A Night On The Medical Floor

Most of the psych patients got their government checks on Monday so there was an exodus of them leaving the hospital. That left the psych units with low patient numbers and it was my turn to be sent to another unit again. This time it was to the medical floor to watch a patient one on one. The patient’s chart was not available to me but the nurse gave me a brief report about him. He had a history of medical problems like atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and diabetes. He also had right side weakness, so I suspect that he was a stroke victim as well. To add to those problems, this patient was refusing to take his medications and would not allow the nurses to check his blood pressure and blood sugar. He was on IV antibiotics also and I was surprised that with all his refusals, he hadn’t pulled off the IV line yet. It’s a patient’s right to refuse treatment so we couldn’t really force him to do anything. He was otherwise a quiet person although he seemed very depressed about his condition. With a little prodding, he told me that he has been in the hospital too long, that his wife visits him about once a week, and that they have three children, 1 boy and 2 girls. He spoke mostly Spanish so we couldn’t exchange too much information. He got mad at me later for trying to convince him not to call his wife on the phone at 12:15 in the morning. Since he could not dial the phone very well, he asked me to do it. When I hesitated he yelled “F… You!” The nurse intervened and negotiated with him. If we call his wife, he would let us check his blood pressure. I was surprised that the wife answered the phone at such a late hour. He was pretty quiet the rest of the night aside from asking me to take off some of his blankets because it was too warm, scratch his calf a little bit because it was itchy, and bend his knee because it was starting to hurt.

In the meantime I was reading or answering crossword puzzles which I always bring in my backpack for nights like this. There was also a very distracting eye candy of a respiratory therapist who was doing her rounds and kept passing by my patient’s door J.

In the morning before I left, I was given more information about the patient. He had been living in a nursing home but because of his unstable blood pressure and blood sugar, plus his refusal to take his medications, they would not take him back until everything was stabilized. I felt bad for him. I bid him goodbye and thanked him for keeping me company that night. I should have thanked the eye candy too for being around, but she had already left, and that would have been inappropriate.