I suppose this has happened to almost everyone at some time or another, but one of my male patients grabbed my breast tonight--after he did his best to crush my fingers on testing his grip strength.
If another nurse told me this happened to her I would be furious. Oddly, upon having it happen to me I feel some anger but mostly I feel belittled, degraded and made to feel powerless, which I'm sure was the point. This patient had just arrived on our unit from PACU. The report from PACU was that he was being a jerk there and had been a jerk on the unit he was on prior to surgery but they hadn't had him do anything like this. This patient was totally uncooperative on my exam with the exception of the great glee he took in trying to crush my fingers and fling me while checking his upper extremity strength--even his wife told him not to hurt me after watching the spectacle he put on. After I asked him to logroll so I could see his surgical incision on his back he very deliberately reached out to me and grabbed my breast. I yelled at him and told him not to do that and my tech called security. Once security arrived on the floor he suddenly became cooperative and, as his family put it, was "coming around". He and his family were trying to convince us all he was "confused" from surgery.
I know this is not a huge deal but I'm surprised how much it shook me up and made me feel vulnerable--and I'm 38 years old for cryin' out loud. I've only been a nurse a little over a year and this is the first time I've had anything like this happen. Anybody else feel this way if it's happened to you?