Confessions of a nurse

One of my favorite scenes in any movie is from Misery.  Kathy Bates plays the psychotic woman who has taken a man hostage and is torturing him in a cabin.  I don't remember exactly why she wanted to torture him just that she did and that she was a nurse.   My favorite scene is when Kathy tells this fellow not to get out of bed.  If I had a dime for everytime I said that.  He gets out of bed anyway and falls. He was actually trying to escape.  And if I had a dime for everytime a confused patient told me that. Kathy finds him, (of course), on the floor.  And if I had dime for everytime that happened to me.  She puts him back in bed and then proceeds to calmly tell him "I told you not to get out of bed" (and if I had a dime for everytime I have said that), and then she hobbles him.  So, I guess by now I figured I would have about an extra 10 thousand dollars to my name.  I have never hobbled a patient, but I did casually suggest to a quality assurance committee once that maybe the answer to reducing falls in the hospital was airing the scene from Misery with the comment:  " FULL DISCLOSURE: Kathy in serviced all of our nurses on reducing falls and we are happy to report an increase in referrals to the orthopedic department.  WE ARE COMMITTED TO YOUR SAFETY AND OUR SANITY."

So, it was no surprise to me yesterday, when that sock went sailing past  my head, that I considered hobbling.  I murmured to myself instead, "at least it was Nike"  I was not at all pleased and was somewhat grossed out because it was a dirty sock off a patient's foot and since he wasn't kinfolk, I really wanted to gag.  That being said, if one of my kin (especially Davis or Vance), tossed a dirty sock at me, I wouldn't have to reconsider hobbling.

The good news is that my personality type serves me so very well in these situations that one can never tell I am put out, unless I put my hands on my hips and take my earrings off.  Then watch out.  If I have to put my hands on my hips and take my earrings off,  I have eclipsed being put off and am fully in the I am so angry I might have to shorten your life mode.  Yesterday, I put my hands on my hips but didn't take my earrings off.  But thought about it.

If you are alot like me and I suspect you are, many, many things annoy you in a given day.  Many.  Sometimes it seems as if we are annoyed more than we are pleased.  And I suspect if you are like me, you know many people in your everyday life who live in annoyed mode.  And even that annoys me.  And all the horrible names I was calling this patient in my head reminded me of Balaam.
One of my favorite stories in the Old Testatment is the story of Balaam.  It is an odd story.  It is this extraordinary episode with the angel and the donkey - the donkey, terrified, trying to run away and only getting itself into a narrow twitten down between two fields, so it's stuck. And Balaam hitting the donkey - well, you would, wouldn't you? And the donkey opening its mouth and speaking to Balaam in human speech. And the angel being cross with him, as though it was his own fault he couldn't see him. The donkey at one point sits down in the road and refuses to move and one version the donkey kicks Balaam. (BTW at the end of story even though Balaam did what God said, he gets put to death for it.  Just sayin'.  That obedience thing is pretty hard core).  So it was no surprise to me that I remembered hearing Rich Mullins tell the story of a college professor who tells the story of Balaam a little differently.

“I had a professor one time... He said, 'Class, you will forget almost everything I will teach you in here, so please remember this: that God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and He has been speaking through asses ever since. So, if God should choose to speak through you, you need not think too highly of yourself. And, if on meeting someone, right away you recognize what they are, listen to them anyway'.”
― Rich Mullins

I guess the man spoke to me through that sock.   It reminded me that I could choose to spend the rest of the day annoyed about a petty little thing or I could see the joy of the rest the day.  Thinking about the donkey story made me choose the latter.  Listen to those annoying people anyway.  Just sayin'.

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