Can you hate someone after 3 days?

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · May 1, 2012

I have some debates with myself over the use of the word "hate". After all, that's some pretty intense emotion....even sounds intense: HATE.

That said, I have had one patient so vile in my years at the bedside that I think I could probably use that word. I so intensely LOATHED her (as did every single nurse that had the misfortune of drawing the short straw for that shift's assignment), that I think 'hate' probably wasn't too severe a word.

I wondered why this mean, foul, aggresive, angry, nasty, impossible to please person continued to draw breath when there were so many kind people who were terminal. How it was possible that she continued to take up a bed (at taxpayer expense, of course) when there were those who the rest of humanity would find more deserving?

The answer to that one is out of my grasp.

As for you, OP, I can tell you the best you can do with someone like you and I have described is find that inner calm place and visit it whenever that ridiculous patient (and family) are out of your immediate sphere. Bring yourself back to center, because otherwise her poison will poison YOU. Don't let it.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · May 1, 2012

I wondered why this mean, foul, aggresive, angry, nasty, impossible to please person continued to draw breath when there were so many kind people who were terminal.

Actually, someone once gave me the answer to it: "Heaven wouldn't take her and Hell was afraid she'd take over!"

LaRN · May 1, 2012

Yeah HATE to see them come back again !!

tothepointeLVN, LVN · May 1, 2012

The only thing I disagree with in this post is lumping in psych meds as a very poor decision along with smoking etc. For most people its not really a choice and even if it taking them in not a poor choice compared to not taking them.

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · May 1, 2012

Sorry but I can't believe this, standing at Speck's bedside when he died? Knowing she was intimately involved in that situation with her friends? I cry foul.

Foul? Why? She was an ED nurse......... he was in a hospital she worked. It was a fluke. She is a respectable nurse and he came in there with a heart attack. What's so hard to believe? She cared for him as any other professional would in an Emergent situation. Believe whatever you wish. I know her and believe her. I remember her calling me before it was even on the news that Speck was dead. (no HIPAA then)

Speck died of a heart attack at 6:05 a.m. December 5, 1991, one day before his 50th birthday, at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet under the name of Elbeezer Masade had been taken to Silver Cross after complaining of chest pains and nausea at Stateville Correctional Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Speck

Actually Speck couldn't go to any facility in the Chicago area that didn't know who he was.

It was Karma he found one that knew personally what he did......I call that the universe shouting....CHECKMATE.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · May 1, 2012

3 days? Ive made that decision in under 3 seconds at times.

My first reaction when reading the title to this thread was "you can hate someone after 3 minutes!"

threebrats46 · May 1, 2012

I cant stand when patients take away from more critical patients time. I have told some of them that I am sorry but at the moment there is someone more critical I need to care for and I will get to you when I have a chance...after all in nursing school they did emphasize on priority a LOT!

MassED, BSN, RN · May 2, 2012

Foul? Why? She was an ED nurse......... he was in a hospital she worked. It was a fluke. She is a respectable nurse and he came in there with a heart attack. What's so hard to believe? She cared for him as any other professional would in an Emergent situation. Believe whatever you wish. I know her and believe her. I remember her calling me before it was even on the news that Speck was dead. (no HIPAA then)
Speck died of a heart attack at 6:05 a.m. December 5, 1991, one day before his 50th birthday, at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet under the name of Elbeezer Masade had been taken to Silver Cross after complaining of chest pains and nausea at Stateville Correctional Center.
Richard Speck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually Speck couldn't go to any facility in the Chicago area that didn't know who he was.
It was Karma he found one that knew personally what he did......I call that the universe shouting....CHECKMATE.

I don't believe quoting Wikipedia is a reliable source, but I'm sure you believe your friend. My point was that this story (from the horse's mouth, not yours) doesn't strike me as truthful, but hey, I'm an ER nurse and we don't believe anyone.... so take it or leave it. CHECKMATE THAT SISTA.

makawiliwili · May 2, 2012

LOL I get your venting... my patients are forensic psych with some personality disorder and organic or traumatic brain injured souls thrown in for fun... my feeling of duty to care for the "lowest of the low" overrides my emotions... but those emotions are there and we often vent and use very dark humor to maintain our own sanity.

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · May 2, 2012

I don't believe quoting Wikipedia is a reliable source, but I'm sure you believe your friend. My point was that this story (from the horse's mouth, not yours) doesn't strike me as truthful, but hey, I'm an ER nurse and we don't believe anyone.... so take it or leave it. CHECKMATE THAT SISTA.

I'm an ER nurse myself for 33 years and I am disappointed by your tone. But to each their own. People can agree to disagree without being disagreeable. :hug:

My friend knew these nurses and was in the townhouse next door with 8 other girls in nursing school. I worked on the south side at Cook County ED and worked trauma flight for UCAN (University of Chicago Area-Medical Network) I have listed a few reliable sources for you. Peace.

