The Crisis of Today By Karyn Buxman, RN, MSN, CSP As a new R.N., I'd been assigned to work evenings in an intensive care unit in a small rural hospital. Back then, as now, staffing was short, and I was the only R.N. working that shift. It was a quiet evening with only five patients, all of whom were sleeping or resting. I told the two L.P.N.s to go grab some supper in the cafeteria and bring me back something to eat. Leaving me to cover the unit, they hightailed it out of there before I had time to rethink my lousy decision. I poured over my paperwork, the rhythm of the beeping monitors playing their familiar tune in the background, when my nursing radar picked up an unusual noise that flagged my attention. 'What the heck was that?' I looked up from my charts into the room across the hallway to see a cardiac patient standing beside his bed. 'Hmmmm, not a good idea.' Then suddenly, before I could even complete that thought, whoom! His feet shot out from under him, his gown flew into the air, and he disappeared from sight! 'Yikes!' I leaped from my chair, shot across the hallway, bolted through the door and into the room. As I made my dramatic entry, I spied a giant puddle of greenish brown fluid spreading across his floor. 'Nursing diagnosis: greenish brown liquid...body fluids...oh no! Poop!' Too late! I was already hydroplaning across the spillage, arms and legs flailing to keep me upright. Always the optimist, my mind raced ahead with positive thoughts: 'I'm going to glide across this mess, land on both feet and save the day!' This, unfortunately, did not happen... Instead, my feet skidded across the fluid and then, whoom! I landed so hard on my backside, my head bounced off the linoleum. 'Ouch...' I shook the stars off and rolled over to look for my patient. Spry thing that he was, he was trying to get up. Boom! He fell again. I tried to jump up to help him. Wham! I slipped again. He tried to pull himself up. Whoom. I scrambled for balance. Wham. With arms and legs splayed in every direction, we looked like Bambi and Thumper skidding on ice. After what seemed an eternity, our eyes met, and I realized he was laughing. "It's probably not what you think," he said with a wink, and motioned to our putrid puddle. A styrofoam cup lay tipped beside it. Totally discombobulated, I couldn't understand what he was trying to tell me. "Huh?" He shook his head as if to apologize. "I was hoping to hide my tobacco juice before you made rounds." It took a minute to sink in. Is this the good news or the bad news? Tobacco juice or poop: 'Which would I rather be wrestling around in?' To this day I'm still not sure. But once I knew that my patient was okay, I was able to see the humor in the situation, and we both enjoyed a good laugh together. Lesson #1: Life's curve balls, plus time, equals humor. If there's a chance that you'll be laughing about something later, try to shorten the time frame. Laugh about it sooner. Lesson #2: It's to your advantage if you can laugh at yourself before others do. By the time I walked out of that room with greenish brown slime painted all over my crisp white uniform, everyone else immediately saw the humor in the situation. Since I was already laughing, my colleagues laughed with me instead of at me! Lesson #3: The closer you are to tragedy, the odder your humor becomes. Nurses have to be able to laugh at some of the tough stuff or we burn out and leave this wonderful profession. Nurses can find the silver lining and the humor in the most bizarre places - thank God! ______________________________ «:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«^i^MISSI ^i^«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§« Richiele Marie [email protected] (Missi) I disbelieved in reincarnation in my last life, too. »§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«