Crazy Lady

So I was working at the hospital the other day. I'm a dietitian at a hospital here in the Salt Lake Valley. And I was up on TCC. Which is a floor that is technically not part of the hospital. Patients move there when they are done with Hospital care but still need hospital care. Doesn't make sense? For example if they had knee surgery and they still need therapy on their knee and nurses to take care of them, but they don't need full hospital benefits and costs.

So anyways, I was talking to this lady and she was clearly crazy. She was telling me how she hadn't gotten any Coumadin since she was at the hospital. Let me just tell you that people on Coumadin need a certain amount every day depending on how much is in their system. The doctor usually test their PT/INR to determine the dosage. So Coumadin is an anticoagulant. It is also known by its generic name, warfarin. Coumadin is, simply put, a "blood thinner". It thins your blood to prevent blood clots from forming. There are several uses that warrant it's use, such as Pulmonary Embolism, Deep Venous Thrombosis, and Atrial Fibrillation to name a few. So this lady was scared that becaues she hadn't had the same dosage every day or because her dose was lower that she was going to have a stroke. (Now let me just tell you that the doctors at the hospital are not imcompetent. The patients get labs everyday and the doctor can easily see how much Coumadin she would need on any given day.) So let me continue with the story.

Okay, so she didn't get any Coumadin for the first two days, then they only gave her .5 and then 1.0 and she needs 2.5 a day! All this according to her. And she is very exasperated telling me this, leaning into my face off her bed. (Where when I walked in she was sitting on the edge of it with her bum cheeks hanging out of her gown. Nice.) And how she told her doctor but all he did was smile, at which point she plasters a joker like grin on her face to show me what the doctor looked like, which was pretty unerving in and of itself. So she's telling me that she needs a new doctor and this one is going to give her a stroke and how she wants me to go check her labs and then figure out how much Coumadin she needs and then tell the doctor to give it to her. The whole time I am pretending to write this down on my paper, but instead am writing...this lady is crazy! And what I'm really trying to do is get out of her is if she's eaten anything. So after the 10 minute Coumading detour I finally get around to asking how the food is to which she replies grumpily..."It's hospital food." (Now for hospital food ours is supposedly very good, we get compliments all the time.) To which I reply...How much of your tray have you been able to get down would you say? To which she tells me, "Less than half." All in a huff with her arms folded like a ten year old. The whole time I'm thinking I gotta get away from this belligerent patient. Then she launches into a story about how the other day they served stew that was really good and the meat was tender but the day before that the meat was all rubbery and she couldn't chew and she does a demonstration chomping her teeth all loud. (Another unerving demonstration.) So I say, well do you like it well done? And she says..."Well I don't like it raw!" I'm thinking, "So there is no pleasing you." So I offer some Ensure to which she also refuses to try because "she's never had it and doesn't know if she'll like it." So ask if she likes chocolate since she has some chocolate cookies on the table. And she says again, "I don't know I've never had it." I'm like..okay have you had chocolate..I see cookies here. Do you like the flavor in general? At his point I'm getting kinda annoyed. Not that you could tell. Then she goes back to the Coumadin thing. That's when I threw in the towel. I said.."Okay, well I will go talk to your doctor right now and then I will work things out in my office if I can. I will be back later." Did I come back? No...why? Because she was crazy. And because I cannot change a dosage of medicine that her doctor is giving her! I'm a dietitian not a pharmacist! Anyhow...it's always a different day at the hospital.

Like one time I went into this other room and the guy in there had been having diarrhea. He was an 85 year old that had been constipated so he gave himself a salt water enema and had been diarrhea-ing ever since! So I asked how he was doing, if he still had any nausea or vomiting. He said no... but then all of a sudden he was like.."oohhhhh..my butt hurts!" like he was passing a stool right there. And then he says excuse me and grabs a tissue and starts to go under the blanket. Faster than you can say "GROSS!" I was like "I'll come back later!" and was out the door. So it's always glamorous at the hospital. But I like doing it. It never gets old and it's always fun to have the crazies it makes your day interesting.