Alarm Clock

I was called this morn with a tale about how the 10 y.o.--that's the best estimate that carbon dating has given--female Jack Russell terrier threw-up on my daughter's face as my daughter slept. Is there a worse way to wake up? I think the only thing worse would be having your cell mate wake you up so that you could perform your wifely duties on him. The story brought back a foul memory of my own.

When I was working in the Emergency Room of one particular hospital one night, a patient came in who'd tried to kill himself by taking a bottle of his mom's heart meds (It was a particularly good plan, but he lost his nerve and decided to submit to whatever modern medicine would do to him in order for him to stay alive). One of the first things done in almost every overdose was an insertion of a Lavacuator in the patient's stomach via one of the two holes in his/her face above their mouth. Now, the Lavacuator wasn't an everyday, garden variety NG (nasogastric) tube, all dainty and polite. Nope: a Lavacuator was a hose, was roughly the diameter of the patient's pinkies, and was very impolite upon insertion. I imagine it was a lot like inserting John Holmes--a legendary actor-- through your nose.

Ok, back to the man with mommie's pills in his gut. We--my friend Paul the Nurse, and I--set about working to shove the Lavacuator into the man's nose and down into his stomach. Alas, one of the most popular responses to having a Lavacuator do a deep mining probe via your nose is to puke. It's here I have to tell you that Paul the Nurse was born with and lived by a code of a very sadistic, sick humor. That's one reason why we worked so well together. As the hose was run into his nose and down past his Gag Zone, the patient started to visualize the errors he'd swallowed, before we'd finished. Paul the Nurse, always quick on his feet and always ready to seize the moment for what would most entertain him, saw the the patient's stomach contents--a very cheap macaroni salad--start spraying out the end of the Lavacuator. Paul the Nurse quickly and accurately pointed the open end of the Lavacuator at me. I swear Fucker the Nurse moved the Lavacuator back and forth so as to maximize coverage of me......and he succeeded.

I had cheap, partially digested, discount grocery bought macaroni salad and bile in my hair, all over my scrubs, inside my scrub shirt, between my glasses and my eyeballs, in my pants, in my underwear, under my watch band, and in my shoes.....and a bit inside my nose for added comic relief. Of course it weren't just chunks decorating my visage. No, there was a warm, foul liquid dripping down my face and off my chin. Paul the Nurse responded as you'd expect any medical professional to, that is to say he laughed so hard as to cry and called for other nurses to come in and view my marinated state. That the patient was apologetic really didn't help much.

In all honesty, I can't really blame Paul the Nurse, as he was likely following what he'd been taught. I imagine it was a lot like what we paramedics were taught: when a patient started to throw up, we were to preferentially turn said patient's head toward a nurse--if one was available. If there was no nurse, said patient's head would be turned toward the nearest EMT, and failing that, toward your partner.