Parents!!!

[sandyfeet]

Had a 17 year old female come in by ACLS; heroin OD in field, found by mother. Medics bagged her and gave Narcan IM. When she arrived in my room she was angry at the world. Patient refused vital signs (alert, skin PWD, speech clear). Explained to parents half-life of Narcan. MD entered room. Patient interrupted us several times to "please talk to my parents ALONE, don't I have the right to do that?!?". With various curse words thrown in. Once doc and I had everything sorted out, we stepped out.

Patient proceeds to beg, cry and whine to parents to take her out of ED because "I've been through this before and all they do is watch me!" and "I know I'm not going to die. I can tell." I get my Charge Nurse involved, thinking this will be a restraints and security watch moment, and leave the floor to transport up a patient on a Cardizem drip. When I come back, my charge shows me the AMA form the parents and doctor signed. I burst into tears (hey, I'm pregnant and having mood swings!) and as I discharge the patient I look the mother in the eye and say "I just want to verify that you understand you are risking permanent disability or death". Mother acknowledges.

What makes me furious is that these were not your usual crap parents that you would expect to be, well, crap parents. When the visit started the parents seemed to be on board with medically treating their daughter that had OD'd on heroin. And at some point they had this thought: "Hey, these medical professionals don't know what they are talking about. I'm going to listen to the reasoning of my IV drug-addict daughter!". And then she got them to buy in on what she was saying! So clearly the heroin is the tip of the iceberg of a family where the parents have no control and the daughter gets to do whatever she wants. To that I say "Why even call 911? If you really don't care if she lives or dies, what does it matter?".

What I wish I would have said to her and her parents was "If you OD again when you are 18, you are legally an adult and no one can take you out against medical advice. We will tie you down in order to monitor you and keep you safe. You will have no rights because you'll be considered incapacitated." And also "Yes, we are judging you, parents. We are judging your complete lack of control and lack of common sense. Yes, we think you are bad parents!" The only thing that makes me feel "happy" if that is even possible to say about this terrible situation, is that they will foot the entire bill since they went AMA.

After they were gone I had parents bring in their 7 year old daughter who swallowed a penny. Upon discharge the mother asked if she could take home our ED blanket. I told her no and she said "Oh. But it's so cold!". Um, hell no. It was 102F today and people were literally dropping like it's hot all over the county. You don't get to take a blanket!

Phew...thanks for letting me vent. What are your bad parent stories?

[Sassy5d]

It think frustrations were in the air last night.

It's hard not to judge and get emotions in there. I had my own adult AMA od last night.

All we can do is what we can do. We're not going to fix addictions, codependency, dysfunctional families.. It would be awesome if we could.

Peds are especially frustrating when it comes to psych issues.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Full moon alright. On a good note tho, had the psychotic with a history of unprovoked assaults on medical staff ask for 5&2 because he felt like he was going to lose it. I happily obliged.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

Full moon alright. On a good note tho, had the psychotic with a history of unprovoked assaults on medical staff ask for 5&2 because he felt like he was going to lose it. I happily obliged.

Now that's a win, right there.