Many Faces

20th February (Saturday) - Hello, I'm back folks. And my last post was dated back in January. The Chinese New Year festivities had everything in a rush, visiting relatives and old friends and whatnot. Being in a new working environment made things tough to take leave, but a week of R & R is good enough.
Let's see, I came back and things were the same as usual, but had a few ups and down, inside and outside of work. Before Chinese New Year, there was this patient who seemed okay enough, but the sister, the younger sister, is quite frankly, awful. There are many ways to describe her, but I'm  sticking to the one that is nicer compared to the one we're thinking of her. I'm sure you know this better than anyone, but when it comes to hospital stuff, you are not allowed to take photos or video recording. Well, when I do my usual standard of dressing, she stopped me and started talking in a really, really arrogant tone. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" I was a little confused, because I didn't know what she's talking about. Then she slammed her hands on my trolley and said, "This is a sterile procedure. Why are you not using sterile gloves?!" What the-
She said WHAT?!
I looked at her brother's wound, it's no bigger than a ten cents piece, a centimeter deep. You can clean it without batting an eyelid. You don't need sterile gloves for this, just clean hands and your principal of sterility will do. Well, she basically called me a lot of names, and not satisfied, shouted, "My brother had an appendicitis!!!" (So....) I wonder what is she so worked up about. In my department, all general and gastro surgery such as appendicitis (appendix), lap cholecystectomy (gall bladders), colectomy (colon), hemorrhoids, and many other fracture bones cases surgical wounds like the knee, back, shoulder, legs and more are something that I see nearly every single day. And so far all of our patients are okay except for her. Not enough to berate me, she whipped out her phone and started recording me, demanding me to start from hand washing til the end. If I don't comply, she will take me to customer service. What could I do? My mind on auto-pilot, I complied and ignored the fact that there's a camera recording my every move. The brother kept silent, only answering when I ask him if he feel any pain. The sister made sure to keep me in her sights.
You can imagine the relief once I finally placed the dressing in place and let the patient out. The moment the brother went out, she looked at me and said coldly, "If I ever catch you doing that idiotic thing again, I will drag you to customer service." Dispirited, I sat down in a corner with my face in my hands, not crying but thinking what went wrong. My friend, pittied me, comforted me, saying that I should just ignore the crazy patient's sister. Since the sister had me in her, um, blacklist, she took the case over while I handle the other various cases. My friend(s), both of them,  are the no-nonsense type. So the sister couldn't talk to them like how she did to me. Turns out the sister is a staff nurse in the National Heart Institute.
!!!!!!!!
Now hold on a minute. The Heart Institute deals with heart cases, and, of course you need to be sterile because the heart is a vital organ. One slip and you will cause death. The brother has appendicitis. Now I'm not saying that it's not a big deal, but common sense here, if your patient has a dry incision wound, don't tell me you are going to open a dressing set, one large bottle of saline, sterile gloves, all for the sake of a dry wound, where you can actually just wear normal gloves for protection and use one swipe of the alcohol swab to clean the dried blood. Believe me, when I first started down here, a doctor was going on and on about how opening a dressing set to clean a small dry wound is a total waste of money. Since then, I always looked at the severity of the wound first before deciding on the dressing set or not. And to be frank, being a nurse in the Heart Institute is nothing to be braggy about. I been to banks many times and had to fill in the occupation part, when I put down my position and company name, most people go, "Oh, a 5 star hospital, so good." But I always smile and shake my head, saying it's just like any other hospital. When I was a patient undergoing surgery, I had never sued my position to bully other nurses, I just act like a patient, because the moment you are sick, and you come for help, you are a patient. Of course I've had student nurses taking my vital signs and whatnot, but I had never once antagonize them by pointing out their flaws, I just smiled softly, but did give them advices and tips instead of yelling at them like some maniac. The doctor asked me about the patient and he said that the brother and sister duo had caused dramas in the ward as well. Hm, if only the world is such a nice place.
Yesterday I encountered a family of three under one of our department surgeon. The mother was the speaker for the family, she came up and rapped the counter and said, in a very rude and arrogant tone, "My son had daily dressing under Dr. So-and-So. Do I go to the ward for dressing or here?" With a bright smile plastered on my face, even though my heart is writhing at her tone, I answered, in a really bright tone, that all dressings will be done in our treatment rooms. She took a look at the room and gave a huff. Then, rapping the counter again, she said, in that tone of hers. "I want to know how much is the cost for a dressing." Again, I told her politely that I can't name her a price, because each and every patients are different. Then she snapped, "You are a nurse. Surely you had seen all sorts of dressings, I want you to give me a fixed amount! Don't tell me you don't know how much a dressing costs if I told you my son dressing is about this big! (She puts her thumb and index finger together.)"
Oh..... I know these types. These types of patients are the one who asked you a price, then they come for the procedure. Even if it's a few dollars expensive than the one you stated, they will go to customer service, start making dramas, and then, the usual statement, "The nurse told me so!!!" Sorry, I had my fair amount of handling these types, so I told her, quite firmly, that I don't know the exact price, and if she has any inquiries, to please go back to her son's primary doctor. Naturally, she took my word, then went to cause a big drama for the doctor as well. Ahhh, I guess there's no reasoning with some patients.
After work, I went out shopping with dad for a blanket-pillow for traveling necessities, so we found a nice empty space at the parking lot and parked there. No sooner had we taken more than a few paces, this elegantly dressed lady in red came out, and said in very rude way, to please move our car. We didn't get it because she parked in her space, and so did we. But no, she was making a big fuss that our car will bang hers. So we took a good look at her car. A really old, faded green Proton Saga with rusted tires. For the love of - IT'S NOT EVEN A PROPERLY MAINTAINED CAR OR SOMETHING FANCY LIKE A MERCEDES, yet she kept demanding us to move. When we put the car in reverse, she didn't walked away, but watch us with those hawk eye gaze of hers. Fuming, my dad ordered me to get in the car and we drove another round for a parking spot. We passed that lady's car again, and surprise, surprise, no one parked beside her. I took a quick sneak peek and saw the lady sitting at a window table of a coffeehouse, staring out at her car. Geez, no wonder why nobody wanted to park next to her. Of course Dad went ranting about how unbelievable some people are and I told him to calm down, to not lose himself, and someday, karma will come back to her. It's the Circle of Life.
On an extra note, I was beaned by an orange during a lion dance. *K.O.ed*