Double Nickels

Fifty Five

Well shit I missed posting in November sorry 'bout that folks. To make up for it I'll tell my most recent Thanksgiving story.

Just after getting my assignment I head out to triage to do my thing which is do vital signs and stat EKGs. It's a quiet Thanksgiving morning. Night shift tells us that it really cleared out about midnight so much in fact that the waiting room is totally empty. This gave the housekeeping floor crew to come through and work on the beat up floors. The empty waiting room gave the regular housekeeping staff an opportunity to properly clean the area and really dig in and clean the bathrooms in the waiting room after maintenance unclogged the toilet for the 3rd or 4th time in the last 24 hrs. The waiting room is empty and sparkling clean a rarity for the inner city trauma center.

One of the nurses walks up after running late and says:

"Wow it smells great up here"

 I never notice the smell which is bad and ask her what triage usually smells like to her and she replies:

"Like a dumpster"

A few minutes later up walks an appox 50 year old male looking disheveled and much like our typical homeless type. It's unusual to see homeless on the tgiving holiday because only a couple of miles from our doors is a big holiday feed the homeless event. They que up early there and stay until the police runs them off.

He registers and I wave him over then ask him to take off his jacket so I can take his BP. He does and then tries to hand me the jacket. I tell him "oh no..no you keep your jacket it's suppose to get real cold tonight." Then he proceeds to unbutton his well worn flannel shirt. I say he really does not have to go through the trouble and hey please keep your shirt on. He just stares at me blankly unbuttons the last button and opens his shirt revealing a bare chest to his nipples. He then points to his nipples and says:

"You want to suck them?"

I reply no flatly and tell him that all I wanna do is get his BP. He then says:

"I have a chemical imbalance"

I tell him flatly that I believe him. The triage nurse on the other side of the curtain is chuckling away.
I direct him over to the triage nurse for her to deal with him. No surprises here, he's off his meds. Back to psych he goes the rest of the day is uneventful.

Naturally we had a grand tgiving potluck which Crusty actually got to before all the food was inhaled eaten by everyone else other than the ER staff (maintenance, housekeeping, radiology and security) in the past I have been lucky to eat the dressing no one liked and that fucked up disgusting Frito pie. This year I even got a decent lunch and pie. Crusty was happy.

More stories from the dynamic work space we call the emergency room. Happy Holidays!