Wednesday, August 8, 2007

great homecare nursing story

Tera inspired this entry by asking me to share some nursing stories. I know that a couple of you have heard this story before, so bear with me.
A little background. I work for a homecare company. I do pediatric private duty, which means that I go to one child's house for my whole shift. These are kids who need someone with them all of the time. We stay up all night or give respite so the families can have a break or get some rest. They are mostly kids with trachs and ventilators.
I used to go to a girl's house in very scary neighborhood. (I'll try to be discreet so as to not break any HIPPA laws!) She had an interesting home life. Her parents were separated. She was living at her mom's house. This is the mother who one time asked "who the f--- is in my house", when I showed up for a shift. One night I showed up for my shift and the patient wasn't home. She was down town at the olympic plaza. (It was 11:00pm). She got home at 2am!!(She was about 7 years old) I sat there for three hours with the mom and her boyfriend waiting for my patient to arrive. At least it was easy money. Anyway, my patient gets home and I put her to bed. The boyfriend decides to stay the night. The walls are paper thin and I can hear everything! DISGUSTING!!!(especially if you saw them) I go home thinking, wow, that was interesting. I am scheduled to go back to this same house in two days. My next shift there starts out rather uneventful. My patient goes to sleep right after I get there, I'm thinking easy sailing right? I get to read a book most of the night. However, the mom has her friend over, who is a girl. A couple hours after my shift started the friend leaves to go to a convenience store. The mom tells her she loves her and kisses her (on the lips)while I'm sitting there in front of them, trying to read my book! I'm thinking to myself, "that's weird, I thought she had a boyfriend, is she gay? Well, the girlfriend came back and slept over. Once again the walls are paper thin and I can hear everything!!!!!! A girlfriend, a boyfriend and a husband all at once! That had to have been demanding. I felt that I had lost all of my innocence that night!!! Needless to say, I will never forget that night!
Sorry this wasn't really a story about nursing, but it has by far had the most impact on my psyche. I also have a good story about finding marijuana in a sterile dressing, that was covering a diabetic ulcer. Yummy!

3 comments:

Kate said...

That is disgusting... sorry you had to deal with that- was it worth the money? Can't wait to see you at book club- You are a mountain biker, right? or roadie?

Kristen said...

i have heard that story before but never seen it "in print" so it had a different affect!!

Tara said...

wow! that wasn't realy what I had in mind :) but what a shocker! I would have been scared to death to even stay there! I hope you at least had a good book to read. Now I want to hear about something bloody!