Behind Closed Doors: Still Paula

A health scare made me desperate to connect with readers again.

Bet you thought you had seen the last of me, but I’m like Michael Jordan, Jay-Z or Verna the Vixen, the elderly greeter lady from my local Walmart. It’s just so damn hard to stay away from what you love — nursing and this long-running column.

Last year, a malady led to my retirement. It was so surreal that I needed to share it here. As a patient, even with the copious amounts of drugs coursing through my normally sober system, I couldn’t help noticing the banter in the rooms and the hallowed halls of our medical place of business. There was a whole lot of gossip going on. I guess some things never change. I became more observant and judgmental of some of the same places I’ve worked in. In the nursing units, I saw nurses do things I know they were taught differently when they were students and new graduates. Let’s start at the beginning. My adventure began in the ER. I never raised my voice or complained while I was treated — even with numerous missed IV sticks. I’d bleed and bruise up immediately, and the first nurse would ask, “Are you on a blood thinner?”

What I wanted to say: “No, you half-wit, you drove that needle clear up to the hub in my AC!”

What I actually said: “No, honey, I’m just a really hard stick. I’m dehydrated, and my veins tend to hide and roll. Florence Nightingale couldn’t get it on the first shot.” By about the third missed stick, though, out came the “OR nurse” card.

As I journeyed through the medical machine, I was amazed with the lack of sterile or even clean technique. What would you think about a healthcare provider who put on gloves three sizes too big to start your IV and pulled the forefinger section of the glove off so they could “feel the vein better.”

What I wanted to say: “You idiot, wash your hands and put on a glove that fits and do not expose me to your dirty, fake fingernail!”

What I actually said: “Oh bless your heart, like I told the basketball team worth of nurses before you, I’m just a hard stick. Here, let me just... Oh no! You have my blood under your fingernail.” Once the IV ordeal was finally over, it was off to surgery, I got the best care possible. My OR team was superb. I arrived at the nursing unit and was greeted with a partially made bed. Do they not make beds anymore? What happened to the draw sheet and a flat sheet with a thin threadbare spread? And has anybody ever heard about warmed blankets?

What I wanted to say: “Hello, who’s in charge of covering a patient up in this meat locker?” (Sidenote: There were no paper towels or toilet tissue in the bathroom. I had to ask. What The Actual F!)

What I actually said: Nada. My teeth were chattering too much, and I couldn’t trust Paula’s faulty filter to risk alienating the staff taking care of her.

The experience was more jarring than I’m letting on. “I seem to have issues not doing ‘nursing things,’ I’ve lost who I am. I resent who I’ve become: a patient.” That’s what I said to a nurse late one night.

“You are still you,” she told me. “You may have stopped practicing, but the profession didn’t make you who you are. It was a job. A career. Down deep there’s Paula, and Paula still has a lot to do in life.”

That was just what I needed to hear. As soon as she left the room (and the drugs wore off a little bit), I started writing again. It’s like what Friedrich Nietzsche (pictured) said, “Out of life’s school of war — what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” OSM