Adventures in Mental Health Part 2

Writing about my days at the mental hospital has me thinking about it again. This is not necessarily a good thing. I've got enough stories about that place to keep this blog going for years. You probably don't want to hear a single one of them. So hear goes. Let me tell you about the first time I laid eyes on a prolapsed rectum.

There was this patient I worked with, for the purposes of this post we will call him the Assman, who had this recurring delusion that the mob or the government or some one had inserted a microchip in his colon for whatever reason. Whenever the mood struck him he'd dig for it. Deep. Until he bled.

The doctor, in his infinite wisdom, decided that to curb this behavior and prevent the patient from doing further damage to his rectum the security staff, me, would accompany Assman to the bathroom, ration his toilet paper and tell him "No! Bad dog!" every time he appeared to be digging around in himself. How was watching him in the bathroom going to prevent the patient from digging in his ass at other times when no one was around? Got me.

Apparently it didn't help at all, because one day I accompanied this guy to the bathroom watched him drop his pants and noticed that he had a fair amount of blood in his underwear. Back then I was still pretty new to the idea of seeing other people's blood so I panicked a bit and yelled for the RN.

The RN entered the bathroom, sees the blood and asks Assman to stand up and turn around. There it was. A big ball of bright red meat sticking out the back of this guy a good six inches. For a second there I couldn't breath. I was sure he'd lost a vital organ and would drop dead on the spot.

The RN, whose name was Ed and who I still think of as the Sgt. Rock of nursing, was completely unimpressed. He looked at this inside-out colon like it was the most natural thing in the world, no more annoying than a shoelace that had come untied. He produced a single rubber glove from the pocket of his white coat, slipped it on and, with the flat of his hand, pushed the prolapse back up inside the patient. There was a wet, squishy sucking sound as Assman's guts slipped back into place.

All I could say was, "Ggguhhh!"

Ed explained to me that Assman had been digging in his ass for so long that the sphincter muscles had weakened and that from now on his colon would pop out and have to be pushed back in pretty much every time he had a bowel movement. Thankfully the patient learned to push it back in on his own so I never had to do it for him. But from then on I saw the Assman's prolapse on a fairly regular basis and I always went to work dreading the day I would be standing there in the bathroom with him when he clenched a little to hard and six feet of intestine dropped out of him into the toilet. I knew if that ever happened there wouldn't be any way to put him back together. Fortunately that never happened and as far as I know the Assman is still out there, shitting his guts out and putting them back in every night.

On a cold, dark night, when I'm all alone and the whiskey's run dry I can still hear that wet, squishy sucking sound in my head. I can still see that ball of bright red meat when I close my eyes.

And now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can too!

Here's what a prolapse looks like, fuckers!

Adventures in Mental Health

Did I mention that I spent four and a half years in a state run facility for the criminally insane. Oh, relax. I worked there as a security aid. A security aid is basically a cross between a nurse, a babysitter and a human punching bag responsible for the care and feeding of twenty to thirty rapists, child molesters, murderers and other assorted wrongdoers the state has declared unfit to stand trial.

I'd say it's something like being a corrections officer, but its not. COs get mace, tasers and big old beat down sticks to help them get through those exquisitely bad days in one piece. The only equipment I went to work with were a set of keys (presumably so that the psychos would have something to take from me after beating my ass retarded) and a little white plastic name badge with my full Christian name printed right on it (presumably so that the psychos could look me up in the phone book once they got out).

In four and a half years I was extremely lucky. I suffered only a couple minor smacks on the head and one episode in which a Hep C positive patient spat directly into my open mouth while I was talking to him. That was a bad time. Despite all my friends and coworkers constantly reassuring me that it was next to impossible to catch Hep C that way I couldn't rest until I got my clean test results back. Like I said, I was lucky. I have friends who work there who've been seriously hurt working there. One friend has had several surgeries after a nasty kick to the knee. Others have had teeth knocked in, been bitten and have had entire hemispheres of their faces beaten purple. Rapes and murderers of security staff aren't unheard of either. And yet people keep showing up for work.

My Mom, who got me the job there in the first place, still works there. I swear my blood runs cold every time I think of her in that place. The other day she told me about how she had to take down a patient after he threw a chair at her. That's my Mom. Sweet lady, but mind your fucking manners or she'll rush your ass.

Not to long ago Matt Blunt, our esteemed governor, dissolved the state workers union and eliminated their bargaining rights which made it much easier for the State Hospital to get creative about withholding overtime pay, cutting benefits and enforcing mandatory extra shifts. Politicians like to be able to say they're cracking down on big government bureaucracies because they know we don't like bureaucrats. We forget that a bureaucrat isn't just some pencil pushing self-abuse expert writing and enforcing useless government regulations. A bureaucrat is also a trash collector, a cop, a firefighters. Nine times out of ten a bureaucrat is a person providing a service you'd be fucked without. People like my Mom and my friends at the Fulton State Hospital, who watch over society's little monsters while the rest of us are sleeping.

