sometimes i just listen

patients often just start talking to me whilst i am doing some nurse procedurey type thing on them/near them, and i usually like listening to them, for various reasons. first of all, it keeps them calm to keep them talking and keeps their mind off what i'm doing to them. second, it's usually entertaining for me. most patients are elderly and they don't have any problem speaking their mind or telling crazy stories - stuff like that. third, i often walk away with a story or a memory they have held that i will remember for a long time.

i miss working with the military sometimes because the VA patients tend to have colorful stories of war times or just their youth in general was interesting. old guys just have cool stories, you know? a lot of my really elderly patients up here where i live now are more of the farmer/pioneer/fisherman/oil-men types who moved up here back in the day when there was just mountains and trees and eskimos and whatnots and they were still speaking dutch and german. not saying stories about tulips and cows aren't interesting, because they are. but it's ain't no south pacific tale.

anywho, excerpt from this AM, 0910, me starting an IV in a new place in this patient's arm and pushing a few IV drugs through it:

"Yeh, so anyway I told my oldest one there that I didn't need no doctor's visit, but he was right 'cause here I am gettin a heart valve replaced. But the doc said that it'll last 10 years so now my son is sorry i betcha cuz he won't git rid of me for a long time now! Hey, YOUCH! What're you doin in that arm anyway?"

"I just put in the new IV, the needle is out now its just the plastic cannula in your vein."

"Okay, so anyway I tell 'em last night I wanted some ice cream, but they didn't bring me any."

"I could go for some ice cream right now."

"what! you kids! it's 9 in the morning!"

"Well I'm 5 months pregnant so I can have ice cream when I want to."

"Aw well I guess I that's true. Can't argue with that logic. When I married my wife she had 3 children, an' I had 2 childrens, and then we had another children, and they was an army. I mean an ARMY. 3 girls and 3 boys. Yessir that was my oldest son I was tellin you about. And that was 39 years ago we got married, and we're still married, so we did something right. You know when you can stay together with that many kids and trying to merge two families you doin something right. And then we had a baby. You know I'm not a religious man, you know I'm not like some where I go off believin' in some myth about some thing or someone or some religion, but babies, I mean, wow, babies are just... just... "

"A miracle?"

"Yah! Babies are just miracles. I mean, you got you there, a person, and your husband over there, a person, and then you mess around, doin' married people thing, and BAM! a new life. I new formed separate person. Just like made and different and unique and just a new person. there is just no explanation for that anywhere, how that happens to be, well except for maybe.... but like I said I'm not religious. but there's just no denying those sorts of things when you look at a baby."

(i switch vials to the next injection)

"Yessirree and those birds in the nest, they do whatever birds do to make eggs, I don't know how birds do it, but they do their thing and there is precious little eggs up there a few days later. And then cute little baby birds come out. So don't you forget (he shakes his finger at me with his free hand) that that baby is a special, special thing. there is just nothing like that, and it is special."

"Yes sir!"

"Yup, my kids are an army. they are alright now though. i don't mind them so much now. it's kind of nice having so many when you're an old feller like me."