The Richard Speck case - chicagotribune.com

Richard Speck Biography - Facts, Birthday, Life Story - Biography.com

Richard Speck was the notorious killer of eight student nurses whose bodies were found on July 14, 1966, strangled and stabbed in a townhouse on the Southeast Side of Chicago. He had also committed sadistic sexual assaults on most of them. A ninth student nurse, Corazon Amurao, survived by hiding. Speck, then 25, was arrested within days. He had slit his wrists, and a doctor at Cook County Hospital spotted his telltale blood-caked tattoo, "Born To Raise Hell." On April 15, 1967, after deliberating only 49 minutes, a jury found him guilty of the eight murders, and he was sentenced to death. After the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in 1972, Speck was sentenced to 400 to 1,200 years in prison. During his years at Stateville Correctional Center, Speck was an unremarkable prisoner. Once lean and sinister-looking, Speck grew doughy and lived only to drink, smoke and paint prison walls. On Dec. 5, 1991, the day before his 50th birthday, Speck died of a heart attack. Bill Martin, the Cook County assistant state's attorney who headed the Speck prosecution, said the impact of the murders on Chicago was profound. "Before July 14 of 1966," Martin said, "none of us comprehended the possibilities of random violence of this magnitude

Richard Speck news, photos and video - chicagotribune.com

Speck, on the run, tried to get work on a barge and was registered at the National Maritime Union Hall. Directly across the street from the union hall was student housing for nursing students working at the South Chicago Community Hospital. On the evening of July 13, 1966 Speck had several drinks at a bar under the rooming house where he was staying. Around 10:30 p.m. he walked the 30-minute walk to the nurse's townhouse, entered through a screen door and rounded up the nurses inside.

The Crime:At first Speck reassured the young women that all he wanted was money. Then with a gun and a knife he scared the girls into submission and got them all into one bedroom. He cut strips of bed sheets and bound each of them and began removing one after another to other parts of the townhouse where he murdered them. Two nurses were murdered as they returned home and walked into the mayhem. The girls waiting their turn to die, tried to hide under beds but Speck found them all but one.

The Victims:

Pamela Wilkening - Gagged, stabbed through the heart.
Gloria Davy - Raped, sexually brutalized, strangled.
Suzanne Farris - Stabbed 18 times and strangled.
Mary Ann Jordan - Stabbed in the chest, neck and eye.
Nina Schmale - Stabbed in her neck and suffocated.
Patricia Matusek - punched resulting in a ruptured liver and strangled.
Valentina Poison - Her throat was cut.
Merlita Gargullo - Stabbed and strangled.

Corazon Amurao - The One Who Survived:Corazon Amurao slid under the bed and pushed herself tight against the wall. She heard Speck return to the room. Paralyzed with fear she heard him rape Gloria Davy on the bed above. He then left the room and Cora knew she was next. She waited hours, fearing his return at any moment. The house was silent. Finally in the early morning she pulled herself from underneath the bed and climbed out the window, where she huddled in fear, crying, until help came.

Speck Dies: Speck, age 49, died from a heart attack at 6:05 a.m. December 5, 1991, one day before his 50th birthday, at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet under the name of Ebenezer Masade had been taken to Silver Cross after complaining of chest pains and nausea at Stateville Correctional Center. When he died he was fat, bloated, with ash-white pockmarked skin and hormone-injected breasts. No family members claimed his remains and he was cremated and his ashes were thrown in an undisclosed place.Profile of Richard Speck - Born to Raise Hell

On the night of July 14, 1966, eight student nurses are brutally murdered by Richard Speck at their group residence in Chicago, Illinois. Speck threatened the women with both a gun and a knife, tying each of them up while robbing their townhouse. Over the next several hours, Speck stabbed and strangled each of the young women throughout various rooms of the place. One young woman, Corazon Amurao, managed to escape with her life by hiding under a bed; Speck had lost count of his victims.

Richard Speck was an alcoholic and a petty criminal with over 20 arrests on his record by the age of 25. He had "Born to Raise Hell" tattooed on his forearm and periodically worked on cargo boats traveling the Great Lakes. On the night of July 13, after drinking heavily at several Chicago bars, Speck broke into the townhouse for student nurses of the South Chicago Community Hospital.

Speck then used his gun to force three nurses into a bedroom, where he found three more women. Using nautical knots, he then tied the women's hands and feet with strips torn from bedsheets. By midnight, three more nurses had come home only to be tied up as well. Speck assured the women that he was only going to rob them.

After stealing from the women, he took them into separate rooms, killing them one by one. The remaining women heard only muffled screams from their roommates. Amurao, who was hiding under her bed, waited until 6 a.m. the following day before leaving her hiding place. She then crawled out onto a second-story ledge and screamed for help. Police responding to the cries obtained a detailed description of Speck from Amurao; the sketch was placed on the front page of every local newspaper the next morning. Speck, who was hiding out at a dollar-a-night hotel, slashed his right wrist and left elbow in a suicide attempt on July 16.

Speck was arrested the next day at the Cook County Hospital. With Amurao identification and his fingerprints left at the scene, Speck was convicted and sentenced to death. However, in 1972, when the Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty law under which he was sentenced, Speck was re-sentenced to 400 years in prison. He died at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet under the name of Ebenezer Masade had been taken to Silver Cross after complaining of chest pains and nausea of a heart attack on December 5, 1991.

A mass murderer leaves eight women dead — History.com This Day in History — 7/14/1966

tothepointeLVN, LVN · May 2, 2012

I don't believe quoting Wikipedia is a reliable source, but I'm sure you believe your friend. My point was that this story (from the horse's mouth, not yours) doesn't strike me as truthful, but hey, I'm an ER nurse and we don't believe anyone.... so take it or leave it. CHECKMATE THAT SISTA.

Being that a wikipedia article usually has 30+ citations and it reviewed by many editors for many things I would find it to be more accurate that a single source such as a newspaper article. "Famous" people don't exist in a bubble. Eventually mere mortals run into them.

"CHECKMATE THAT SISTA" Really if you want to be more believable in your cynical disbelief you might want to leave the "ghetto" insults out of it.

My position on the issue it doesn't make sense that Esme12 would make this story up in response to this thread. A thread about Speck maybe but this thread is not really worth the effort of a fictious story. No offense to the OP

RH-CC2011 · May 2, 2012

TothepointeLVN,

None taken!