Wednesday, September 13, 2000:
Favorite Show That Annoys Scott:  MTV's Real World.
Favorite Karaoke Song:  Moonriver.
Second Favorite Karaoke Song:  Stand by your man. 
F.O.S. (Friend of Scott) link:  Paul and Becky.

 

GRANNY AND THE WOLVERINE

(This entry written by my bride, Amy.)

Scott went to a work dinner tonight at a fancy Italian restaurant and I wanted to go, but no spouses allowed at this one.  I ate a Stouffers pizza and diet coke but I am still hungry.  I have just been working and this is the slow time of the year where we don’t have too many patients.

 

"Don’t touch the meat unless you mean it," 

my slightly confused 69 year old patient told the respiratory therapist as she tapped his arm to get his attention.  I never heard that expression before.  I thought I could try it out on Scott, but another nurse told me he’s supposed to say it to me.  Like I said, I never heard that before.  As I was irrigating this patients Foley catheter, he asked me if I was going to take his ding-a-ling off.  I was surprised and I told him, 

"Uh, no, not today."  

His girlfriend (a younger woman in her 50s) was in the room and she told him that he only uses it to urinate anyways, so what was the big deal.

 

I was helping one of the new nurses with her patient and we were talking about how she was the only one that didn’t know that Scott was my husband, for he occasionally has patients on the unit I work on.  We were laughing about how she paged Dr. Liles to tell him he left his stethoscope on the unit. All the nurses told her to just give it to Amy and she couldn’t understand why.

 

We were working on this patient with the curtains closed and I saw feet walking in.

 "Who goes there?" I ask. 

"It’s me," it was Scott. 

"Hey, we were just talking about you.  Scott, we can’t get a pulse on this patient!"

Immediately, Scott had a surprised, concerned look and before he could say anything, I started laughing and said, 

"Just kidding, this patient's already dead."

Scott smiled with relief and I looked to see if his ears were red.  Karen and I were wrapping the patient to send to the morgue.  Four patients died that day.

 

My granny died a few weeks ago.  This was my first funeral.  My granny had a stroke about a year ago and started slowly deteriorating.  She probably died of pneumonia.  My granny loved Pepsi and udon noodles.  She was the only Asian granny that I know of that had her own place.  Most Asian grandparents live with their kids and may go from house to house, but my granny wanted her own place and for us to visit her.  She had recently quit smoking and then she had her stroke.  The last time I visited with her before she died, we had to sit her up on the bed because she was aspirating (secretions going down the wrong pipe).  Scott said she didn't have much longer.  He gave her a hug before we left, which made her happy.

I like to remember my granny with this story that happened a couple years ago before her stroke.  I was watching TV and granny was out in the garden as usual.  All of a sudden, she came running in, her hair disheveled and out of breath.  She told me she was yelling for me but I couldn't hear her.  Apparently, an animal was eating out of her garden and she was fighting with it with her sling blade.  My granny killed it by hitting it over it's head.  She got bit and scratched in the struggle somehow.  I asked her where this animal was and she told me she hung it up on the tree for all the others to see as a warning.

I went outside and the wolverine was hanging on the tree.  I called the health department and they said to cut the head off the animal, place it into a paint can to check for rabies since granny got scratched up.  Luckily, the animal didn't have rabies.  My granny sure loved her garden.

 

I am looking forward to a mini vacation next month and I look forward to going to see the models of Chang and Eng (Siamese twins) at a museum in Philadelphia.

 

(Amy isn't sure if the animal was a mole, weasel, or a wolverine, but apparently the animal gets larger each time she tells this story. --S)

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