Public Service Announcement

My patient looked at me and said, “Are you sober?” Hmmm. "Yes,” I said, thinking to myself that it would really be in bad form to come to work any other way. Then I realized he didn’t mean AT THIS VERY MOMENT. He meant the big “SOBER.” The “do we have some common ground here” sober. Oh. “I mean, no. Not that I am not sober right now but I don’t have a problem with alcohol.” I almost laughed out loud at that moment because isn’t that what all alcoholics say?

Even though I totally bungled that conversation, I got what he meant. My patient who was withdrawing from alcohol as well as meth, heroin and a myriad of other drugs wanted to know if we were kindred spirits. Turns out we weren’t but I did assure him that I was going to do what I could for him, I had seen addiction and I agreed with him, it was a bitch. I am not an addiction specialist but from what I have seen and experienced, I think it starts out as choices and then truly does become a disease.

I don’t work on an addiction unit but we see withdrawal if seizures are involved, the drugs have affected any part of the central nervous system or if a patient has another medical issue but also happens to be an addict. The latter group is thrown into withdrawal just by being in the hospital. The patient mentioned above had the misfortune of having a bleed in his belly – bringing him to my unit and my care. I won’t go into the details of our VERY long two nights together but I will say that I am absolutely emotionally and physically drained today so I can only imagine how he feels.

As a nurse I see a lot of things that many of you might not want to see. It doesn’t bother me. I am not squeamish. I know this isn’t the case with all my friends. I have tried not to be specific in this post but if you are uncomfortable talking about any type of fluid, you may want to pass on this reading. Just sayin…

There was moment over this past month that I looked around my unit and thought what a great public service announcement we could make. The message? Don’t do drugs. I could tell you about the guy with the abdominal bleed that was most likely related to all the damage he has done to his insides with his body trying to metabolize drugs and alcohol. Or the guy in the room next to him that had a stroke because his brain started bleeding related to his meth use. The right side of his body had become totally useless as a result of the bleed. Several of the patients also have Hepatitis C. Then there are the abscesses.

In an earlier post I said I wouldn’t talk about abscesses. I lied. Their time has come. The word is kind of cool. It has an interesting sound to it and it is hard to spell. The actuality of an abscess? Not as cool. I never really grasped how abscesses happen. My first experience with one was about a year ago with my sweet, now deceased dog, Belle. One morning Belle stood up to go outside and I noticed some blood…a lot of blood. After a visit to the vet, I learned she had an abscess on her shoulder. For those of you not intimately familiar with an abscess (which I hope is most of you), the technical definition has something to do with infected tissue, a collection of fluid, swelling and inflammation. I totally cleaned up the definition for you. I became quite familiar with her shoulder abscess. When the vet told me I either needed to bring her back every other day so they could clean and bandage her wound (for a hefty fee) or do it myself, I decided that it would be a good time to put my book learning to practice. I took excellent care of her wound and it actually healed (to my vet’s surprise). I was quite proud of the two of us. 

I didn’t realize that experience would come in so handy. Belle probably got her abscess from her frail body always lying on one shoulder on the kitchen floor when she slept. After time, it was just too much for that shoulder. Or she was doing drugs while we slept. I imagine living with us wasn’t always a piece of cake. Do you know how my patients most often get their abscesses? Drugs. Yep. Who knew? I don’t remember the word abscess in the “Don’t Do Drugs” talk. So, here it is. It happens. It happens a lot if you are an IV drug user and you get careless and say…miss your vein. It is not pretty. The healing may involve surgery, some draining and some wound packing. Yep…regular wound packing. How would you like me coming to your bedside telling you I need to pack your wound? Based on the reactions from my patients, you wouldn’t like it. My kids have no chance of getting a watered down version of the “don’t do drugs” speech. I am going to be ready, complete with visual aids. Poor buggers.