Phx Adventures of a civilian nurse in the Justice System...*graphic medical descriptions enclosed*

Yes I am now. I unfortunately was exposed to him for a little less than half an hour through a heavy steel door before I knew he was radioactive. The good thing is that it was a short amount of time, I didn't touch him, and exposure to radiation this late in pregnancy isn't as risky as in early pregnancy. I don't think anything happened, but I was raging mad when I found out. I made it very clear to him that not telling me he was radioactive from the beginning had put me in a dangerous position. Baby seems fine though so I'm not worried too much and I am not participating in his care anymore to protect the baby.

 

A radioactive seed?! That's not normal for that kind of procedure, right?! My dad often says that truth is stranger than fiction, and right now, that seems to be holding true...

and i'm glad your baby is okay!! *whew*

PS the man in the turtle suits sounds like he finally found his place of calm. That's almost cute.

 

Using a radioactive seed is actually a common practice in Cancer treatment, when the cancer is in a localized area. They wanted to use it for my Mom, but her cancer is too spread out (in all of the sinus cavaties in her head) so they couldn't. You shouldn't give massages to seed patients either. Yodalf's aunt did and she was sick for a week. Who knew?

Wenchy- I say that you give up radiation exposure for lent.

 

Good news...my boss checked into the amount of time this guy has had his radioactive seed in place and it turns out that he's not as radioactive as we thought. Enough of the half-life of this particular radioactive isotope has passed so that anything but immediate contact is considered safe. I'm still not participating in his care, but I feel better about the situation now.

Anwelei: It is a common therapy now to try to treat cancer as locally as possible. It causes less side effects and less damage. I should have clarified what I meant by "radioactive seed". In medicine, a radioactive seed is a small pill-like object that contains a radioactive isotope. It is placed in or near a cancerous tumor to provide radiation treatment at the site of the cancer instead of irradiating the entire person. This is especially useful in prostate cancer which is usually discovered before it metastasizes or spreads outside of the prostate. This kind of treatment is not only less harmful, it is less invasive as well when you consider that normal radiation therapy irradiates normal and cancerous tissue alike and can cause alterations in the genetic structure of healthy cells.

Last night was pretty tame at the jail all things considered...no emergencies, thank goodness. My favorite inmate from last night was a girl who got pissed because I was going to charge her for a pain killer. She doesn't seem to realize that jail is not a free system. A lot of inmates believe that what they would have to pay for on the "outside" should be free on the "inside", especially medication. I tried to explain to her that while in custody, her emergency care is seen to without charge, but that any other type of care (say for a cold or headache) is not free. There are ways of taking care of a cold or headache without eating a bottle of Tylenol, such as cool compresses, rest, drinking lots of water, massage, and meditation. She wouldn't hear any of it though. It's quite amazing to me that they would think that when they do something wrong and get arrested that they would imagine that jail would be a place where they could get their eyes checked, their teeth done, and all of their medical care for free. I don't follow the logic there. I mean, I think it's pretty cool that they get their emergency care for free. It's just funny logic to me to expect free non-emergent care when it has never been free on the outside.

 

Thanks for the thread Wenchy. This is fast becoming one of my favorites. For some strange reason I am fascinated with the medical going ons in jail. It is like a soap opera. What will happen next?

 

I agree - this thread rocks. Granted, it's grossed me out a couple of times already, but I keep coming back for more. It's like a train-wreck... you just have to keep looking.

 

I like that they have to pay! Cool!

 

I have another story for you guys but I'll have to post it later tonight...I've got to run to see a movie.

I'm glad you all are liking this thread! It's nice for me to get to talk to people about my work which I find fascinating.

I'll give you the latest update tonight.

 

Okay so here in our jail we only have two pods for women. These pods consist of a large room with a communal shower and bathroom, a ton of bunk beds and some tables in the middle of the room, one television, and a sink. They share one set of salt and pepper shakers and all of the women wear scrubs. No bras with underwires are allowed because women have killed other women with them in the past or made makeshift shanks with them. They only get to wear flipflop type shoes and have one matress, two sheets, a wool blanket (military style) and one pillow. Now when I say mattress and pillow what you should envision is a tarp covered piece of foam over which goes a sheet or pillowcase. The mattress is usually about three inches thick and the pillow possibly four.

