Journal of Nursing Jocularity

• “My illness is due to my doctor's insistence that I drink milk, a whitish fluid they force down helpless babies.” W.C. Fields #

Dear Nurse Marge,

I’m back to work after having my first baby. He’s perfect, 8 weeks old…that’s not the problem. It’s me. I seem to have lost my mind. I can’t remember ANYTHING. We’re talking perpetual brain fog here. My colleagues say it is common. That I shouldn’t be worried. That this happens to every new mother – but I’m petrified I’m going to make a med error or other mistake. What can I do?

Brain Fog!

Dear Brain…What did you say your name was again?

I don’t want to make light of what’s happening to you. The baby brain fog syndrome is very real, and very troubling, especially for nurses. There’s so much we have to remember, and such serious consequences if we forget.

The thing is, it doesn’t get better. Wander around your unit, and listen to your nurses. Some of them have children who are thirty years old, and they’re still looking for the whatchamacallit they left by the thingie; not the white thingie, the blue thingie.

Chances are, you know exactly what they’re talking about, and you can help them find it. This is because they’re in an advanced stage of what you’re experiencing now; where you move past the discomfort of not remembering things and learn how to get things done anyway. You’re not losing your memory, you’re gaining a new way to view the world.

There’s a name for this, but I’ve forgotten what it is.

Good Luck!

Nurse Marge

Horoscopes just for Nurses!

Aries

Psychiatric nurse Aries gets to play an integral role in defining a new disorder: the fear of watching news broadcasters attempt to pronounce the name of Icelandic volcanoes. It’s called ejykklajjekadaphobia, but no one has said it out loud yet.

Taurus

You think having two patients with the same name is bad? Try being George Foreman’s pediatrician!

Gemini

Way to tell your student nurse isn’t going to make it through: you talk about drawing meds, and she gets out a sketchbook! Gemini is an art lover, but there are limits!

Cancer

Life as a travel nurse seems appealing this week, Cancer. Wanderlust might pass after the JCAHO people clear out…oops, did no one tell you they were coming?

Leo

When the patient tells you, “That’s an interesting story, right there…” run, do not walk, for the door. Someone has to be coding somewhere, and you really don’t want to know how they came to spend time in your emergency room.

Virgo

Some days it doesn’t pay to chew through the restraints, Virgo. Just smile and nod and act like you know what is going on.

Libra

You find yourself longing to write Rx for Big Boy Pants to be pulled up STAT…luckily the patient will AMA before you make that particular med error!

Scorpio

Life is full of mysteries, Scorpio. Such as this: why does someone come to the hospital, then refuse tests, refuse medications, refuse treatment, refuse to talk to the doctor? Contemplating such puzzles will fill many an hour for you this week.

Sagittarius

If a frequent flier collects enough miles, do they get to go to another facility?

Capricorn

If the most traumatic experience your patient has is not being able to update their facebook page, they’re going to be okay. We know you had your doubts, Capricorn…but it IS possible to go hours and hours, even days, without Farmville.

Aquarius

The administration’s decision to ‘go green’ is interpreted in creative yet horrifying ways by your patients this week, Aquarius. We blame global warming.

Pisces

Identity issues abound: when a patient demands “Do you know who I am?” the only thing to do is say, “You don’t know?” and look very concerned. Psych evals trump litigation threats every time!

Star Charts by Suzanne LaBarne are for Entertainment Purposes ONLY!

So many of us are caught up not only in trying to find out who made us stressed and miserable but also in storing the information and cataloging it for future use.

I call this “baggage handling” because after a while, we have so much past misery that we need suitcases to put it in. We may even need to hire someone to carry them if we have a whole set. My grandmother Francesca was so good at recalling past history (mostly negative) that she could have been a curator for the Smithsonian.

As a child I would always ask her why she looked so unhappy. Her answer was always the same: “Because I suffer.” She’d go no further, but her face would become even sadder and her hands would go up in the air as she recited one of her many invocations for God to help her in her hour of need. There was always an aura of mystery around my grandmother’s suffering, as if it were so unspeakable that it could only be alluded to in veiled words.

Every once in a while she would add a teaser: “ My mother abandoned me!” This was all said in Italian, which adds such incredible drama. If she had said “My bra is killing me” in Italian, it would have sounded like a death knell.

So many of us spend our energies keeping lists on file of things people have done to us. It’s as if we have to keep active those things that have made us feel bad.

