Nurses

The picture on the right, is of some nurses like we had at the hospital. Don’t be fooled because they’re smiling though. That just means they fucked something up, they're drunk, or both.

Now a drunken nurse is not something most people I know would see as a problem, especially at a Children's hospital. Most people understand how hard it is to stay sober when you've got a room full of screaming babies and your shift doesn't end for another eight hours. A little nip here, a little tuck there and before you know it you're on the road home trying to keep the 74 Plymouth Satellite between the dotted yellow lines.

It would be one thing if they admitted it: Passed a bottle and shared with the floor. But they deny everything. They give you that holier-than-thou stare when you ask for a snoot full to tide you over. Threaten to call security when they find an empty bottle in the trash. Then it's off to that little room past the nurse’s station for a snort with the gang before getting back to the job.

Now I may come from a broken home but I wasn't born yesterday and my mind is still fairly intact. What else could explain the reason they come into the room at all hours of the night, poking and prodding, trying to get him all riled up? Hell, the other night they came in at four in the morning took off all his clothes and weighed him! Then when he got all pissed off and started to pitch a fit they asked me if he needed some morphine for the pain! Now if that isn't the behavior of a drunk-ass nurse than I don't know what is. Let’s not even mentioned the medication errors that I caught or the fact that one of the nurses hadn’t even heard of our doctor’s name before.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that these are stressful times for everyone. I would imagine that the only thing harder than having a child in the hospital is actually having to get your ass out of bed in the morning to go work in one. I wouldn't wish either upon the least deserving of our society so I find it hard to complain there. I just feel that if we open up to each other and come clean, the day might go a little faster and we can all leave knowing that if we didn't leave having done our best, we at least left with a tighter bond having shared a bottle.

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