I've been rather ambivalent about my job for the last few months, wistfully dreaming about going to a fancy, slow ER, or oncology or hospice or bar tending, grateful for my occasional nice, normal patient but pretty much completely and totally over all this other bullshit. I shared my "I'm not quite sure how much longer I'd really like to be doing this" sentiments with one of my medic friends at work, who promptly blew me off. I was a little bit butt-hurt about it, to be quite honest.
"You'll never quit. You love the madness too much. You'd miss it."
"Nope. I really don't. I'm tired of this crap. I'm just done."
"Nope. You'll never quit. Secretly you love it."
I walked away further convinced that no one really gets me here and I could walk away any time and miss absolutely nothing about this place except....ugh. He's totally right.
You guys, I am a twisted individual. Obviously I became a nurse to help people and touch lives and make the world a better place, but I also sort of became an ER nurse to see the hilarious shit show circus that unfolds before me every night. Nights like tonight where it really goes above and beyond the everyday ridiculousness really reinforce that fact that, yep, secretly I love this crap.
There are few things funnier than listening to the things someone yells at the hospital police while high on PCP. It is ten times as funny when two patients high on PCP, both restrained and in rooms next to one another, start tag teaming it and yelling at one another and the cops. Especially when one of them spends the night telling anyone who will listen that he is a werewolf while growling to drive the point home while the other falls asleep, snoring heavily and occasionally ripping massive farts that ring throughout the entire unit.
It's funny as hell when the two chronic drunks that come in via EMS for cc: found passed out somewhere in public serendipitously find themselves next to each other in the hall beds. It's even funnier when they become best friends and creepily hit on every woman within eyesight together.
Even the WTF moments are hilarious, like when my (non-critical) stabbing victim reveals to me that the argument that preceded his injury was him yelling at his girlfriend about how she would have a home-cooked meal on the table if she "wanted to keep her a man" or when I find my patient on BIPAP trying to sneak Raisinetes through her mask.
This place is ridiculous, and it's an ass-kicking. I held my bladder for 8 hours tonight before I remembered to pee, and I went nearly 12 without eating. But in it's own weird way, it was really fun. As much as it would be fulfilling to work somewhere else, I would really miss how hilarious this place is. It's like my own personal trashy reality TV show that I get paid to watch for 12 hours a day. I'm sure I'd actually be really bummed if it got cancelled.