to the OR doc (Doctor A) that I was going bonkers.
Doctor A come to check on me shortly after the tech had been there. She stifled a chuckle, for which I really can’t blame her because I’m sure I was quite a sight, and she explained to me that I was experiencing a reaction to the Reglan and she’d order some IV Benadryl. After Nurse A came back from her break, she administered the Benadryl and I was fine. Doctor A then instructed me to attempt drinking a Diet Coke while Nurse A and the tech checked on me. The tech was very pleasant, but Nurse A kept talking about surgery regardless of the fact that I’d very plainly requested she stop. I wasn’t as panicked as I had been while experience the Reglan effect, but her chatter wasn’t helping me settle down at all. I was trying to concentrate on keeping the Diet Coke down (unsuccessfully).
Eleven o’clock came and with it came the shift change. Nurse A was replaced by Nurse B, who was very understanding and had an awesome personality. I’d learned in conversation that Nurse B had an esophagoscopy the previous week, which might have had something to do with her empathy, but I also found her personality much more amicable. In the meanwhile, Doctor A informed me that I was being admitted as an inpatient and that she was contacting a gastrointestinal surgeon, Doctor B. Knowing my fate was surely an early-morning procedure, I did my best to let the Benadryl do its thing and relax for the night.
When the GI surgeon, Doctor B, arrived, Nurse B woke me up to let me know the esophagoscopy would happen soon. She was very pleasant and answered all my questions (to which I already knew the answers, but my head was in a weird place). She was also very pleasant to my wife. Doctor B also had an fantastic bedside manner.
Unfortunately, Doctor B brought another nurse with him, Nurse C. I don’t have very many nice things to say about Nurse C. She had the bedside manner of a bill collector, and was physically rough as well. She was rude to my wife, saying “You need to leave!” in a stern manner instead of politely instructing her it was time to go to the waiting room. She stuck really sticky EKG leads on the hairiest part of my chest, decided she’d placed them wrong, and violently ripped them off to replace them. She hit me in the eye with the nasal cannula as she was trying to place it. As I was going to Slumberland from the anesthesia, she crammed the hard plastic mouth guard in my mouth with little attention. Overall, she was displaying the attitude of someone who was unhappy to have been called in to work for an early-morning case. Maybe she should consider not taking call shifts.
Apparently, while I was still asleep, Doctor B explained everything to my wife in a very nice manner (she had been concerned because she expected a ten minute procedure that had ended up going on for over an hour). She was happy with him and so was I from what I remembered of him. I was also happy with Nurse B, the tech, and the admission clerks. While I understand the mannerisms of Nurse A and Nurse C, I can tell you from the patient’s side of the interaction they definitely had room for improvement.
I’d always considered myself to be a nurse with excellent bedside manner, but this experience has caused me to shine a light on my own behavior. There’s definitely some room for improvement there. If you work in health care, there might well be some room for improvement for yourself as well.
