Soliloquy, with stick figures.

So yesterday was my very first day on the women's unit at State Hospital. And then I was on call. It was a rough night. I know this not because I was a fair and accurate judge of how well I handled things last night, but because this morning, when I went in and retrieved the stethoscope I'd left in Screening and Admissions, the admissions guy said, "It was crazy last night!"

And, indeed, it was.

It was supposed to be a quiet night. When I came on, there was, like, one patient coming in. The big explosion of patients? Happened after midnight. Why, why, why does it seem like a good idea to anyone to send crazy people out in the middle of the night? It's just disruptive to everyone, especially the patients, but also, me.

Fortunately, I only had to leave the building once, to go to the Adolescent unit and sign a seclusion order for this kid that got mad because another kid called him dumb because he didn't know what 12 times 12 was (Barb, are you feeling better about your math skills?) and so he threw a fit and hit himself in the face and got blood everywhere and then proceeded to start jumping up to the ten foot ceiling and breaking the light fixtures. I was about to either sign him to the Bulls or put him in restraints (it was a toss up) when the injection of Benadryl we'd given him finally kicked in and he calmed the heck down. But it was one of those things where just when one of us outside the door would get nervy enough to say "Well, I think he's finally slowing down" he would start screeching like a banshee and trying to break stuff again.



See? All you could do was throw your hands up and roll your eyes. No, I have no idea why the stick figures seemed like a good idea. It was something I came up with while I was trying to stay awake in morning report this morning. It should tell you something, though, about my mental state at the moment...

I also spent an awful lot of time doing this last night:



Which, as you can clearly see from the expertly rendered drawing, is almost getting to bed. Here's how that would've been captioned if I could've gotten the text box feature to work on Paint:

Me: Ahhh! Finally! I get to go to bed! Maybe my head will actually touch the pillow this time before the pager -

My pager: BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Me: Oh, *^*$##@$$ it!

Which also led to several episodes of me, trying to fill out paperwork at four AM, and dozing off.



See the pen in my hand? Seriously, if anyone can read anything I wrote between three and six am, I'll be amazed.

I finally got to bed, for real, and got actual sleep, between 6 and 7 this morning. And at 7:10, I rolled over and looked at the clock and thought, ahhhhhh. The attending comes in at 7. Which means I don't have to admit anyone else who comes in now, because he -

My pager: BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!!!

Me: Oh, sonofa--