About an hour before my 12 hour shift was over today, I was called to evaluate a patient for home oxygen before they were discharged. The process is pretty simple. You get an oxygen level with the patient on oxygen, then remove them from the oxygen and see if they drop to the accepted level. If not, you walk them down the hall and see if they drop (your body consumes more oxygen when you move). If they do, they need oxygen.
So I got my baseline level of oxygen on this little old lady and then told her that she could take the oxygen tubing off of her nose. Let your nose and ears rest for a bit, I told her. After explaining that I would be back in 10 min or so (you have to give the oxygen time to leave her body) I walked down the hall to do some charting. 10 minutes later I returned to the room and checked her oxygen saturation. It was still not low enough so I told her we'd have to go for a little walk. I gave her my arm and helped her up. She took a few steps and let out a yelp. It was then that I noticed that her oxygen tubing was caught up around her. So what did I do? I found the tubing and gave it a good tug thinking it would become un-caught and we could continue on our walk.
I was wrong. She yelped again. I followed the tubing and it was down the front of her pants. How it got there I have no idea. Again, I tugged, lighter this time and again she yelped. I followed it more. It went through her legs and was wedged pretty good.
In her butt crack.
Guess who had to put gloves on and pry her oxygen tubing from deep between her sweaty butt cheeks? Yep, that would be me.
So next week when you're having a really crappy day at work just stop and remember.
I win.
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1 comment:
Oh, I am so glad I visited today and read this. I think I will keep my job...you can have yours. How funny, but bless that poor old lady. This is just too funny! You should apply for world's dirtiest jobs.
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