Over the years these people have gotten used to being bent over by their employers. Now Matt Blunt taped their mouths shut. And why not? If you're going to ass-rape some one you don't want to have to listen to them bitch about not getting any lube to go with it. Do you?

Death, take me already!

I woke up this morning with a temperature of 103.2. When a patient of ours gets a temp of 103 we start taking bets on whether or not they're headed for the unit (medical intensive care unit, that is). I've been getting these pissy little infections every so often since I started at the hospital over a year ago. I'm not typically a sickly person. My doctor, the nurses I work with and, of course, Mom tell me its a combination being around the sick all the time and killing my lungs' natural defenses with Marlboro. But hey what do they know? I think it would be easier and more fun to give up the job rather than the coffin nails.

Keeping me company on my long, slow stagger to decomposition;

Ted Nomura's HIROSHIMA THE ATOMIC HOLOCAUST (you'll have to scroll down a bit). Among other things, Ted Nomura writes comics for people who like the history channel but wish it wasn't so cute and cuddly. Nomura has an uncanny knack for telling history the way it was with his writing and, simultaneously, how it felt with his art. You can find the rest of his stuff here at Antarctic Press bottom of the page on the left. I recommend the DICTATORS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

And

TEMPORARY#3 By Damon Hurd and Rick Smith. I haven't read this issue yet, but every time I see an issue I'm reminded of how TEMP#1 suckerpunched me with a neat little O'Henry style twist near the end and followed up with neat little O'Henry style big-ass bomb shortly thereafter. This is story telling to be envious of. I'm very tempted to kill Hurd and Smith and take thier power, but I'm afaid that may cause them to stop doing TEMPORARY.

And, of course drugs. Lots of drugs. Oodles and oodles of drugs.

Drugs are my friend.

I get to put this in your ass

For fans of the 'Chicken Massacre' post. This is the new Fecal Management System by Convatec. We're getting these at the hospital. It's basically the same exact thing as a Foley catheter except it goes in your poop shoot.

Notice the size of the balloon at the end of the tube. Imagine having one of these in you, forgetting that it's there and walking away from your bed, which this thing happens to be tied to. Imagine that balloon coming out when you aren't ready.

Feeling uncomfortable? Good. My work here is done.

Personally, I can't wait to get a patient who has one of these and a Foley. Then I can hook the Foley bag to one side of the bed and the FMS bag to the other. Fucker won't be going anywhere unless it's okay with me.

Why? Because fuck'em. That's why.

Hold your penis and be afraid.

I found this article via good old fark.

Apparently some geniuses out there thought it would be a good idea to invent a battery that generates electricity from urine.

It's actually a great idea until you remember that old line about how if shit were worth money poor people would be born without assholes.

Now lets just take a moment to let those consequences rattle around in our brain pans for a bit. I'm only gonna say it once. SCIENCE IS NOT A TOY.

You're all out to get me

Yet another attempt has been made on my life. This attempt was almost as crappy as the one earlier this week when that guy tried to rob me of a beer with what I still think was a BB gun (two posts down). The sheer crapocity of my would be assassins was so great that I'm starting to think that maybe they weren't after my life but rather my dignity. If that's the case, job well done. Now leave me alone.

This more recent attempt happened at the hospital were I work. I was checking the blood pressure of an 80 year old patient of mine with alzheimer's when she suddenly decided that she was just fine with not knowing that bit of information, sat up and punched me square in the Adams apple. Obviously not that hard. Like I said, she was 80. But, damn! Right in the throat.

So, if anyone out there has a mother or grandmother who was recently a patient at my hospital I want you to know that I have absolutely no idea how she got that second story window open.

Chicken Massacre

I don't know if 'chicken massacre' is a wide spread nursing term or if its just something they say at the hospital where I work. A chicken massacre involves a Foley catheter. If you don't know, a Foley catheter is a long rubber hose they shove up your urethra (that's your pee-hole) and into your bladder when some other malady prevents you from urinating. The hose has a little balloon on the end that they inflate so that it doesn't fall out.

A chicken massacre occurs when a patient yanks the catheter out while the little balloon is still inflated. The balloon is only about the size of a marble but that's still big enough to rip the wall of the urethra like tin foil when it comes out wrong. A chicken massacre is not a real serious injury, but it is a very ugly one. Usually there's a lot of blood involved. That's why we call it a chicken massacre.

I've been working at the hospital for about a year and a half. I've seen a lot of disturbing things. But the site of an elderly person whose underwear have overflowed with blood is a special kind of creepy. The only upside is that usually a patient who is confused enough to pull out their Foley is also so gorked from meds or brain damage that they don't even feel it.

