This weekend I had my patience tested like I've never had it tested before. My in-laws came down Friday evening and stayed until Monday evening, and I had the first labor patient that I actually lost my patience with.
Anytime my in-laws come down, they drive me nuts. Friday night at the kids bedtime, Clara wanted a drink for bed and I told MIL she gets water for bed. Clara then comes crying to me and says Jacob has juice. I told her no, Jacob has water too. MIL agrees and says, "I gave hime water too." Jacob then takes a drink and says "I got juice". I look at the sippy cup, and it is indeed juice. My MIL tried to get Jacob to lie to me. Then I was the bad guy when I took the juice away (yes, we let the kids have sippy cups still at night so they don't spill) I woke up Saturday a.m. to my kids eating potato chips at 8:30 a.m. Told her that we don't give the kids snacks that early. Thought I got through to her. She took them for a walk and when they got back at 11:30, Jacob comes and tells me "Meema gave us big candy bars and said not to tell you". Man was I pissed. She deliberately went against what I had told her earlier. And my FIL, who was meeting with my dad to put in new outlets upstairs and deciding when to actually switch over our old electrical wiring, had decided that he was going to just do what he wanted to do, regardless of what we thought was going on. We bought all the outlets, and other stuff so that outlets could be put it, and he refused to do that, saying we needed to replace the wiring to the lights first, which is untrue. It involved ripping up floor boards in the attic, drilling and was very loud, all while I'm trying to sleep. The outlets would have been quieter. He forgets whose house it is and who has to pay for the stuff. I was pissed enough that I refused to pay for all the stuff he needed because it wasn't what we thought was being done and had agreed to. My dad, who doesn't get mad easily, was pretty ticked by the time he left Sunday afternoon with my FIL attitude. So, my dad plans to come and put the outlets in for us over then next few weeks.
At work, things weren't a whole lot better. I was dying for a nice labor patient and I love first time parents. And I thought I was getting this. This patient was laboring with her 1st baby and apparently all she said until she got her epidural was f#*k. I came on after her epidural. She was a very immature 24 year old, had a doula, the husband wasn't there and she was naked the entire time. Okay, I can deal with nudity, being ill-prepared for labor because who is ever really prepared and who am I to judge her family life. He decided to stay home until she was ready to deliver, which turned out fine because when he did come it he was a waste of space. Anyway, this patient told her doula that she didn't prepare her enough for labor. SHe said she didn't realize that the pain would come and go like it did. I thought, how do you miss that? But, the doula was very supportive and good with her. Then it came time to start pushing. She apparently thought that you push once or twice and the baby pops out. She pushed for 10 minutes, and when I say push, I used that liberally as she wouldn't listen to how to push, and started yelling at me that she couldn't do it, that she was tired, etc. etc. Okay, no big deal, I've dealt with that before. I tried every approach - compassion, gentle encouragement. Then she told me I didn't know what the f$*k I was talking about, that I had no idea what it's like and she then refused to push. Then she told me to get the vacuum and pull the baby out, or to cut her open. She was thrashing around in the bed, not because she was uncomfortable (she had a good epidural) but because she was pissed at me for not helping her by pulling her baby out. She pulled her IV out and almost pulled her epidural out. And she was a very hard IV stick. After 12 hours of her, it was all I could take.
Man, I sound like a whiny brat, but seriously, this weekend sucked. As my inlaws were leaving, my alcoholic MIL told me "my plan is to come get the kids some weekend and take them with me while I decorate for Halloween". Um, no, not going to happen, never, not until you check yourself into rehab and have proved to me you are sober. No way would I let you drive my children 2 hours to your house while you drink your wine out of a water bottle (yes, they drink and drive). I just told her that I don't like the kids to be gone that long, becasue I didn't want to get into the whole alcohol issue since they were getting in the truck to leave. I hope she'll forget about it, but my husband said that he'd take care of it if she brought it up to him. If I was a good writer, or could find someone to do it for me, I think I could make a buttload of money talking about life with my inlaws because you can't get a good picture in such a short paragraph. If I put out a book, I think it would be a best-seller because no one can believe that they're really this crazy. You can't make this stuff up.
2 comments:
Stick to your guns on the alcoholic in-laws. No way should they be driving your children ANYWHERE, for any distance!
How did you respond to your obnoxious primip patient? I probably would have lost it (maybe not in front of the patient, but to my co-workers). I remember one patient I had, with an epidural, who said she was leaving. I laughed and said to her "go ahead and try and stand up, I guarantee you won't be able to stand with that heavy epidural keeping your legs numb!"
Yes, I can give the attitude right back to my patients sometimes. Call it bad "customer service", I don't give a crap.
After that patient got to be over the top, I told her that if she wanted my help, she needed to listen to what I was saying, and that I do in fact know what I'm talking about. But when she pulled her IV out and then grabbed my wrist as dug her nails in, I said "That's completely inappropriate and when you're ready to start acting like an adult to call me". I then went to the desk and had a moment. I swear, sometimes patients want to see just how far over the line they can go before we won't take it anymore.
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