My wife is an RN, per dieme for the hospital, but has a pretty set schedule of when she works.  Every Tuesday she does a 3p-3a shift and I bring her coffee on my way home from work.  Today she got pulled from her normal floor and sent to the ICU.  I've never been in the ICU so I fumbled my way through the halls until I found it, also I didn't know anyone on the floor or where my wife's station was.  I went to the central desk on the ICU and asked where she was, got a funny look and told somewhere down that way, but she's probably in a room.  I turned in that direction and saw absolutely no one except a transport team and security gathered outside a room.  Not a single nurse or aid in sight.  I'm thinking oh god I hope that's not her patient.  I strolled down that way and propped up against an empty nurses station near the transport team.  Then I hear my wife's voice coming from that room with everyone outside it, great, her night is going to be complete hell.  

Then I hear all of the following phrases, randomly repeated multiple times, just in varying states of yelling:
Fuck you
That's illegal
Don't fucking touch me
You can't do that to me
I know my rights
You all saw her do that to me
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!
You're going to jail you fucking bitch
No, fuck you
NO NO NO NO
Get out

As this crazy bitch is coming unglued, I hear my wife laying down the law in the most professional way possible and completely keeping her cool.  My wife comes out of the room fast, I assume to keep from losing her shit, sees me and just gives me that look and smiles at me.  Mid-smile I hear "Fuck you, stay out of my room, you stay out of here skinny little cunt bitch, fuck her."

My wife instantly turns around, springs into the room and says in the sweetest tone, "I'm sorry, did you need something?"   This was met with a thunderous wave of "FUUUUCK YOU", my wife storming out, and three other nurses coming out of the room nearly in tears laughing.

I've heard stories from her of these patients so many times, but catching it in real life for the first time was hilarious.

Acute haldol deficiency

Hospitals are the new psych wards.

   damn....    no wonder nurses are paid pretty well....   she must have the patience of job....   

First two posts nailed it.

Nope.  Needs some Vitamin A.  A LOT of vitamin A......



(Ativan)

I'm pretty sure they were waiting for it to kick in for transport to take her.

RN since 1995, there's a reason I work in the OR now, the patient's are under anesthesia and asleep when I have to deal with them. I run into an asshole surgeon every now and then, but most are alright. There have always been difficult patients, but the last 10 years or so, it's just out of control. Way too many dirt bags/drug seekers for me. God bless your wife and all the nurses out there still doing direct patient care, I'm not sure I could ever do it again.

Not necessarily an everyday occurrence, but a pretty regular one. Especially in the ICUs and ERs.

And that's why, when people start talking about how nursing isn't that hard and people give nurses too much credit, I just shake my head. They don't know what they don't know.

People's IQ level tends to plummet the second they enter a hospital, and it doesn't matter wether they're a patient or a visitor.

Normal shift in every hospital.

Nothing 10 and 2 can't fix.

FIFY

Since 1997 here.  I got out of the ICU years ago for Rapid Response and Interventional Radiology.

Then I got smart and switched the the VA Hospital Cardiac Cath Lab.  Let's just say the hours don't suck, and, while we get paid to be on-call, we don't get called in very often......

B-52 FTW

Hahaha. First time I've heard that. Stealing this.

LOL, couldn't that shit in the syringe fast enough back then when the crazy took over.

Or the nosey woman in the waiting room who's trying to get your family member's life story and exactly what's wrong.

Had a ding dong take a swing at me when the card dcd his diluadid (cath negative), he was allergic to morphine of course.

Said it once and I'll say it again, I honestly don't know how you career people do it.  I didn't last a decade.

When I was maybe 10 or 12 my best friend had to go to the ER at late at night, so me, his mom and him were in the room when a Dr, a few nurses and a couple cops and hospital security walked by with the cops damn near dragging a guy along.

He is covered in blood and yelling and screaming and telling everyone he is going to kill them.

My friend and I look at eachother with a wtf look and we both look at his mom and she pulls a big knife out of her purse as well as a can of mace.

We were there from around 10pm to close to 3am and the whole time he was screaming either he was going to kill everyone or begging for a smoke.

Another time I had to pick up a guy I know from the crazy ward because he got pissed at his brother and fired a shotgun into the celing

Those are thankfully my only two personal experiences with theach crazy but my nurse friends have some stories that are nuts

Depending on how long she was in ICU, it could have been ICU psychosis.  Ask someone who has had it.

It's a very hard job, but they're tied with teachers for bitching about it constantly.

Don't laugh too much.  We're probably all paying for that care.

I'm always nice to nurses because they have a tough job, and they always return the favor.  ICU nurses tend to be the most grizzled.  Absolutely nothing fazes them.

Glad you got to see it.

While not a direct comparison, it's like police work. People think they know but they don't realize who/what you put up with on a daily basis.

Standing outside and hearing that I would assume she was putting a cath in. 

Fpni needs more chemical restraints

The wife and I deal with this on an almost daily basis. If it's not actual crazies it's junkies, alcoholics, delirious patients, or just plain trashy families who think they can treat staff that way. Happens all over the hospital too, not just the ED or ICU. It's disgusting how people treat hospital staff, it'd never be tolerated anywhere else.  

Wrong. You ought to try working in a prison or jail sometime.

Was fixing the air conditioner in the psych ward when the nurses rolled in this huge dude strapped to a gurney. The guy alternated between "I'm going to rip your head off "   Then, he'd go silent and start into   " just let me go and I promise I'll be good " etc.

i left for lunch and when I got back I couldn't believe what I saw. Apparently the guy got got loose and bent the hinges out on a huge wooden hospital door. I remember thinking you'd need a pickup truck and a strap to bend those fucking hinges like that.

