Last week CNN ran a series of reports on the high cost of medical care. In one of the reports it was suggested that a patient should question the need for procedures, and even offer advice on occasion. Well first off, my friend Turkey Tom Moseley says “If you don’t know your jewels you gotta trust your jeweler.” I know we are talking about medicine here, but I hope I don’t have to explain the connection. Anyway, I once offered advice, or at least made a request of a nurse, and I’m quite sure I’ll never do it again.

After being completely eat up with a case of the stupids and turning myself into a human candle, I found myself in the hospital being scrubbed raw two times a day for the next seventeen days. I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone by the way…well there is that one guy I might not be too upset about…oh rip, Jesus said to love your enemies’ so never mind about that one guy. Anyway, they had me hooked up to an IV with a port attached to it so they could administer pain killer directly into my blood system anytime I needed it. I for sure needed it two times a day, one at 8:00 am and another at 4:00pm. Those were the times of day that I was taken to the Hubbard Tank and scrubbed back down to the raw to get rid of the “bad” tissue that had grown over the burned area.

These pain killer shots, main lined into my vain were at once a delight and an agony. You see, I could immediately feel the comfort rushing through my body as the medicine took effect, but I could also feel the pain of the medication as it entered my blood stream at the end of the needle. The IV drip that was entering my body constantly was room temperature whereas the pain medicine was kept in a refrigerator.   Now when that cold pain killer hit my blood vain it burned like a big dog. Ya know what I’m saying? To put it in terms you can understand, it hurt, and it hurt the most when administered quickly!

So, in walked my morning shift nurse, I have forgotten her name because I’ve tried to block out all of the folks who have done me dirt in the last fifty-three years. As she began sticking the needle into the port I asked her to please administer the shot slowly. Now at this point I can only guess why she reacted the way did so here goes, 1) Her husband forgot to kiss her goodbye that morning. 2) Her husband forgot her birthday. 3) Her husband remembered her birthday, and gave her a vacuum cleaner as a gift. or worst of all, 4) She had to use fat free milk on her corn flakes that morning. At any rate, she hit that plunger with two thumbs instead of one, while at the same time rising to the balls of feet in order to gain leverage, and then she leaned her over weight body mass into the effort thereby shoving the plunger to the bottom of the syringe in Guinness Book of World Records time. The end result being that the needle almost came off of the syringe because of the back pressure force of so much liquid being forced through a very confined space in less than a millisecond. WOW THAT HURT!!!!  

So, the take home from this story? Always make sure your health care professional has plenty of ice cold, wholesome whole milk for their corn flakes before offering advice on the administering of pain killers.

Till next time,

Grump