Cloudy Weather Blues

Has anyone else noticed that with rainy and snowy days people start acting weird?

We finally got snow where I reside and the whole day was bonkers! My mom told me that her clients were strange/off/angry/grouchy/etc all day. It wasn't just a single person or maybe two. No, it was all of them. She's a hairdresser, by the way, and most people feel better when getting their hair done. Am I right?

I had gone to my mental health clinicals earlier in the day and the unit was hot. Oh my goodness! We had at least two major meltdowns on a unit of about 24 patients and several other meltdowns/take-downs on the other units. I am on a maximum security ward at a state mental hospital. These patients are very sick and all part of the legal system for various different charges. I am also on one of the admit units... So people are at their very worst, very sick level before they are stabilized with medication and therapy.

Then, after all of that fun, I decided to go into work on my day off because they were short staffed. ALWAYS A BAD DECISION!!!  Typically when a place (especially a hospital) is short staffed, that means the staff that is there is going to be stressed, the patients are going to be spazzing out (because everyone one was for some reason), and you will be frustrated that you agreed to come in to a very frustrating situation when you should be off. I completely regret it and I only agreed to work 4 hours because I got called in for night shift but I had been up since 0445.

Oh my gosh. Anything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. First, staffing sent me to the wrong floor. Then I got reassigned and I had to go sit with a patient who was very old and very confused. He had just gotten discharged from the ICU a couple hours before I got there and was sleeping fine... until the nurse decided to move him to a different room while he was still sleeping. Thanks lady. He slept for the first hour and a half until she decided he needed to move right then. She got a Posey bed ordered for him and since he wouldn't get up, she had us use a transfer sheet to slide him into the bed. He woke up and never went back to sleep the whole time I was with him.

At first I asked if she wanted the whole bed zipped up or if she wanted me to leave it partially unzipped because she told me he could go to the bathroom. About 30 minutes after the nurse and the other two people that helped us left, the patient reported he needed to go to the bathroom. I got him up and led him to the bathroom but he turned real quick and went out into the hall. Even with myself and another nurse attempting to redirect him and lead him back into his room, he was too strong and continued into the hall to a sitting area. 30 minutes of nonsense conversation from him and we still could not get him redirected and into his room. The nurse came out and yelled at me for not keeping him in his room and I just took it. She flipped out, called the charge nurse and complained that the patient was not in his bed. After another 30 minutes or so, two nurses, a CNA, a wheelchair, and myself, we finally got him back into his room. He reported needing to use the bathroom again and the charge nurse finally got to deal with the reason he got out of his room in the first place. It took two of them to toilet him. We got him back into bed, got it all zipped up and everything was good.

A little while later, he said he needed to go to the bathroom again. He kept wanting out but I gave him a urinal. He was so confused it took 20 minutes to convince him to let me help him use the urinal. So frustrating. Then when I unzipped the bed to get the urinal out, he grabbed the zipper and fought me to get out. I succeeded just as the charge nurse got to the doorway to see how everything was going. I explained the situation and she just walked away. He asked to go again a little while later and it was a super huge struggle to get him to use it again. This time I kept the zipper up close to the top and only wide enough for the urinal to barely fit through it and just as he handed the urinal to me, he grabbed my arm! It was like a scene out of a scary horror film or some murder show. He hurt my arm so bad that I let go of the closed urinal (it only had a few drops in it) and struggled for about 5 minutes to get my arm free from his grasp and the bed zipped back up.

Several hours later, the nurse finally braved coming into the room and acted like nothing had ever happened. She was all cheery and sounded nice but I have a hard time forgetting when people yell at me. I told her about how he keeps acting all sweet and then becomes aggressive when you get too close and she told me that that information was highly useful and she was going to talk to the doctor or something. I don't understand why she got so frustrated with me for not being able to tackle a patient just to keep him in his room and she continued to belittle me and act all disapprovingly because "she can't handle confused patients" but she expects me to just suck it up and deal with it so that she doesn't have to see him. Why do so many nurses treat me like junk and avoid my patient just because they got a patient who is requiring a sitter? I understand that they are probably upset that they have to deal with a sitter patient, but why does that justify them making me sit with that patient with no break or help for 12 hours? So frustrating.

Moral of the story, don't agree to go into work on a day off when it is cloudy and everyone that you had come into contact with was going off-the-wall that day.

Is this cloudy-weather-induced grumpiness evident to anyone else or did I just make it up?

Mean Joke

Last night, I was sitting on the couch, minding my own business and studying. All of a sudden, my mouse started moving strangely. I would move it, then it would jump from where I needed it. Checking to see that I wasn't touching the mouse area anywhere else, I started to get flushed in the face and freaked out a little bit. I thought there was a demon in my computer (seeing as it's so close to Halloween).

It turns out my brother just figured out how to hack my computer...

I nearly had a heart attack. Also, every time I hear or say heart attack, I think myocardial infarction (which is another name for heart attack) and half the time I say that instead of heart attack. It's really an issue because I'm starting to say all of the medical terms for simple diseases and conditions and nobody outside of my nursing school friends understand me anymore.

I had a soy mocha with a double shot of espresso and then downed a cranberry Red bull and my thoughts are going really fast. This, too, is an issue. Hopefully it will help me study for my pharm test that I have this week.

Worst Friend Ever

Folks, I'm talking about me. In the last week, I have made a friend cry and ruined another friendship. I don't know why I suck at life, but I do. I'm terrible with people! What was I thinking making friends and talking? Dumbest decision I've had in a long time, and maybe ever in my life. Man alive! What is wrong with me? I never used to make people cry, never. And friends have been mad at me before, but this one hurts more than it did before. So far they are both still talking to me, but I still failed them.

I have a confession, I wanted to learn how to speak my mind so that people don't keep walking all over me, but if this is what results, I don't want any part of it! It's not even like I have a thick skin either, but I didn't think I was mean. Now, I'm thinking I am so very mean and I'm seriously considering why people even befriend me in the first place.

Then, I start thinking about why I befriend others. I make friends because I know what it is to be uncomfortable on the sidelines watching everyone else socialize and have fun. So, I rope other people in a help them to make connections until they don't need me anymore. Then, the connections that we had slowly fade into nothing more than a smile in the halls. Fortunately for me, I am now comfortable on the sidelines with no one else to sit with or talk to, but if there is someone, I will interact with them.

Subsequently, I started thinking about my friends. I do have friends, and they are often very kind to hang out with me because I am crazy. Y'all know, you read my thoughts in this blog. Anyway, I have never really felt connected to anyone. Even when I have a bunch of friends, and loads of stuff to do with them, I always feel lonely. So, what's wrong with me? We weren't made to be of the world, we are merely in it to fulfill G-d's plans, but I feel all alone when surrounded by seas of people. Even when I let someone know my secrets and my deeper, crazier thoughts, I never really feel connected or close to anyone. Now, the bonds I used to have with my parents and brother are even dwindling. Is it just part of growing up? If it is, then why have I always been so lonely, all my life. I know G-d is always with me, but I've been screwing up with Him and I haven't been working on that relationship and everything is falling apart!!!

So, my conclusion is: I suck at life.