You stop taking your meds. You feed your face. You continue drinking. You laze around or go to work or whatever the hell you do, until the grim reaper comes calling. And then you get to me, the ICU nurse.
Hey, I’m all for an adult beverage. There is nothing like a fabulous meal. Lord knows I’ve had my fun. But come on, people, get it together. You weigh 300, 400, 500-plus pounds? You’re on anti-depressants or blood-pressure meds, and you think it’s a good idea to just stop?
You’ve landed your ass in my ICU; if you want to live, act like it. Quit the whining, the crying, the passive-
aggressive manipulative behavior that got you here. I’d love to see you get well, but only if you want to. Otherwise, I don’t give a fuck. I’m not your cheerleading squad, I’m not your coach, and I’m not your fucking mother. So take a moment, get over yourself, and make the decision: Do I want to die? Because otherwise, you’re wasting my time and my other patients’ time. Right now, you’re just job security to me.
First! Suck it nerds!
Slow Clap.
It’s called ‘Personal Responsibility’. At some point in life, we all have to step up and accept it. Or die.
Pretty simple, really.
I didn’t know Nurse Ratched was still working.
Oh twinkie223, this is no Nurse Ratched. This is ICU and U R Not Pretty.
Great stuff, I, Anon! Every word rings truer than true, and do I ever know exactly what you’re saying. Just think, in a few weeks he’ll be out the door (in one fashion or another) and you can wave goodbye and say, “AMF, YOYO!”
Sounds like Dr. Dennis Leary… who I for one agree with.
FINALLY a nurse who says what we all are thinking!
Anon, I have no idea how you do it every day. My hat is off to you. Lets hear it for nurses!
If you hating having to nurse people you dislike why be a nurse? You obviously aren’t in nursing because you care about helping others. Oh, I get it you are only a nurse to get paid. If you are nurse because you want to be paid you should be thanking those who give you job security not condemning them.
The revolving door indeed. The street alcoholics are the worst. Don’ think I don’t have empathy, I do. But the same ones come in over and over and over again, near death or simply out of their minds, spitting on or otherwise assaulting hospital staff. They get detoxed, sometimes spend some time in jail after hospitalization, are given tons of resources to get sober. And then, they return to the streets only to wind up back in the hospital.
Oh, and to the flaming moron who says “I wish we had socialized medicine so we could pay for them” we already are you idiot. Who do you think absorbs the cost of these people? The hospital does, and then they jack the rates for everyone.
Yes I agree with clarity, if you dislike your job don’t take it out on the customers.
@9 you are an idiot. You have no sense of what it takes to watch people self-destruct on a daily basis, often multiple times, sometimes to try to manipulate pain meds. This isn’t about helping people it is about people helping themselves. And fuck off with this “if you dislike some aspect of your job for valid reasons than quit” bullshit. That pedantic perspective is tired and short-sighted. People get into nursing for a wide range of reasons not just to “care about others.” You are out of your element, go back to your 101 classes and leave this discussion to the adults.
Wow.
First I Anon that I can remember who actually sounds like a grown-up.
Nice work.
Unprofessional.
@7: you don’t think we’re paying for them now? They’re either on somebody’s insurance plan (hint: they raise your rates), or they’re getting free hospital care (hint: the hospitals are raising their rates).
@12 You are wrong. I do understand, “what it takes to watch people self-destruct on a daily basis, often multiple times.” Working with the homeless you have clients whom you help into housing and stabilize over and over. When they come in for help you need to be ready to accept them where they are and be fully willing to help them even though they have had your help before. And maybe they aren’t at a point where they are “helping themselves” if you demand that your clients are “helping themselves” before you will help them then maybe you should not be in a care-giver position. Sometimes people need a lot of help and care before they are ready to care for themselves.
And also, I was not endorsing “if you dislike some aspect of your job for valid reasons than (then) quit.” IA works in an ICU so clearly caring for people they dislike is a rather large part of the job. All jobs have aspects we don’t like but if what you dislike is a large part of the job description then yeah maybe you should move on. IA could move on to private practice maybe in plastic surgery or something with “more desirable” patients.
Part of nursing is caring about a person that can’t care for themselves. If you can’t do that anymore, get another job and leave it to the pros.
@12. As a doctor, let me add that i am so sick of nurses like you. Quit already: you judge and hate your clients, and you’re making all of us look bad.
