2 patients

I took care of this adorable old man the past 4 days that I worked. He was just a joy to take care of and quite agreeable, but he is SO hard of hearing! To make matters worse, he was in a shared room, and I'm working the night shift this month. Therefore, everytime I had to wake him up for something, his roommate was woken too, because I had to scream for him to hear me. He was so sweet, and he said that he could understand me better than other people. I told him that it was because I had lots of practice with my grandfather who's hard of hearing. He said, oh really, how old is your grandMOTHER? hehe. I smiled and said 83. I would have said that too if he had understood it was my grandfather, because I feel weird telling my 82 year old patients about my dead grandparents.

Another time, I brought him so air freshner, because I had given his roommate some GoLytely so that his bowels would be completely clean for the next do to go to endoscopy. This means big time diarrhea. The room reaked, and it reaked half way done the hall. So I brought air freshner, and this old man says, oh I'm sorry, you know I've just been passing a lot of wind. I just laughed, and his roommate called from the other side of the curtain that it wasn't the old man, but him. Of course my guy didn't hear him, and, luckily, he apparently can't smell very well either. So it comes in handy to be hard of hearing and hard of smelling when you're in a shared room in the hospital.

His roommate was the sweetest absolutely most agreeable 59 year old man with pancreatic cancer. He's dying from it. I feel so sad when I think about him. So many patients can be so mean, and it's understandable because I'm meeting them during one of the worst times in their lives, but this man is just so pleasant with such a nice family. And I just feel so bad. He's going to get palliative chemo. The cancer has spread and is affecting other organs, and for those of you who know I work on a heart and lung floor, you're probably wondering why this guy is there, but his heart is having problems too. He's so young! And cancer is so bad! I wish we could fix it. I wish we could take it away.

It's easier when the patients are old. We all have to die sometime. But he's so young. It's also easier when the patients are mean. But he's so very nice.