One time this twenty-year-old got his foley ripped out when the hose got tangled in the spokes of his wheelchair. That guy felt it.

Naturally, we treated that guy with the same care and professionalism we show to every patient with bleeding genitals. We laughed at him.

FILTHY FUCKING CHEESEBURGER

Crazy things happen to sane people. What can I say? Bad things happen to good people and bad people happen to good things. The universe is paradox. Why? Ask God. Tell me what he says. In the meantime let us marvel in this wonderful aspect of the quasi-random series of adventures Douglas Adams called Liff.

I'll start!

(I guess I better. It's my fuckin' blog.)

Tonight, not but three hours ago. I left the bar just a little before last call so I could pick up a six at the gas station. As I exit the gas station I spy a Hardees. I fuckin' hate hardees. I also fuckin
hate the drunk munchies, especially because the drunk munchies can only be satisfied by the nastiest, greasiest, most vomiting-inducing-to-look-at stack of processed animal shavings one can find on the poisoned streets of Feed-Me-Fast-Food-Fucker-Feed-Me, U.S.A. Tonight closest such slop happened to be Hardees.

I walk up to the little fucking drive through speaker thing and scream into it "I WANT A FILTHY FUCKING CHEESEBURGER, PLEASE!" No response. I repeat my request. The abyss within the little fucking drive through speaker thing gazed back at me as no one continued to ask if I wanted that in a double filthy value combo grease meal. It then occurred to me that I had tried this on a previous occasion and had been told by the Hardees staff that they would no longer accept walk up orders at the drive through, but I'd never imagined that they were serious. I mean, what? They only serve people who have five dollars AND a car at certain times of the day? Fuck you, I want my filthy cheeseburger. I thought of walking up to the window and expressing some such sentiment to the staff but I decided that that probably wouldn't get me fed either. So I sad fuck it and started walking home.

I'm not half way out of the parking lot when the guys in the car that had just pulled up behind me yell out to me. They understand my prediciment, they say. They don't even half to ask. They have a car, they say. They are acknowledged by the keepers of the drive through. They want to know if they can place my order for me.

"Thanks, guys." I say.

I lean over into thier passenger side window and scream into the guy's ear, "I WANT A FILTHY FUCKING CHEESEBURGER, PLEASE!"

They place my order for me. I give them a couple of my beers as thanks. Hands are shook. Friends are made. We'll see each other at the bar next time, etc. They get thier order and drive off. I walk up behind, get my filthy fucking cheeseburger and start to walk home.

Now here is the crazy part of the story. And this is crazy mostly because I live in Columbia, Missouri which is, statistically one of the top ten safest places in the continental U.S. a human can live. People who live in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles are probably going to go 'pish' when they hear this but, believe me, this doesn't happen in Columbia and not at a Hardees. But when it does happen it happens only to me. And while I may have exagerated for comic effect previously, I assure you, the next bit happened exactly as told.

As I walked away from the drive through the next car in line pulled to the window. The guy in the passenger seat rolled down the window and said, "Hey!"

I stop and look back.

"Whachoo sippin'?" the guy says. As he says this I happen to notice that he has a matte black semi-automatic pistol in his left hand, casually drapped over the window seal like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction just before Marvin gets shot. At a glance it's either a Taurus or a Beretta.

I look down at the remainder of my six pack. "Fat Tire." I say.

"Gimme one a them." he says.

I'm quite drunk at this point, as I try to analyze this little drama which has so quickly unraveled before me. On the one hand getting shot would be a bad end to the evening. On the other I just gave away a third of my beer to some guys I don't even know. On yet another hand, I know guns, I grew up around them and something doesn't look right about this one. And on another hand, well, I don't want to get shot.

"What are you gonna give me for one of these beers?" I ask the guy.

"Your life." he says.

Now, again, I'm not making this up. I don't think I actually said this next part. I think some one else, some ghost of a character in a scene in a Clint Eastwood movie that didn't make the final cut stepped in and picked the one line he thought would most likely get me shot and spoke it through my lips. I seriously doubt I said this on my own, because I'm the farthest thing from a hardass you are likely to meet. Either way, these are the words that came out of my face.

"Shit, I ain't that fond of my life."

And then I walked away.

Halfway home I realized what didn't look right about that guy's pistol. It had the word 'Daisy' stamped down the side of the barrel. That motherfucker tried to mug me for a beer with a damn BB gun.

As soon as I got home I called my kid brother and told him all about it. He was kind enough to tell me that, even if it was a BB gun, that guy could've put my eye out and that I needn't feel bad for shitting myself and crying like a sissy-girl on the floor of my bathroom, which I DIDN'T DO!

Little fucker.

I was totally cool the whole time. I was!

And you know what. That filthy fucking cheeseburger tasted like sirloin. Hell, it's only 4 AM now. Maybe I'll go back for another.