there is the door...

I get a call during my shift. It is the wife of Mr X. She explains that he just phoned her all in a tizzy and demanded that she come to the hospital and pick him up now. Shocked at hearing this second hand I explained to Mrs X that the patient has not been discharged and no plans were in the works today for that to happen.

Enter the room and speak to Mr X who begins to throw a huge tantrum explaining how he has not slept in six days and that he must leave the hospital today and nothing I say or do can change his stance.

Along comes the pulmonary doc (to my delight) who gets the joy of seeing a 50 year old acting like a full blown baby. The physician attempts to reason with the patient with no luck. And then it happened. This 50 year old grown man held his breath attempting to make himself pass out. The pulmonary guy looks at me and states, "is he for real?" At this point I am attempting not to laugh, but with little success.

Now that Mr X understands his ploy will not work he goes for plan B which involves throwing things around in his room, cursing and being a royal baby! The physician turns to me and says, "good luck with this" and he leaves.

So, I am on the phone with the surgeon and give him a rundown of the events so far (there is much more that I will not mention here). The surgeon is not amused with the behavior of Mr X and states he can leave AMA and the surgeon will not schedule a follow up with any patient who behaves in such a manner.

A few Xanax and some blunt conversation seems to calm down Mr X ( for the moment) then the phone rings again. Mrs X received another call from the patient and this time he threatens her with divorce if she does not pick him up. In a very flip moment I respond, "no big loss there" she actually manages to laugh, but goes on to explain under no circumstance will she come in to pick him up.

We manage to keep the patient the rest of the shift and endure the occasional childish outburst. When I give report I am elated to be leaving and the oncoming nurse has the look of dread in what will be a very trying 12 hours for her.

If it had been up to me i would have told the fat ass to leave and never come back, but I must bite my tongue and deal with irritating fat non-compliant patient who on this day cause me to hate my job!