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"Thanks girl!" Megan calls out when she realizes I've picked up her next chart and am on the way to the room already. I wave my hand over my shoulder to let her know that she shouldn't think anything of it.
The minute I walk into the room, I know I'm in for a special kind of visit. I blink a few times to keep my eyes from burning, the smell is so strong.
A middle-aged man is sitting on the patient exam table, and even from the doorway I can smell the booze seeping out of his pores.
His head jerks up, and he lists slightly to the left when he realizes I've walked in. How the hell can he be drunk at ten in the morning?
"Mr..." I look at the name tag on the chart, "Whitman. I'm Nurse Thimble, I'll be taking care of you while Dr. Mason goes over your chart." I tell him, doing my best to walk in a large arc around him, not wanting to get close to the repugnant smell.
"Nurse Thimble." He says slower than necessary. "You're new. I don't know you." He says, and turns his head to keep me in his line of sight.
The workstation in this room is in the back by the window, which means the patient bed is behind me.
"Yeah." I turn over my shoulder to look at him. "I'm only a temp. I'll be here for a little while to help out." I tell him and go back to opening his chart. I grab my rolling vital machine and complete everything I'm supposed to.
Blood pressure, pulse, o2 levels, the normal things. Unfortunately, that means I have to get close to him. He grunts out when I tell him to open his mouth so I can take his temperature. I nearly vomit from his halitosis.
Once I'm finished with that, I go back to the small workstation and start entering in my numbers.
"You know, I wish they would have told me we had a visitor in town. I would have offered to take you out." He says, and I roll my eyes where he can't see me. As if I'm desperate enough to ever go out with someone like him.
I put on my fakest smile and say, "Aww, that's sweet. I've been here a few weeks, the town has been more than welcoming."
"They can't welcome you like I can." He says, his voice low, and I turn to see he's still glaring at me.
My internal red flags start to go up, and suddenly, I want to get out of this room. I just need to note his reason for coming, and I can pass him off.
I'm not even sure why I'm having such a strong reaction to him. I mean, I have five older brothers. I've seen them drunk on more than one occasion. Even as that thought flies through my head, my inner voice answers my question.
"None of them stare at you like that."
I do my best to focus on the computer monitor in front of me, but I'm trying to gauge what he's doing and still remember what I'd already done.
"Um, Mr. Whitman, what brings you in today?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm in a lot of pain." He says, and I force my mind to focus on the specifics.
"Where is the pain?" I ask him.
"It's here." he points to his stomach. Of course, I want to tell him that the pain is more than likely due to the excessive alcohol he ingested, but it's not my place to diagnose. I only assess and take the notes.
"Which side? Left, right, up, down?" I say, typing as fast as my hands will let me.
"Down, way down." He groans, and it's not a painful sound. I'm too scared to turn around.
"Okay, when did it start?"
"Recently, you could say, only now. Come here, I can show you where it hurts, and you can help me make it better."
Fuck. No.
Alarm bells start blaring in my head and I stand up, leaving my note half finished. When I turn around, I'm surprised to see that Mr. Whitman has stood up from the bed and is unbuckling his pants.
"What are you doing? I didn't tell you to get undressed." I hiss at him and try to find my way to the exit.
"No, you didn't, but I need to show you where it hurts. Come on. You're the nurse, right? You need to see what the problem is."
He takes a step in my direction, and I back up into the desk. There's no way out of the room without getting by him. The many different self-defense lessons my brothers taught me go streaming through my head, but I have to remember that even though I'm scared out of my mind right now, this man is intoxicated and still a patient. I can't just hit him without the hospital coming under some serious scrutiny.
