GURNEY TALK
Nurses pushing a gurney down the hall.
Nurse 1: “I hate going down to the ER. When I work there, it’s just organized chaos.”
Nurse 2: “If you don’t, it’s just chaos.”
—
LIKE A LADY
The old lady with endstage emphysema goes on and on about her family and her “genius” nephew in medschool until she’s out of breath again. Thank goodness for crippled pulmonary function.
“I wish I could adopt you.”
So maybe she doesn’t talk too much all of the time.
“You’re a lot like my nephew, the one in medical school. Except he’s tall. He’s really smart too.”
I contemplate stepping on her oxygen tubing.
“You ever notice how those football player types are all softies like big teddy bears?”
“Sure… ?”
She wheezes and purses her lips to exhale, a reflex to increase the air pressure in her lungs.
“You know, when you get like this, you should take a break from talking for a while.”
“Oh… so you want me to be more like a lady,” she says in her gravelly 100-pack year voice.
“No, but –”
“Well, I just can’t go out like that,” she smiles with a dramatic turn of her chin like a starlet missing a cigarette holder.
—
WASCALLY WABBIT
“When I was a kid, they used ether during surgery. Young man, do you know what ether is?”
“Sure. I’ve seen it in cartoons.”
“HA! They soak a rag with it and put it over your mouth and suffocate you. Scariest thing in my life. I was eight.”
“Wow.”
“That was before penicillin.”
“Now that is scary.”
[This is the Bugs Bunny cartoon I remember with the ether. This was always the scariest episode when I was a kid. The giant amophous red monster, the green scientist, the stoned-out chase scene - not cool, Bugs. Not cool.]
—
URINE ENEMA TERRITORY
“What is wrong with your patient, Dr. Scott?” the nurse accosts me.
“What’s going on?”
“I went to give him his enema, and he tells me he doesn’t want it right now. When I come back later, he walks out of the bathroom and says he already gave himself the enema.”
“So?”
“I didn’t leave one in the room for him. I ask him what enema and he points to his (urine) catheter bag hanging from the top of the I.V. pole.”
“… Wow.”
—
RANDOM PIC
Random picture of cousin Kevin and me at the mother-in-law’s birthday party. I had no idea it was being taken (hence, the slouch) or who took it (on my iPhone, I suspect it was Sun Su). It looks like Kevin is talking about Megan Fox’s breasts. Again.
Also, I wanted to thank the lovely and witty Christine (Corean-American writer and teacher) for the link! Old school journal linkage, yay!
