As a trauma nurse you get to experience all sorts of people. You never know what your going to get when you get told you are getting a trauma admission. They can be anything from walking, talking, and there to make sure nothing gets worse overnight (usually a small internal bleed somewhere) to everything is broken. Like, still finding broken bones when you are discharging them weeks later. Trauma's truly hit all the emotional buttons as well. Family and patient can be happy that they are alive, angry that this happened, devastated by the accident. And the extent of the trauma doesn't matter. The patient doesn't always know how bad it is. I has one, car accident who was admitted for obs and bedrest till we could clear her c-spine in the am, who was convinced they were going to die. They were fine and discharged the next day. By the way, they were convinced they were going to die because we asked if they had an advanced directive. That set off tears and freaking out like I had never seen come out of an adult before.

The one type of trauma though that I hate is a stabbing victim. Now I'm sure it has happened that people have been stabbed totally randomly and were completely innocent. I have never taken care of that person. Usually you really have to do something horrible to someone for them to get angry enough to stab you. It's a very personal thing. So in general, these are horrible people who feel they are the victim (no matter why the other person stabbed them) and thus they feel entitled. Especially those who were stabbed badly enough to make it to the inpatient unit. Now don't get me wrong, no one should ever be stabbed and violence is never ok. But yeah, I very much sympathize with the other person in a lot of these scenarios. And buddy, if you're in the hospital because the boyfriend of the girl you raped stabbed you, you can be sure we all know no matter what story you tell us. We're humoring you so we can get out of your room faster.

Hello world! I'm a 30 year old traveling med/surg nurse. I work at the bedside for acute care patients in hospitals across the country. My specialty in med/surg is post surgical/trauma patients, but while traveling I get to work with lots of patient populations. So, while traveling the 1,000 plus miles and 22 hours alone in my car to my current assignment location I realized I'm hilarious (or delirious, but that works just as well for entertainment). And I should be writing my experiences down for everyone to enjoy (even though no one will probably ever read this). And thus, the blog was born. I was huge into livejournal when that was a cool thing to do, back before facebook.

So HIPAA disclaimer, because HIPAA rules all as a nurse. None of the "patients" I talk about are going to be real people, they will be an amalgam of certain types of patients or completely made up in my head. I will never disclose identifiable information. I'm not even going to tell you what hospitals I am at. Also, since I'm just on the internet, I could be making this all up. Pictures that get posted are from the internets, and are probably models. I never ever take pictures of real patients, because I like my job and that's an excellent way to lose your nursing license.

Disclaimer on morality. Because people are going to get offended, healthcare is a very sensitive topic and people have opinions. Everything on this blog is my own opinion. Some of it is backed up by science and experience, but it's still only my viewpoint. No one should ever take what I say here as golden. I'm not allowed to give out medical advice of any sort, and if you have medical questions you should see your Doctor or go to the ER. Don't read what I say here and be like, I don't need to go because some nurse in the internet said it's no big deal. Be smart people.

So introductions and legal stuffs out of the way, let's get this party started! Interesting stories to come. Welcome to the fun times that are my life. :)