I agree especially when the patient is pointing to an entirely different spot! He said ventral/umbilical and pointed to the epigastric area but the hernia was located a couple of feet below that just inside the skin fold. From the opening of the skin fold to the bottom it is roughly the length of my arm from finger to elbow.
I once put a catheter in a 600 pound woman. It took 5 people to hold back the skin folds while I held the labia up with my elbow. :eek: And I got it in on the first try!
A. I have a friend who met and married a very nice guy who had terminal brain cancer. He died two months after they were married and KNEW he was going to die. He LOVED HER SO MUCH and she vice versa, that they wanted to pledge their love to one another.
B. I am working on the assumption that he gained weight throughout his life and didn’t just BAM, wake up weighing five hundred pounds.
C. I have several relatives in their late sixties and seventies that weigh well over three fifty (Yes, I know that’s not five hundred)
I appreciate that you say you’re not trying to be an ass but being married to a pretty overweight guy and loving him with every ounce of my soul…I must say it hit a nerve.
I wouldn’t worry–that’s clear to anyone with nominal reading comprehension.
But I’m afraid the OP’s prognosis is not good. However, chances are very good that the thread itself will live a long if not necessarily healthy life. All that it’ll take is for one of the “fat is disgusting and everyone knows it!” folks to hit just the right combination of stubborn and defensive about it, with the equivalent synergetic response from the opposing side, and you’ll see your thread a week from now having hit page 7, with a weary moderator locking-note to the effect of “the continuation thread is over here now.”
A. I have a friend who met and married a very nice guy who had terminal brain cancer. He died two months after they were married and KNEW he was going to die. He LOVED HER SO MUCH and she vice versa, that they wanted to pledge their love to one another.
Your friend is an exceptional person.
I appreciate that you say you’re not trying to be an ass but being married to a pretty overweight guy and loving him with every ounce of my soul…I must say it hit a nerve.
This means you are also an exceptional person. Almost all women and men I’ve known in my life would never marry a pretty overweight person. It’s been my experience that almost everyone is very shallow, especially in terms of disabilities, weight and height in that order.
It sounds like you handled that with a lot of grace & professionalism - and Lord knows this woman didn’t deserve it.
I plan to go back to college to be an RN - these stories make me think twice. I’m sorry you had to endure her. Hang in there & don’t let that Bitch dissuade you.
Having worked in a hospital (in human resources), I would advise you to not only talk to the risk manager, but also your union rep. They can help a lot.
Also, I’d like to thank you, as a memeber of society (woo hoo! I love being overdramatic!), for putting up with shit like this as you perform your absolutely necessary and too often overlooked job.
Cheezum crackers, Mermaid, that woman needs some educatin’ from the end of an arm, if you get my drift. I’m glad there were some other people who know the true story and were able to verify your account. My mom’s an RN and I’ve heard some horror stories from her about the things that your profession has to put up with.
I say press charges. At the very least, it’ll show this bitch that she can’t get away with shit like that.
And just so’s you know, if I ever ended up in the hospital I’d consider myself damn lucky if I had you taking care of me.
Mermaid, you have my utmost sympathy. I have been in similar situations where nothing you do seems to make the patient and family happy, and there’s nothing quite like it to ruin your day. I must say I’ve never been assaulted, though! You conducted yourself like a true professional and are a credit to nurses everywhere.
I echo what everyone else has said: talk to your administration. You shouldn’t have to tolerate physical or verbal abuse from anybody, patient or family. The family’s presence in the room is a privilege, not a right, and it can be revoked!
(sigh) That’s the best part of the ER. . . family gets rowdy, out to the lobby they go!!
As a sort of antisocial individual in a particularly effet, Ivory-tower scholarly profession, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank ALL of you people in the medical, social service, and pre-higher-educational fields, as I am FAR too weak of a person to deal with any of this and you people are SAINTS. I really do appreciate that there is someone out there strong enough to bear these professions.
Not to hijack or anything, but either I’m exceptional or I don’t weigh as much as the scales say.
500 pounds is “not long to live”? I weigh 450 lbs and I’m not doing too bad, actually. I do have sleep apnea (reasonably treated with a C-PAP machine) and poor circulation in my legs, but I can get around. I can walk well, I can bend down to pick things up off the floor, I can drive a car without customization being needed, I can have sex. Admittedly, my back hurts if I stand or walk too long (20 minutes or so), but it’s not crippling pain.
How is it that every time you hear about 400+ lb people, they’re immobile or not long to live or homebound? Am I totally exceptional? Would I be Superman if I didn’t weight 450 lbs?
Good grief. When Whatsit Jr. was hospitalized for three weeks, there were times when I felt less than charitable toward one or two of his nurses, but that was just because I was totally stressed out from having an infant in the hospital and not knowing whether he’d be permanently damaged or survive, or what. I NEVER EVER EVER would have considered saying one wrong word to any of those nurses, though, because hey, they’re in there helping keep my little boy alive (and other parents’ little boys and girls, and people’s parents, and brothers, and sisters, etc. etc.) and so whatever tiny personality conflict I might be having with any particular nurse really pales in comparison to that.
I can’t believe these people were so obnoxious and rude to a NURSE, in the HOSPITAL, who was responsible for helping their family member get well again.
Making up rhymes to go with your name? What, are all of these people 12 years old? How awful. You have my extreme sympathy, The Mermaid.
Oh, it just seemed to me that there was some confusion as to the identity of the various parties in the OP. It seemed to me that they were separate people, but it seemed to others that the women mentioned were the same woman.
