Dueling Call Lights

OK…it’s obvious by now that I am not a “real blogger”, seeing as my last post was sometime in 2007. Well! I can remedy that! 

Last night I took care of a man having the DT’s, a.k.a alcohol withdrawal. Why don’t  we just give these people a six pack of Bud, instead of pumping them full of Ativan every 15 minutes? I mean, seriously.  I’ll even drive to the packy.

Anyway, this guy is all over the bed, up on all fours, johnny WIDE-OPEN, when I see that one of the cardiac monitoring leads is stuck to the back of his scrotum! Yet the monitor showed a perfect sinus rhythm! It struck me so funny that I had to point this out to my fellow nursing professionals, who pointed and giggled, and called over more people who in turn pointed and giggled. Since we had such a good cardiac tracing, the question remained…leave the monitor attached to the family jewels or not? I wasn’t sure, since this question really doesn’t come up all that often. Well, I decided that leaving the monitor on his balls, while great fun for us nurses, probably broke some sort of ethical or professional code of conduct, so reluctantly, I started to remove the EKG lead, only now it’s stuck in the hairs around his scrotum.. He yells, “HEY! Get out of there or I’m calling your mother!”

Nursing. You just can’t make this stuff up.