1st Debris Belt

 
In the Charlie Brown Cartoon stories there is a character named Pig Pen who seems to leave a wake of dust and mess behind him wherever he goes. Let's just say that I was not a total neat-freak (like some dayshift nurses that followed me) because my main focus was getting my patient's through the night alive. The next morning an occasional muttering was heard as that day nurse fussed around the patients room making it look pretty, to their standards.

My best pal Nurse was the type that needed about 5 feet of desktop space to spread out papers, files and charts (before the EMR) leaving very little space for even one more nurse to chart. It was a bit of a joke between us and did not cause discord. Besides, she was a veritable encyclopedia of Cardiology and a great teacher as well. Anyways, a great team of nurses we were and that is the key to success wherever you work.

I have a 1st Debris Belt in Messiness
But Lana, she's got me beat,
Just trying to start an IV
There are throw-away wrappers
Covering her feet.

I have a 2nd Debris belt in Organization
I couldn't follow a list if you paid me,
That's why it's not a good idea
To try to coerce or persuade me.

Then there's my 3rd Debris belt in Entanglement
I can conjure a knot in any shoelace or cord,
Why untie, when I can more easily break it
I'm one of those employees you can not afford.

2010

Nurse: Things To Look Forward To

 

I posted this in 1997, when this Underside was a self-published endeavor. Here I am 26 years later, no longer working at the bedside but still performing some education duties. Look, Nursing isn't easy (not then and not now) but it is extremely fulfilling helping others in their time of need.

In Days Long Gone

In days long gone
Of innocent youth,
You could go to a Doctor
To get at the truth,
Because disease back then
Was fairly simple,
Unwanted babies
Or maybe a pimple,
A week in the hospital
Would do the trick,
If you didn't die
You weren't really sick,
Because medicine men
Didn't have many drugs,
No antibiotics
For bacterial bugs,
Just common sense
Like fluid and rest,
Surgical wounds
Were debrided and dressed,
Life support measures
Not yet invented,
Many more sinners
Took stock and repented.

But today, man, it's different
This hospital scene,
Each organ system
Has a machine;
Any mechanic can tell you
This carries a price,
It's Russian roulette
With a medical device.

Central line catheters
A bacterial threat,
Ground fault dysrhythmias
If a pacer gets wet,
Gastric perforation
From sump pumping hoses,
After long-term use
They'll have a nasal necrosis,
Tracheomalacia
And traumatic intubation,
Will lead to a permanent
Hoarse voiced oration,
Tympanic rupture
From a doppler detonation,
Uremic poisoning
From bladder ablation,
And that's just the patients
But what about the nurse,
Each day at the job
Is surely a curse.

Consider the dangerous
Equipment itself,
Monitor boxes
That fall off the shelf,
Land on your head
Bruising your brain,
There's no medication
For this kind of pain,
Suspended televisions
That swing in an arc,
Causing serious damage
At night, in the dark,
Colonic disasters
From overfilled pans,
Body fluid exposure
On your clothes and your hands,
Broken thermometers
With mercurial spills,
Inhaling poisonous dust
From all those crushed pills,
Exposure to X-rays
That zoom through the walls,
Effectively neutering
Ovaries and balls.

Good god, it's a nightmare
There is nowhere to hide,
But who keeps statistics
On the nurses that died,
In the course of their work
By their choice of career,
They silently vanish
Year after year,
As their spirits race homeward
At the crack of each dawn,
The days of their innocent youth
Are long gone.