So you have about 50-100 women in each of these pods and they all have to share and be nice to each other. Surprisingly enough (in my opinion) they usually get along pretty well, better than the men anyway in most circumstances. The only down side to this is that if a women behaves slightly, remotely, or minutely sick the pod goes into a frenzy of estrogen induced moderate panic. They are sure the ill women will die and they always assume the worst. In other words put a woman in jail and she becomes a drama queen. The acting is incredible.

So last night I get called down to one of the women's pods having been told that a certain woman was having a severe allergic reaction and that her throat was swelling...an early sign of an anaphlyatic reaction which can be deadly. So I grab everything I can think of to treat someone experiencing this type of reaction and waddle as fast as I can to the pod.

I get there and this woman puts on the complete act..."I think I'm having an allergic reaction to the medication I'm taking...look I'm red." She goes on about other symptoms such as headache, body ache, cough, being tired, blah, blah, blah. Not that I don't have sympathy for her situation. Being sick with a bad cold or flu is bad enough without being in jail, BUT to overexaggerate her symptoms and send me out on an emergency call takes me away from caring for other sicker inmates. Calmly I examine her, take her temperature, listen to her lungs, and listen to her complaints. Then I inform her that she is not having a severe allergic reaction to the meds we are giving her for her cold, that she simply has a fever and that she needs to continue taking the medication we have prescribed and that she has paid for, drinking lots of water and resting.

"Well, what about my redness" she says defiantly. I look at her and say, "Well, your face and chest are red, but the good news is that it is perfectly normal. When you have a fever, as you do, your body shunts blood to your skin surface (flushing) to cool itself, making your skin take on a reddish tone. The reason I know that you are only flushing and not having a rash reaction is because it comes and goes. As I've been talking to you I have watched this happen several times. This is the nature of flushing. A rash would stay constant until it resolved itself or worsened. So the redness is simply your body flushing its skin in an attempt to deal with your fever."

"Well I need a fever reducer then." This is another myth that most people believe. So I instruct her on this as well. "Your fever is 101.7, which technically is a fever, but is not dangerous and does not need treatment. The reason for this is that your body is doing exactly what it is supposed to. When bacteria or viruses invade your body they are living in it at your normal body temperature. Your body, in response to the invasion automatically raises your body temperature in an attempt to kill the bacteria/viruses. Most of these bacteria and viruses can live only in a small range of temperatures and if your blood/body temperature becomes hot enough, they die. In an adult a fever is only dangerous if it exceeds 104 degrees. Now I know this fever may be inconvient for you and may not feel too great, but if I have to give you another pre

 

whathappenswhenyougetacold.com

This is a yucky gross story that you just CAN'T STOP READING, until its end. Wenchy, you will appreciate this and it's message. It's funny and gross at the same time, right up our alley. [face_shocked]

 

*DOUBLED OVER LAUGHING*

OMG!!! That was too funny! That poor, poor thing...oh dear. The sad thing is that is exactly what happens when you get that kind of violently raging stomach flu. I've taken care of a few people experiencing those symptoms, but never in that situation.

In my nursing class I was the vomit Queen. About half of the nursing students had a real hard time with vomit for quite a while in nursing school. It was funny to watch them run from rooms gagging. Eventually they discovered that people could be spray painting the walls with vomit and I wouldn't gag and so they'd run to me with an emesis basin and beg me to sit with their patient until said vomiting ceased. My secret...having a kid. Have a kid and your days of gagging over vomit and poo are ended. Have a kid and you instinctively can deal with the kind of situation in Ima_princess' link. Have a kid, and while your will may not be made of iron, your stomach soon will be.

 

My job is always an adventure...you never know what you will see next. For instance, last night while doing med pass about a dozen inmates who don't get meds came up to the trap (the little door in the big steel door through which meds are passed) asking me to look at various ailments. Sometimes the results are quite funny...

