You Just Can't Fix Stupid!

I don't remember who said it first, but this little gem of truth has stuck with me for thirty years:

Stupidity is a lot like nuclear energy---it can be used for good or for evil, but either way, you don't want to get any on you.

This is never more true than when taking care of patients who have done incredibly idiotic things to themselves that require medical attention. I've had a few who make me feel as though my I.Q. drops 25 points every time I walk into their room.........as if their stupidity somehow rubs off on me and causes me to go through the rest of my day pulling boneheaded stunts, like writing half a page of nursing notes in the wrong patient's chart and going home with the narc keys.

If I nurse for another forty years, I'll never forget the young tough-guy wannabe who was admitted to our Med/Surg floor some years ago for repair of his left testicle, which had evidently been in the way when he decided to make like John Dillinger and shove his TEC-9 in the waistband of his Wranglers. Apparently no one had ever informed him that this practice is a little riskier than they make it look on TV, and he was incredulous at the idea of having shot off one of his "boys":

"I can't bleepin' believe I bleepin' shot my bleepin' BALL off," he murmured as the effects of the anesthesia wore off. We should've known that the next four days would be a challenge as he recovered from his surgery and began to deal with what he'd done..........but we didn't have time to ponder this, as he kept us running back and forth the entire time he was in the hospital.

He wanted pain medicine. He wanted his girlfriend. He wanted Pepsi. He wanted McDonalds. He wanted more Pepsi. He wanted a candy bar. Mostly, he wanted sympathy: "Ohhh, this hurts so bleepin' bad, ow, ow, yanno how it feels to get shot in the nuts, oh, no you don't, you're a girl, owwwwwwwww!!" He whined. He cried. He put on his call light every five minutes. He did everything but take responsibility for his own predicament. "If that cop hadn't driven by at that second, none of this would've happened, yanno," he said repeatedly.

Naturally, Ms. Big Mouth here can only put up with so much sheer stupidity, so I asked him if he'd ever thought that maybe he shouldn't have been messing with the gun in the first place. I grew up around firearms and know how to use them.....and never in a million years would I be foolish enough to shove a loaded pistol into my waistband.

"NO," he answered with some vehemence. "Guys like me, we always gotta protect ourselves, yanno?" Well, I didn't know, but this reply gave me an idea, which was pretty much confirmed when one of the other nurses found traces of marijuana in the bathroom after one of his frequent 'visitors' had been in to see him. Additionally, a search of his belongings by the security staff turned up several baggies filled with weed, a pipe, and a couple of old pill bottles with crystal meth inside.

Does it get any dumber than dealing drugs from your hospital room? Yes, if you happen to be a lanky, dishwater-blond twentysomething from Felony Flats, Oregon. One lovely autumn day several months after his discharge, the word came up to the floor that he was back in the ER, again a victim of a self-inflicted GSW..........only this time, he'd not only shot off his remaining testicle, but a good portion of his manhood as well!

This is one of those things that you can't believe unless you see it for yourself. And as terrible as it sounds, all I could think of was how fortunate it was for society that this character had rendered himself permanently incapable of producing offspring........you just can't fix that kind of stupid. Yanno?