August 30, 2010
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Titanium Cojones
When I turn 92 years old, I hope to have the bullet-proof titanium cojones of Merl. Merl was a recent ER patient. On the other hand, I hope I to never have his level of dementia. Please don’t misunderstand me in this regard. Dementia is a horrible, traumatizing, and frustrating disease, however, in the ER, sometimes you have to laugh because otherwise you’d spend all day crying. I think I need to create some dialog to do this story justice. Thus, I will add parts in italics and underline for whats going on inside peoples heads.
EMS: “Patient coming in after being found on ground covered in bird seed and woodchips. Also, the patient seems to be glowing with a glorious radiance that I can only assume is the glow of his own awesomeness. Also, he has dementia.
ER Staff: “Copy that. We’ll see you on arrival. WTF? Birdseed?
(patient arrives)
Merl: “You don’t know if they want to take the rooster, do you! Well, if you don’t filter out the bats, you can’t even fly, can you? CAN YOU! I didn’t think so. So I had to get out (anyone notice how awesome I am?) .
ER doc: Uh, right, sir. So, what happened today (I wonder if he’s batshit crazy)?
Merl: I got away (I got away!)!
ER doc: OK, how did you do that (batshit craziness confirmed)
Merl: You don’t own me (bitch).Then we called the nursing home. This is where the story got interesting (boring up to here, right?). Apparently, he’s in a lock down unit for his dementia when it gets bad (today was bad…). They found his window broken (of the 3rd story building, at 92 years old remember). Attached to the bed was tied one corner of the bed sheet. Hanging outside of said window was several sheets tied together. Tied to the bottom of the sheets were shoelaces. This hung outside the window down to about 10 feet from the ground. On the ground, found, by EMS, was Merl. Covered in birdseed from a nearby bird feeder.
That’s right, at 92 he made a pseudo-jailhouse escape from his lock down unit on the dementia ward. A successful escape, except for the fact that at 92 you can’t hold onto the bed sheet rope ladder you hastily created as well as you did in your youth.
Aaaah, the ER, how I love it.
Oh, here’s another quick story.
I walked into a room to see a nice young woman and her child. The child (3 years old), kept running up to me and giving my leg a hug. All smiles and happiness as only a 3 year old can have. I don’t know why this kid loved me so much, but he did. So, after evaluating the patient, and picked him up quickly with a smile. In my haste, I proceeded to smash his head into the overhead (hanging down) light present in every room. His love for me didn’t last.
Oh well.
Comments (10)
Next time pic up Merl. He won’t be traumatized!
Your dementia patient reminds me of Foul Ole Ron in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Ron goes around muttering things like, “I told ‘em! Bugrit. Millenium hand and shrimp!”
(By the way, cajones means drawers. Cojones is the word you’re looking for.)
mg haha that dude is awesome
@Bricker59 - Ha! I don’t think Merl wanted anything to do with us. We were all part of the problem
@Roadkill_Spatula - I LOVE Terry Pratchet! Also… I’ll edit for cojones after this response (thx for the tip
), I don’t type cojones all that often. Nor do I type with my cojones, it’s just too painful.
@Leap_toads - Yeah, if the world was filled with Merl’s it’d be an interesting place.
next time try to pick up the mom instead?
@relaxolgy - hmm… the mom was nice, but she was also (how to put it politely), prolific with the gift of density.
prolific with the gift of density love it
thanks for your great stories!
sah@slicy - ah, I can see why you took the easy way out and banged her kid’s head into that lamp instead
at least you get to spend so little time with the batshit crazies. i once had one in the hospital for THREE whole MONTHS because no relative wanted to own him and no nursing home wanted to accept him.
if i were that little boy’s mom, i would have hit you with the light bulb back. retaliation, ya know.