Category Archives: Parallel Universes
Voice Lessons
One of my responsibilities as a psych nurse is patient education. I help my patients learn coping skills, teach them about their medications and how they work, and help them find ways to change the thoughts and attitudes that keep defeating them. It’s not a one-way street, though; my patients teach me, too. They show me new ways to look at the world; they teach me honesty and transparency, and about the resilience of the human soul. Once in a while, one comes along who teaches me more than I … Continue reading
Calendar Conspiracy
Back in my hospital CNA days, I worked the night shift. Each of the rooms on the med-surg unit where I worked had a 365-day calendar hanging on the wall to let the patient know what day it was, so one of the things I did each night as I made my rounds taking midnight vitals was to tear the previous day’s page off each calendar to update it for the new day. During one shift, I was assigned to “sit” with a somewhat confused elderly woman. She had wrecked … Continue reading
Apple Leaf Poultice
The elderly black woman’s blood pressure had been dangerously elevated. While I was checking her vitals for one of many times that shift, she looked up at me hesitantly. “If I tell you something, will you do it for me?” she asked. “What is it?” I replied. “Go out yonder,” she said, pointing at the midnight sky outside her fifth floor hospital room window, “and get some leaves offa dem apple trees. Make a poultice of ‘em, and sprinkle on some salt to pull da juice outta da leaves. Put … Continue reading
Insight
There are cameras in the patient rooms on our psych units. The images they produce are tiny, black and white, and grainy. (That’s not really by design; they’re just very old, and they aren’t broken, so there’s no reason to replace them.) They don’t show much detail — just enough to allow us to keep an eye on people who might be liable to hang themselves with a bed sheet or try to dance naked on one foot on the back of a plastic chair. No, I didn’t just randomly … Continue reading
Psych Patient Quote of the Day
While doing a medical history on a psychotic/delusional young man, I asked if he had any problems with his lungs. He replied, in a somewhat mystified tone, “Yeah… I have to keep breathing.”
Irony
It’s evening on the psych unit. Several patients are watching the movie Titanic in the common area. Rather, they are trying to watch it, but their view is blocked by a delusional woman who is alternately twirling and dancing gaily in front of the television and then holding animated conversations with it, her face scant inches from the screen. The others are amazingly tolerant, simply craning their necks this way and that as they try to see around her. Fast forward about 30 minutes: Snack time. Coffee, juices, cheese and … Continue reading
On Again, Off Again
The patient, newly arrived on the unit, is sitting in a chair in the middle of her room. Her hands are clenched in her hair, one on each side of her head. Her eyes are screwed shut, and she is kicking her legs and yelling at the top of her lungs. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!” I knock, then walk into the room with a tray. “Here, I brought your dinner,” I say through the din. The patient stops yelling, opens her eyes, and takes the tray. “Thank you,” she says calmly, smiling up … Continue reading