not a laughing matter

Warning: Salty and inappropriate language and scenarios ahead. Many body parts exposed that should really be left covered. Proceed with caution. I mean it.

I would never laugh at my patients.

It would be rude and unprofessional and demeaning and just plain wrong.

I would never laugh at my patients.

Not even when they said something like this (and, by the way, most of these words rhyme with what this guy actually said, so go to town figuring it out. It won't be hard. I don't want to go from a PG to a XXX in one post) -

"Buck you, you trucking punt spore witch. I haven't bucking had a ducking drink all rod bam day," immediately prior to falling face first into a portable commode which was conveniently (from my point of view anyway) open and "sleeping" until his girlfriend arrived and beat him in the head with her shoe for unknown reasons.

I would never laugh at my patients.

Not even the woman who asked me pointed questions about every single narcotic I gave her, argued with the doctor about dosages of each said narcotic, instructed me on exactly which point of her IV tubing she wanted me to inject the drug for maximal wow factor and then, when I finally lost patience, said, "Well, I always have to ask about these things because I don't know anything at all about drugs."


I would never laugh at my patients.

Not even the man who came in with priapism. Priapism is when the blood flow to the penis gets all out of whack and they develop an erection that won't go away. It has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with pain. Especially the treatment. (Whenever the FG gets on my nerves I describe the treatment to him...slowly, and in great detail). I started out as sweet as I could be, because this really is a bear to treat, and, in spite of what you might think I always give every patient the benefit of the doubt to begin with. I really am respectful and kind. Really. But this man was hungover and mean, and his girlfriend, who had C-L-A-S-S tattooed on the fingers of both hands, had a nail appointment or something, because they opted not to stay and have him treated. He was more than a little irate that we weren't able to get a specialist in on a Sunday within fifteen minutes of his ER arrival. I would've told him to rub a lamp, but it would have been a poor choice of words.

Verbally mistaking me for a female dog, he jumped off the exam table, furious that it would take around forty minutes for the urologist to get there. (I thought forty minutes was pretty fast for a specialist on a weekend, but what do I know?) He ripped off his gown (which got tangled in his IV tubing) and spun around to face me wearing nothing but snakeskin cowboy boots, a big gold medallion and his, uh, chief complaint and he said

"How the hell am I supposed to go to Church like this?"

I would never laugh at my patients.

Not even the biker who came in shot by police during a robbery. While we were assessing him we noticed that he had a tattoo on his guy parts that said hey mama. (Please do not ask me how we discovered this). Quite the crowd gathered as word spread of his adornment. All the guys said "ow" and all the women just shook their heads in amazement. He was unconscious and heavily bandaged from chest up and his face was so swollen that you had no idea what he really looked like. Let's just say that he was completely unaware that we were checking his decor out. As soon as we had him settled his mother and sister came in the room to see him. Sister said

"Oh, my god. That doesn't even look like him."

And mom lifted up the sheet, looked south and said

"Nope, that's him alright."

I barely made it to the break room.