Please become an m1Ed thread

Been there done that.  I do not believe I was every violent or cursing the staff.  But I was clearly not in this world for a month or more.  And I have never before or since had any breaks from reality.  it is a scary experience.

I was almost raised in a ER, my mom worked it, I don't know how you people deal with that day to day.

I would sit in the corner and play my game boy or read but I saw some shit! Dead baby flopped on the desk, man with his junk shot off, another guy on a stretcher cut in half, I remember this woman that was raped and her mouth slit like the joker.  

But my favorite.. guy walks in, white tank top and boxers, blood from head to toe, hand wrapped up with a shirt saying  he lost his thumb.  I look up and he has a motherfucking hatchet stuck in his skull and he's holding his thumb in a ziplock bag!!

90s Bridgeport CT, I was cured from ever wanting to work in medical

When I had to do a commitment and one was acting up we always knew vitamin A or H was coming.

A pic of handcuffs some dude on an unknown drug that he destroyed. They were behind is
back and he stretched them out of alignment. He was a skinny guy and it did mess his arms
up some. The nurses put in a catheter without lube and he didn't flinch. He just asked what
she was doing. 

Yeah, that happens before they get a B-52.  I get to help hold them down if they are not already restrained.  Sometimes I get to watch them to make sure they are still alive.

There are some really, really, really sick people out there.  Some I do feel sorry for, they can't help their brain from doing what it is doing because their body doesn't produce enough chemical, not the drug users I'm talking about but true psych issues.

My dad had it so bad that to this day he can't tell what was real and what was not during his stay.  Some of it I'm not sure, but some of the crazy stuff I was there for so know it happened.  I never saw black nurses who only spoke Vietnamese, so assume that wasn't real.  I don't remember much else but there was lots of odd stuff he talked about.

I had a coworker who had bad ICU psychosis as well, he thought he had to test all of the tubes and wires connected to him, and started tying them in knots and pulling them out.  He tried to explain to the nurses that it was his job and he had to do it or he would get fired.

What does this mean?  Vitamin A or H?

I work hospital security, deal with it nightly, when a patient loses all their control and say in their care plan they don't go easy. Restricting someone's freedom and movement patients take up a fight or flight mentality.

Pretty difficult explaining behavioral expectations to those that are not of sound mind. I have nothing but respect to RNs

Ativan and Haldol.

B-52 - Benadryl 50mg, Haldol 5mg, Ativan 2mg.

lol

Disagree, the jails are the new psych wards..out of 1300 inmates nursing staff has told me 75% are taking some sort of psych meds

Thanks.  I could have used some of the anti-anxiety medication.  Weird thing is, at the end of my hospital stay (2 months 3 weeks) I was still out there and very weak.  My wife who is nearly disabled with back issues was scared to take me home.  Luckily they sent me to a halfway hospital to rehab my strength.  After ONE night in a room without wires or tubes or beeping shit and a closed door I awoke clear headed and not hallucinating.  

Took a week to get strong enough to walk 100 yards.

Two things: ICU pyschosis is real, and a good - I mean, really good - Registered Nurse is a truly awesome creature.  I've known a couple who I'm not completely sure were human, they were just that good.

I clicked on this thread thinking it was about female OR staff.

Yep,

I cannot even count the number of people over the years that were way down the rabbit hole of their delusions that I have had to physically subdue, while a nurse or doc gave them a shot of haldol.


Honestly though 90% of those people, when they have their meds figured out, are totally functional, decent human beings.

There are some who ended up with some sort of serious issue, due to frying their brains from years of using street drugs, and I have no real empathy for them, but for many of the others, they did not ask to get dealt the shitty cards they got dealt, so I always tried to bear it in mind when dealing with them.

Some people suffering from mental health issues absolutely hate the way the prescribed meds make them feel, (usually describing that they feel like a zombie)and eventually resort to some sort of street drug to cope, so that is also something people need to bear in mind when dealing with people with mental illnesses.



I got called out to a scene one time(I was a detective) of a guy who was "acting crazy", and the young patrolman could not figure out if he was on something, crazy or both. I had previously explained to that particular young patrolman that meth psychosis and schizophrenia can look a lot alike, and outside of a clinical setting are pretty hard to tell which is which.  


Fortunately the guy "acting crazy" was smart, and obviously had been having mental health issues/relapses for years. When I went through his wallet for ID to find a family member to call, I saw his drivers license. He wrote the names of 2 medications and taped them on the back of his driver's license. Truly a great move on his part.

I saw he had Risperdal and Seroquel taped on the back of his license, I recognized those as drugs commonly used to treat schizophrenics. I told the patrolman that he was taking the gentleman to the hospital, and not to the jail. Long story short, the guy got his meds balanced out, and all was good.

If only all mental health calls could end so well.

Sadly though it is not like people wear name tags that say "I am mentally ill" and often it is not until after something bad happens do people find out that the person they were dealing with was completely delusional.

Rabbit hole.  Oh hell I was WAY down that.  I wish they had prescribed something for me.  But I don't think I was raving or violent.  Mind you with a 12 inch open wound and a tube in my gut I couldn't really move a lot anyway.

And let me add.  Thanks to any RNs that work with people like me when I was in there.  I know I was irrational.  I don't think I could do their job.

I've met some really good RNs. For me it was the ones who treated me just like another person regardless of undignified situations. They are some of my favorite people. Some CNAs too. The bad ones can eat a dick though. They just started off treating you like you were an asshole.

They actually have a program where seasoned cops/doctors/psychologists teach first responders (young patrolmen, firemen, etc) how to recognize and help people suffering from a mental health crisis and divert them from jails to hospitals and treatment. For years I taught a 40 hour academy  annually to whomever an agency would send.

I was just a desk drone and had to go up to the locked ward for something.  One of the guys kept telling everyone I was his son.  There was quite a scene when I tried to leave.