Changing My View

Recently I was going to be receiving a patient. 58 year old with Down's Syndrome, Alzheimer's, Personality Disorder, OCD, and a history of being combative.

Very quickly we decided not to recover this patient in the usual open PACU bays, but in one of our private rooms.

The patient is brought in, he is intubated, and while be for awhile. He is still completely out of it after receiving ketamine, midazolam, and anesthesia. He is 100% unresponsive. I settle in close by his side where I can monitor him and his airway. I chart away, thankful for a chance to do paperwork right away, but also with an ominous feeling that when this guy wakes up it will be with bravado. I have gloves, a syringe for the ETT, and suction on standby. His caregiver arrives, sits in a recliner and turns on the TV.

She is watching ABC's "The View".

Have mercy! Could there be any worse show on earth? It is torture. The slow, rhythmic, misty breaths coming from my patient's T-piece puff off as a time keeper. Each breath is chalk mark on my cell wall reminding me that this is going to be a long recovery. Anything has to be better than The View. I can't believe women watch this.

I feel like I'm sitting in the hen house listening to five old birds cluck. No words, just angry clucking....