Divemedic

My wife and I are spending our anniversary in the Bahamas. Her parents asked if they could come as well, so they are here with us.

My mother in law is the cheapest person I have ever met. Whenever we go places where anything is included, she gorges herself on it. I have seen her eat the salsa that comes with chips at a Mexican restaurant with a spoon and keep asking for more because “it’s free.”

I have one odd thing that I am picky about food. I won’t eat anything that anyone else has touched. Once you touch it, it’s yours. Like many people in the medical field, I am a bit of a germophobe.

With the stage set, we move on to today’s topic. We were at a restaurant for lunch that charges a flat fee for the meal. Whenever the appetizer came, it was vegetables, shrimp, and pita bread with various dipping sauces: hummus, baba ganoush, and tzatziki. I watched as the double and then triple dipped her food. I asked her not to do that, so I also watched as she took some tzatziki, licked her spoon clean, then used it to take some baba ganoush. At that point, I wasn’t going to eat any more of the appetizer.

When it came time to order entrees, you had a choice of things like filet mignon, broiled lobster, poache grouper, and other proteins. They came paired with sides. She ordered lobster and some grouper, but told the server not to bother bringing sides. Trying to “get her money’s worth,” you see.

When the meal arrived, she used her fingers to push food onto her fork, then licked her fingers clean.

It was really embarrassing. I get along with the MIL most of the time, but eating out with her is not on my list of favorite things to do.

Karma made an appearance. A woman who, a few years ago, made my life difficult at work wound up as my patient. When I worked with her, she made no disguise of the fact that she didn’t like me and did all she could to be a pain in the hindquarters. Why did she do that? Because I was hired to be her boss, and she felt that the position was rightfully hers because she had been there for a long time.

She has Stage 4 cancer and was in a great deal of pain. The cancer was attacking her nervous system, and although it was making her right side go numb, the only sensation it left her with on her right side was pain. You know what I did?

I treated her pain and gave her the absolute best care that I could, because I am a professional. I showed her and her family every bit of the kindness and compassion that she never showed me.

I went to the doctor and asked for an order to give her a full milligram of Dilaudid every hour as needed to control her pain. Cancer is a very painful and horrible way to die, and its victims deserve all of the care and compassion we can provide.

With that, I am leaving on vacation for a few days. Posting will be spotty.

A woman is in one of my rooms, and her oxygen saturation keeps dropping into the mid 70s. Every time I go in, she is still on the oxygen I placed on her, and her numbers rebound. Suspecting foul play, I watch her from where she can’t see me. As soon as she thinks I am gone, she takes it off.

I go in and confront her, and she complains that it dries out her nose. I point out that it is humidified oxygen. She then tells me that she doesn’t want to wear it. I present her with a choice:

• You can wear it or
• refuse to wear it, and when you pass out, we will put a tube down your throat and a machine will breathe for you, or
• Sign out against medical advice

Those are your choices. The next words out of her mouth were “I want to speak to your boss. You are rude.”

I responded with “I am trying to keep you alive. I make no apologies, but let me go get the charge nurse.”

The charge nurse walked in and told her “You are not going to be taking off that oxygen.”

She went online and gave the hospital a one star review and specifically named me as being mean.

People, I swear.