Clarity, I don’t know where you got the idea that Anon hates his/her job; they simply hate the self-destructive blame-shifting useless fatasses they keep having to patch up, just so they can go out and damage themselves again.
Working in health care, you get the joy of seeing people work hard and get their lives back from the depths of desperate illness, but you also see a shit ton of morons who think the role of medicine is to find a pill that fixes all their self-inflicted problems so that they can go continue to eat 10,000 calories a day for the rest of their miserable lives.
Hey, Anon isn’t saying that she won’t treat these patients to the best of her abilities, or that she’ll be unprofessional towards them, just that she doesn’t like them, and for good reason, and that she can’t help them as well as she can help other, more responsible patients.
Hats off to the brave men and women serving in the ICU department.
Cynical nurses suck.
Lots of people have problems beyond the ones you’re paid to fix. Not surprisingly, they’re often intertwined.
Clearly you are in the wrong business. So kick off those Danskos and change into street clothes (they’re a lot tighter than scrubs, aren’t they?), then treat yourself to a job that rewards a nice, shitty attitude. One where your customer’s can hate you for who you are, without placing their lives in your sweaty palms.
@7 – Which asshole?
@Clarity:
I’ve noticed the people who scream the loudest about how we should be pillars of our community, and nurses (cops/doctors/teachers) shouldn’t be allowed to have human frustrations outside of work make the worst patients. I’ll bet you’re an awful patient and many of my colleagues have talked just as much shit about you.
@Clarity:
I’ve noticed the people who scream the loudest about how we should be pillars of our community, and nurses (cops/doctors/teachers) shouldn’t be allowed to have human frustrations outside of work make the worst patients. I’ll bet you’re an awful patient and many of my colleagues have talked just as much shit about you.
I completely sympathize Anon. Take some responsibility for yourselves, fatties. You are overweight and unhealthy because of your own life choices; quit whining to this person who is just trying to do his/her job in the ICU.
Totally feeling Anon today.
I worked in an ICU and had a 19 year old kid come in weighing 750 lbs. His feet looked like alligator skin and he never budged his fat ass to help anyone try and move him.
I sympathise.
But I just have to say, the one time I ended up in hospital (I’d had a panic attack and cut myself up a bit), the nurses and the paramedics I saw were so fucking amazing it defies words. Kind and supportive and patient. I am eternally grateful for the patience and the empathy of (some) people who work in hospitals.
I told them that, too. People should say “thank you” to the people who save lives more often.
Hell yeah. Nurses are awesome and put up with amazing amounts of shit from whiny, entitled, obnoxious arseholes of all weights who think everything should be done for them. I’ve been in hospital too many times myself not to have noticed that, and the nurses always get a bottle of booze and a box of chocolates from me when I leave.
I work in IT and there are people who I need to help as a part of my job who range from computer savvy to unsavvy but pleasant to unsavvy and unpleasant. Some try to help themselves while others do not. Some cause their own problems while others do not.
My suggestion to this disgruntled nurse is to take pleasure in the the ones you can help and/or who you enjoy helping and take your paycheck for the ones you don’t enjoy while giving them the same quality care.
They are indeed job security and you are being paid to help them which is why it doesn’t matter whether you think they’re worth your while or not.
@30, most jobs involve “putting up with amazing amounts of shit from whiny, entitled, obnoxious arseholes of all weights who think everything should be done for them”. This just in!
A valid complaint. *Of course* people, trained and equipped on the public dime ( you think your lousy tuition covered even half the cost of educating you?) and one even being paid to perform a professional service shouldn’t have to treat fat people or ugly people, or people whose life choices they disagree with, or people who don’t really have aesthetically pleasing injuries or ho the wrong kind of handbag…of course you shouldn’t have to dear.. I’ll tell you what, the next time you get one of this abusive, chemically staturated fatties, just go ahead and load them up with potassium and watch ’em writhe….God love you honey for your commitment to professional standards.
You’re getting paid to help people, not make value judgments. So take your holier-than-thou attitude, jam it in your ass, and get to fucking work, Florence Nightingale!
Good fucking god, people. We *all* have unhealthy and self-destructive habits; it’s part of being human. Some of these habits are simply more visible than others.
@28/smitty: You POS asshole. A 19-year old kid who weighs 750 lbs?? Did it not occur to you that his weight is a very loud cry for help for any number of possible problems (incest/rape/abuse/neglect)? You’re right when you described him as a “kid” — and, definitionally, he doesn’t have the same resources and coping mechanisms available to him as an adult. Why don’t you get off your self-righteous ass and outside of your narcissistic self and actually try to help a fellow human being during your short time on this planet?
