Tales from the Nuthouse: Lest You Think I have a Really Cool Job

[wolf]

Tonight's adventure involved a now-sobered-up-enough-to-talk-to drunk. He had actually been hauled in a couple of days ago, but was too drunk to evaluate. He was even too drunk to really haul in ... got picked up at his house and taken to a medical hospital without us even seeing him to make sure he needed to go to medical. What he had been doing was not in any way interesting or spectacular. Threatening to shoot himself "if he had a gun."

Were it not for some ethical and legal issues, I'd be willing to help him out.

Anyway, this drunk has a long history of being a drunk.

During one of his drunken escapades many years ago he suffered injuries that left him a paraplegic. He gets around in a wheelchair, and has tempted several police departments into wanting to issue a DUI as he rolls his way up a four lane highway against the flow of traffic. Unfortunately, they don't ever follow through on this and tend to bring him to my hospital.

So, anyway, he comes in tonight after two days of sobering up in a nice medical bed. I end up dealing with him and listen to his story of distress and woe over some recent losses, including his "little buddy" (a neighbor's dog that died unexpectedly), the Pope, and an ex-girlfriend, his last girlfriend before his injury. He found it necessary to explain how he was "broken" below the waist, and was "no good to a woman any more."

I sincerely doubt that he was much good to a woman before that, frankly.

So, what's the real point of the story here, you might be wondering?

I didn't have any male staff available, and drunken asshole decides that he needs to urinate. This involves some mechanical assistance. He has a catheter which thankfully he is able to insert himself.

I was hoping to just leave him with his tubing and a plastic urinal, but no such luck. The damn thing kept falling over as he tried to get things set up.

So there I was, holding one of those elongated pee-pee bottles, and working very, very hard to maintain eye contact with him as he was shoving a small bore hose through the ureter of his flaccid, nonfunctional unit.

On the upside, I did not get any urine on me.