Women seem to be particularly adept at this. Our partners and our children don’t have a chance if they repeatedly do something that gets on our nerves. We can come up with dates, times, and probably the exact minute they did it before.

It is important to differentiate between what you need to hang on to and what to let go of. There is nothing more freeing than releasing old stuff.

However, realizing that certain of our behaviors or those of others don’t serve us is valuable information. I have come to realize that certain individuals that were part of my life were energy vampires. My ruminating over how they treated me did not change their essential character.

The only logical thing to do is to store the information and to profit from the lesson. Life can hold a lot of joy and possibilities, but only when we stop dragging the carcass of the past along with us.

We have conducted The World’s Most Unscientific Survey! It was amazing: our methodology was completely arbitrary. Little, if any, effort went into ensuring rigid scientific standards were observed. In fact, we just now thought, “Hmmm…isn’t there supposed to be a control group for this type of thing?”

No  matter!

We’ve talked to approximately 37,034,686 nurses, give or take a few million, and we asked them: What is the single phrase you say MOST during the day.  Now, some of the nurses gave us practical, useful answers, and we didn’t like those, so we threw those right out, as clear outliers.  (You could argue that this is bad science, to which we would say, “Yes, we know.” and also, “Hey, it works when big pharm does it!”)

Examining the remaining answers (approximately 65,023) we discovered that the following phrases cross nurses’ lips more frequently than any other: (more…)

A motorcycle patrolman was rushed to the hospital with an inflamed appendix. The doctors operated and advised him that all was well. However, the patrolman kept feeling something pulling at the hairs in his crotch.

Worried that it might be a second surgery and the doctors hadn’t told him about it, he finally got enough energy to pull his hospital gown up enough so he could look at what was making him so uncomfortable.

Taped firmly across his pubic hair and private parts were three wide strips of adhesive tape, the kind that doesn’t come off easily — if at all.

Written in large black letters was the sentence:

‘Get well soon…..from the nurse in the Jeep you pulled over last week.’

Editor’s Note: This is a joke that’s out there in several ‘forms’ — which variation is your favorite?

moar funny pictures

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• It's National Humor Month. Take the 30 Smile Challenge–we dare you! http://ow.ly/1wapj #

Dear Nurse Marge,

I need your help. I’m a new nurse, and it’s the greatest and hardest thing I’ve ever done. That’s not the problem — I expected it to be rough, and it is, but I’m getting the hang of it. What I’m not getting the hang of is dealing with my family and friends who totally dismiss what I do. When I come home from a rough shift, my boyfriend (who is a mechanic) says, “What did you expect? You signed up to be a professional ass wiper.” I hear all the time that all I have to do is what the doctor says — how do you explain that half our job is saving people from the doctor? The continual disrespect is getting me down!

Nervous in Newburyport

Dear Nervous,

While I normally say ‘civilians’ never get what nurses really do, and we have to understand that, as part of our caring, therapeutic approach to humanity, I think you should totally ditch the boyfriend. Tell him that since you’re a professional ass wiper during the day, you don’t need any asswipes at home, thank you very much.

Make sure your car is running really well, first.

The problem with our profession is that there are so very many stereotypes attached to it. From the saintly types who ease pain, wipe the fevered brow, plump the pillow and regard family members as a gift from Heaven and physicians as being even better than that — mind you, I’m telling you this secondhand, for in 38 years in the business, I’ve never once met a nurse like this. I came close once, but she was lifted away on a bower of fluffy clouds before my presence could spoil her for the profession forever — to the pill-popping, pharmacist-shagging TV star — which I’ve never understood, since I can’t even get critical, life saving medicines delivered in a timely fashion, how in the world will this guy be in delivering anything in the vein of satisfaction before I age out of giving a damn about such things? — to the sex goddess in a short, tight white uniform and a nurse’s cap almost as pert and perfect as her bosom?

I admit that that last one is entirely my fault. Sometimes we don’t really know the impression we make, you know?

Anyway, back to my point here, which is, not only are you working against the basic misconceptions people have about nursing, you’re working against the mythology of nursing.

Well, I say fight fire with fire. If we don’t like the myths we’re dealing with, let us create our own. Let us sing songs of the Crash Cart Company, saving lives and singing show tunes! Tell the tale of Blood Pressure Bonnie, who can check vitals in the wee hours of the dawn without disturbing a single patient. We must not forget Advocacy Annette, who reminds residents that maybe they want to think through that order and saves the day!

That’s what we should do. Make sure you let me know how it turns out!

Good Luck!

Nurse Marge