You know that "biting my tongue" thread, and the things we'd love to say to patients but we can't, because we're the nurse? Well, when you're the patient, you can say whatever you danged well feel like to the OTHER patient who is pestering you with his ignorance and stupidity. You can yell at the office staff, too, although it isn't very productive.
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I was sitting in the waiting room of my oncologist's office, about an hour into the wait, when I got restless and got up to ask how much longer Dr. "FamousCancersurgeon" would be. "Oh," was the response I got from a overtly tattooed teenager with Raggedy Ann red hair. "We thought you were here to see Dr. Upcomingandsoontobefamouscancersurgeon. Dr. FamousCancerSurgeon is at a conference on the other coast."
"OK," I said rather pleasantly, considering the hour I'd been waiting next to an odiferous and opinionated old fool who kept fingering the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. "I can see Dr. Upcomingandsoontobefamouscancersurgeon. How much longer will she be?"
"Oh, she's at the conference, too."
"So what you're telling me is that I've been sitting here for an hour waiting to see my doctor, who is 3000 miles from here, and you didn't think you should tell me that when I checked in? Or better yet, when you knew she wasn't going to be here for my appointment so I wouldn't have to have driven into the city, paid for parking and taken the day off work?"
"Calm down, Ma'am. Don't get mad at me! *I* didn't do anything wrong."
I go back to my seat and start gathering up my jacket, my book, my purse, etc. Mr. Odiferous picks that moment to start a conversation, bragging that he's turned this cancer deal into a disability and he's collecting disability payments and supplementing that income with driving his son's cab on the weekends "strictly for cash, you know. They'd cut off my disability if I made too much money. Saaaayyyyy -- what do you think of them nurses that are spreading ebola around?"
"What?!" I asked, more in disbelief than in inquiry. NURSES are spreading ebola now?
"Oh, yeah," he tells me seriously. "They're off taking cruises and flying all over the country when they should be locking themselves up at home so they don't spread that stuff around. That stuff is dangerous! I can't believe how selfish them nurses are being! They should know better!"
"I'm a nurse," I say, "And those nurses aren't spreading ebola."
"Oh yes they are! I seen it on Fox! They ought to know better than to be spreading ebola around hardworking people like me!" Telling him that the nurses thought they were low risk to be infected because they were using the PPE their employer had given them and had believed what they were told about ebola being hard to catch, and that the nurse who flew had actually checked with the CDC first and been told it was OK for her to fly made no dent in his certainty that ebola was going to spread to the whole country and it was all because of nurses.
"What would you do if one of the passengers in your taxi looked sick?"
"Are you kidding? I wouldn't let no sick person into the cab in the first place! I ain't going near no ebola without a hazmat suit, and I don't have a hazmat suit!"
He looked at me smugly, certain that he had made his point.
"Well, those nurses took care of a stranger when they knew for sure he had ebola. And they didn't have hazmat suits either."
"So what? Everyone knows God hates nurses now. That's probably why you got cancer."
There's just no talking to some people . . . many people it seems. (Some of them are even among our membership.) I was already angry about waiting for an hour for an appointment that should have been cancelled or changed days or weeks ago, when the surgeons decided to go to the conference across the country. Maybe that explains what I said next.
"And you got cancer because you're stupid and ignorant," I said. There are times when I've bitten my tongue to shreds to keep from saying something like that to a patient. You know, it felt rather good finally saying it to an odiferous old fool who clearly had it coming!
