The Sensation of Life
My shift started with a warning from the night shift nurse: "The patient told me he was horny, so I'm interested to know how your day goes."
Oh, boy.
I went into his room, and he said I looked good. My response was "Well, I got dressed." [which was the WRONG thing to say; I meant it as 'didn't comb my hair, but I'm here and appropriately wearing scrubs', but he didn't take it that way.] He exclaimed "Damnit" then followed it up with calling me a tall glass of water.
Such remarks can be flattering, and afterwards they're pretty funny, but in the midst of it, it's awkward. How do you play it off so that the comments stop, but still get them to agree to finger pokes for blood sugar checks?
Even though he didn't make any other inappropriate remarks, for the rest of the day, I tried to put off every entry in his room--which was difficult, because I was supposed to do flap checks (a pulse check on a surgery site) every 2 hours. I did those, but I was as brief as possible. And then I would occupy myself with other things--like making a patient's bed, or walking with another nurse's patient, or watching a doctor meticulously smooth and fold and brush and fold his white coat before putting it in a plastic bag and tucking the package in his bag.
On my last stop to his room, he became particularly chatty, saying how he was impressed with the care 'us girls' gave, and how his doctors showed concern in his health and became some of his friends, and how he was worried about one of them because she hadn't stopped by today when she said she would; and I realized, as I stood 5-6 feet away from him, that I had misjudged him simply by making him one-dimensional. I thought that he was an old horny man, and maybe he is, but he is more than that. He trusts and fears and loves, and I had concentrated on just one small part of his person.
My error became clearer as I drove home. I listened to a podcast on Janet Cardiff's 40 Part Motet piece of art. She had recorded 40 voices individually, then ran those recordings through 40 separate speakers to make the piece truly stereo. The host talked about how he could, if he wanted, focus on the small mistakes and off-key notes of individual singers; and yet from our fragile imperfect bodies in this panoply of sound comes the beautiful music of a chorus of angels.
It is the many parts of us that create the miracle of humanity. Each of us has parts of fear, of despair, of joy, of spite, of love; but all of those parts together in balance make a unique soul, a work of art in itself.
Life's a beautiful thing.
Oh, boy.
I went into his room, and he said I looked good. My response was "Well, I got dressed." [which was the WRONG thing to say; I meant it as 'didn't comb my hair, but I'm here and appropriately wearing scrubs', but he didn't take it that way.] He exclaimed "Damnit" then followed it up with calling me a tall glass of water.
Such remarks can be flattering, and afterwards they're pretty funny, but in the midst of it, it's awkward. How do you play it off so that the comments stop, but still get them to agree to finger pokes for blood sugar checks?
Even though he didn't make any other inappropriate remarks, for the rest of the day, I tried to put off every entry in his room--which was difficult, because I was supposed to do flap checks (a pulse check on a surgery site) every 2 hours. I did those, but I was as brief as possible. And then I would occupy myself with other things--like making a patient's bed, or walking with another nurse's patient, or watching a doctor meticulously smooth and fold and brush and fold his white coat before putting it in a plastic bag and tucking the package in his bag.
On my last stop to his room, he became particularly chatty, saying how he was impressed with the care 'us girls' gave, and how his doctors showed concern in his health and became some of his friends, and how he was worried about one of them because she hadn't stopped by today when she said she would; and I realized, as I stood 5-6 feet away from him, that I had misjudged him simply by making him one-dimensional. I thought that he was an old horny man, and maybe he is, but he is more than that. He trusts and fears and loves, and I had concentrated on just one small part of his person.
My error became clearer as I drove home. I listened to a podcast on Janet Cardiff's 40 Part Motet piece of art. She had recorded 40 voices individually, then ran those recordings through 40 separate speakers to make the piece truly stereo. The host talked about how he could, if he wanted, focus on the small mistakes and off-key notes of individual singers; and yet from our fragile imperfect bodies in this panoply of sound comes the beautiful music of a chorus of angels.
It is the many parts of us that create the miracle of humanity. Each of us has parts of fear, of despair, of joy, of spite, of love; but all of those parts together in balance make a unique soul, a work of art in itself.
Life's a beautiful thing.
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