Maybe a little off-topic, but recently my wife came home from working a shift at a children’s ICU at a county hospital. Right after a crack addict gave birth, the mother made an excuse and abandoned her baby at the hospital, where a problem developed that eventually led to the baby spraying AIDS-infected blood from his umbilical cord all over the bed and nurses.
So, to the person who works in IT, your job is actually NOT very relatable, in terms of what you have to put up with. Just saying.
Good fucking god, people. We *all* have unhealthy and self-destructive habits; it’s part of being human. Some of these habits are simply more visible than others.
@28/smitty: You POS asshole. A 19-year old kid who weighs 750 lbs?? Did it not occur to you that his weight is a very loud cry for help for any number of possible problems (incest/rape/abuse/neglect)? You’re right when you described him as a “kid” — and, definitionally, he doesn’t have the same resources and coping mechanisms available to him as an adult. Why don’t you get off your self-righteous ass and outside of your narcissistic self and actually try to help a fellow human being during your short time on this planet?
When I was finishing my clinical training in the ER, a nurse who (as she put it) had been saving lives since I’d been filling my pampers told me that the day you can’t treat each and every patient with the same compassion, regardless of how they got there (her example was the drunk driver and the person they hit), you need to go find a new career. I did it for 10 years, hit my limit and changed courses. It sounds like you hit that point years ago. Do yourself and your future patients a favor and take up a new profession.
@9 “If you hating having to nurse people you dislike why be a nurse?”
If only nurses who loved the work were in a hospital, there would be about 1 nurse per 500 patients.
#19 — “As a doctor…” With the handle PervyMax444?
Here’s hoping you’re not a pediatrician…
@18: Idiot
@19: Dr. Idiot
Great I, Anon.
I’d be the Nurse of Death.
People that continually drain resources and time from others that need help (from being non self- inflicted) need to just hurry up and die. These others obviously hate themselves and their miserable lives- why not put them out of their misery already?
Time and money wasters that WE pay for? Go die.
What a Bitch!
Hey fuckers,
If you read it she isn’t judging these people, she is tired of their indecision. This is the right response.
You guys don’t need to judge super fatties that want to die, Don’t you have a life to live? Grow up.
Also: BUUUUUURRRRRN
My mom and sister are both nurses. These type of patients are their #1 job complaint.
19, as a doctor, I’m here to tell you we have no room to criticize nurses. They’re on the front lines, hour after hour, while we write our orders and move on to our offices. Nursing care is why hospitals exist. Nurses make your profession possible.
(And, hello, “PervyMax”?? what the hell is that about? Who’s making who look bad?)
Anon, please quit your job. You are doing more harm than good. Nurses need to be nice and kind and helpful to their patients. I don’t care what bullshit excuses you make, they are your patients and you should treat them like your best friend. Go work in a job that does not require human contact.
Hi Anon,
Thank you for the hard work you do and for using a place like “I, Anonymous” to voice your complaints rather than doing it at work.
I can’t imagine how tough your work is and how much tougher people make it by not taking care of themselves or being a pain in your ass while in your care.
I hope you have other people you can talk to about this and that you’re making sure to practice a healthy amount of self-care. I imagine the burnout rate in your profession is pretty high and your attitude makes a huge difference to those of us who have to be in the ICU. I think the more you get to voice your frustrations outside of work and really be heard about them, the easier it will be for you not to express them while you’re working (which would probably be inappropriate.)
Thank you for reading this and again thank you for the work you do.
@20 @27 @28 @IA and everyone else who would rather just let people die because they are a mess: screw you. People who are a mess because of over-eating or addiction need help and compassion from those they come to for help. Often they are dragged into hospitals by family and friends who aren’t ready to see them commit suicide or go because they are afraid to disappoint someone who expects them to keep living. Sometimes it takes years before people want to take care of themselves because they are ready and able to make a change. If you cannot offer compassion to people who need more time and help then get out of work that requires giving a great deal of care and compassion there are other jobs with duties that are similar but involve less care giving requirements.
@25 and again @26
Whatever. I never said that any category of individual “shouldn’t be allowed to have human frustrations outside of work.”
@47(Black Rose) am I missing the sarcasm or are you a f*cking jack off?