At one pod a man, unfamilar to me, comes up and says, "I need to see a doctor about a canker sore." Having heard this complaint quite often in a population that doesn't have the best oral hygeine I automatically ask, "Have you been rinsing your mouth out with salt water?" He looks at me quite confused and says, "No M'am, how's that gonna take it off my ****?" [face_shocked] Trying not to laugh I clear my throat and say, "Oh...that kind of canker...you need to see the Nurse Practitioner for STD testing." Completely serious he says, "Well can't I just have you look at it right now?" A little stunned by this response instead of the usual "Yes, M'am" I urge him to keep his pants on, which were quickly heading south, and put in a kite to see the NP. "Oh ok," he says, "but I just don't see why you can't look at it now." This time I couldn't help but laugh and whisper at him, "I don't think the officer would appreciate it." He shrugs his shoulders, pulls up his pants and says, "Thank you M'am." By this time all of the men in his pod are horrified and/or rolling on the floor laughing.

At another pod a man comes up to me and before saying a word, rips off his shirt and presses his chest against the glass in the door. He then proceeds to yell through the glass, "HEY NURSE! Look at this! I think I got bit by something!" Giggling at his smashed nose pressing against the glass I lean in toward the glass to look at it. He does indeed have what appears at first to be a bug bite, but on further inspection turns out to be an infected hair follicle. After explaining to him that it will resolve on its own in a few days he smashes his face even more on the glass and yells, "FANK YOU MARM!"

 

I live for these stories, thanks Wenchy

 

**laughing so hard at Princess' link that I have tears streaming down my face**

 

I live to please! Keep it coming wenchy!

 

Ah the joys of booking stupid ppl.... how i miss those days

I very happy to see that you are haveing fun there

 

that link is cool, yet at the same time, its so sick.

 

And that's why we like it Birr!

SO the opportunity finally presented itself...my chance to shock hardened criminals.

One of the male officers in particular is a favorite of mine. He's always smiling, always funny, but can be serious and extremely protective when necessary. The other night he was chatting on the phone with his wife and completely forgot where he was. I was passing out meds and another female officer was standing by the door with me. The male officer on the phone was around the corner from us and could not be seen by the inmates while he was talking on the phone. Anyway, the male officer starting saying goodbye to his lovely wife and blurts out, "See you later Sugar-Nipples."

EVERYTHING...and I mean everything...in that cell block came to a screeching halt. The man in the tower dropped his radio, the female officer whipped around and bumped into me, I was in the middle of popping a pill out of a pill card and sent that pill flying about a hundred miles an hour into the female officer's forhead which began to bloom with a red mark the size of 100 mg of Trazadone in detailed relief on her forehead, and every inmate in the pod I was passing meds to became deathly quiet...

Everyone kind of looked at each other wondering who in the HELL had just said that in a jail. Confused looks abounded and I thought I saw a few men ball their fists ready for a brawl. The seconds ticked past as I hear the male officer whisper, "Ooops...". The tension was killing me so I blurted out: "But, I'm not done yet...I still have to go to B-600."

The male officer sticks his head around the corner in shock and everyone busts out laughing all at once, except for me. For, by saving my friend I have earned a most unfortunate nick-name among the inmates at B-500. One that will probably live long in the annals of history in the pod. "Nurse Sugar-Nipples". Yes, I have been baptized in the full glory of jail embarassment and some of them are even starting to call me "Sugar-Nips" for short. The things I do for my friends...I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut.

 

Wow,

I don't think I've ever heard something like that when it comes to "taking one for the team."

I don't think I can say anything more on this

 

I'm getting some rather interesting mental images right now.

 

OMG, that is so freakin' hilarious!

Reminds me of the Seignfeld episode, "Hey Nips, do you have that report ready?"

or from Rocky 3

"Thunder Lips" which can be changed to...

 

If it's all the same to you I'll just stick to calling you Wenchy. Although I think i just thought of a new breakfast cereal to invent.

 

MUST.....RESIST.......DARK.........SIDE..........

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

Bad wenchy!! teasing the choad like that...

 

You should ask Sistine about what her manager/company owner/whatever called her when he meant to say "Hey toots."

 

Ummmm Wenchy? Can I call you sugar nips? PUH-LEEEEEZE? I think I see a JBS shirt coming on.