How about we reconnect our frontal lobes?

You may (or may not) have noticed that I blog in the mornings. It's not because I go to bed right after work. I'm generally up until one or two in the morning. It's because I need time to let what has happened marinate and filter through my mind before I write it. Sometimes it helps me be less judgemental and whiny on this blog. I hope I haven't been too much of either one of those. There's more than enough of that crap out on the Internet already.

That being said, can I complain about my nurses?

Sometimes, it's better not to say the first thing that rolls through your brain. Not everyone is brilliant on the first try. Better to take a deep breath and consider your words before you spew them into the world for everyone to see.

I had a resident with diarrhea last night. It was messy and smelly and embarrassing for the resident. It took nearly 20 minutes to get her and her room cleaned up afterwards. Toward the end of this, as I was taking the trash and dirty clothes out of the room, a nurse walked in, wrinkled her nose and said, "Eww. Who is that?"

Really?

My response was to sigh, grit my teeth and say "It's Mrs. A. Her stomach is sick."

I sometimes wonder just what my nurses do in their free time that causes their lips to become totally disconnected from their hearts. Do they not think that the resident already feels bad enough? Do they not think that the resident knows how bad it smells? Would not the proper, more "nurse like" response have been, "Who's sick?" or "Did someone have diarrhea?"

So, a call to engage our brains before we put our mouths in gear. Think before we speak today. And may we be forgiven for the hurtful things we've said that we didn't even realize stung the victim.