Ewwwww, bleh.

So, of course, I was again on call tonight.

Today was a rough one to begin with. Like, I literally didn't have five minutes to sit down and think. I went from family meeting to family meeting. Had a meeting with the child abuse psychologist on how to interview my one kid about how his dad beats him. Remember my girl Marlena, the one with the uncle who raped her and then shot himself? She's back. She had a big crisis this morning. We worked through it, but wow, I felt so bad for her.

One of the things she's really mad about is how her uncle took away her ability to confront him. So I gave her the assignment today to write out a script, of what she would've said and what would've happened if she'd gotten the chance to confront him at trial.

I can't imagine.

So anyway, rushing, rushing, rushing around, and then I get to call, and there's like eight gazillion people in the ER. I took the job of tying up all the loose ends that the day shift had left, and let my upper level just start on the new people. And somewhere in the process of this I picked up this guy, who we were going to have to transfer out, right? Because he'd been sent to the ER...um...from the jail.

No, that didn't make any sense to us, either.

So, clearly this guy was going somewhere else. Because he was in jail on sexual battery charges. And part of the reason he was placed on commitment was because he'd been inappropriately touching the nurses at the prison (where he was sent "for safekeeping" from the jail. He was sent to the damn psych ward of the prison. But apparently it seemed like a better idea to send him to, uh, us?). So I started trying to figure out how to get him to a hospital where the might be able to appropriately manage an incarcerated sex offender. And then somewhere in there I got the bright idea that I probably ought to go actually interview the pervert.

Which is not the attitude I went in with. I went in, and sat next to him in a chair, and was doing fine...until he reaches over and touches my breast.

Um.

Not cool.

And it was weird. It was just his index finger, like, he pointed, and then poked. And I didn't react. Because, let's face it, he's some flavor of crazy. And I didn't want to reinforce the behavior by giving it any sort of positive or negative attention. So we keep talking (although I now want to hit him) and a few minutes later, he sticks out his index finger and acts like he's going to do it again.

I told him - in that calm, stern, low tone that these moments require - that if he touched me again I'd break his wrist.

Okay, not my most professional moment. But the place that came out of, that wasn't the professional part of me.

I would've done it, too.

It's weird. I've treated a couple big handfuls of known sexual predators. I've had other patients (or, say, surgery attendings in the OR in medical school) feel me up before, or touch my ass, but rarely have they been able to actually get to me this badly. This guy? I don't know if it was the way he did it, or his general deportment, or what the hell it was but, let me tell you, after I left that room, it was all I could do to keep from vomiting up my lunch (because I sure as hell didn't have time to eat dinner tonight). I. feel. so. gross. Still. Oh, ick, it was horrible.

That's the particularly horrible thing about trauma. One finger, this guy touches me with one lousy finger, and I feel like I've been raped outright. That's the sick thing about the damage that it leaves. It doesn't take much at all to reactivate a whole lot. Once you know how it feels....you know?

Sweet mother of God, I have to keep Marlena from this life.

The night float resident had come on by the time I actually disclosed this to the people in the office. She said I ought to press charges. I...a, that would've turned into a much bigger nightmare than it currently will, and b, I just didn't think it was a charge-worthy offense, in the empirics of it. But I appreciated that she really took it seriously. It was...well....validating.

So I'm going to go try and get some sleep now. Tomorrow will be better.