Exit

So, my assignment in Texas has ended and I'm back at Home Hospital for the summer. I missed my parents, I missed my friends here, and I missed my coworkers - not taking anything away from the people I've met while traveling thus far...but there's no place like home.

It was hard to leave Texas though. I loved everything about it, from the people to the delicious food to the warm weather. I've already decided that I'll be back there, and sooner rather than later. Thus far my plan is Home Hospital part time this summer, then hopefully Colorado or California or Hawaii until the spring - then back to Texas. But enough about future plans. Let's talk about exit strategy. Not by me, but by a patient of mine on my last shift there. Because this is a blog about nursing, remember?

As with any ER, we are bed & breakfast to many a drunk moron. Some of them we allow to sleep off their alcohol because they're nice and polite to us and never piss on the floor. Others we'll kick out as soon as they can stand or start throwing the f-bombs around. If they cross the line and start to get punchy, we have them escorted out by the nice gentleman in uniform. But every now and then, a patient leaves in style. Like my patient.

He's the sadly usual variety of ER dreg. He vacillated between outright sexual harassment of the female nurses and antagonistic fighting attempts to the male nurses. When he was informed that he was discharged and free to exit the ER without the meal tray, percocet, or ginger ale he so kindly demanded, he started to escalate. The police were brought to stand by the room in case of explosion. When he saw them he picked himself up and walked out of the room without any further bitching. We were all utterly shocked as he walked by our nursing station and out of the ER without another word. "This never happens, ever," said Charge. We were all perplexed at the lack of style in his departure, but shrugged and started to move to the next task.

And then we smelled it. And kind of tasted it. The worst fart I have EVER been subjected to. It was like a bum took his stanky feet off, marinated them in C.diff, wrapped them in used perirectal I&D gauze, and left them in the hot sun for a week with a sprinkling of gangrene seasoning for extra flavor. This fart violated every code set forth in the Geneva convention. Mother Theresa would have wept in agony. God smote a kitten when this thing erupted. It was, ugh. I can't. I can't even.

Seriously, this MF'er cropdusted us with no mercy. No one saw it coming. No one. It was even more insulting because we thought we had won the battle of ER eviction, but truly. He won the war.