Nurse Ratched, part 1

Why is it that every time I'm in the hospital (for longer than an outpatient procedure) I get a Nurse Ratched? Are there that many of them or am I just that lucky? I remember my very first interaction with a NR...back when I had NumberOneSon in '97. I'd only ever been in the hospital one other time, when I was 6 and had my tonsils out. My mommy was there with me the whole time. I spilled a milkshake in my bed and ate Doritos the morning after we got home from the hospital. So I guess you could say at the ripe old age of 23, DH and I didn't really know the proper behavior for hospitalization. I think we were somehow expecting the nurses to help me get better so I could go home, not to torture us for eight hours and make the only vivid memories of an otherwise blurry vision of the days after our first child was born.

NR was working 3-11 shift on Wednesday after we had NOS on Tuesday. I was trying to do everything they told me...rooming in with the baby and nursing whenever he cried, taking my pain medicine, getting up and walking, eating whatever they brought me so they'd advance my diet (that's right, I choked down a strawberry Ensure on my full liquid tray for breakfast to make a happy plate so I'd get real food for lunch). DH changed every single diaper while we were in the hospital, we didn't use the call bell much, and generally we THOUGHT we were a model patient and family. Not to NR. Shortly after her shift began I started having severe abdominal pain and I could tell I REALLY, REALLY needed to have a bowel movement. So I got out of bed and went in the little bathroom. Couldn't go. Hurt too bad. I'd had a c-section after a 21 hour labor with two hours of pushing so I got the best of both worlds. If you don't understand what I mean by that just ask someone who's had both a natural birth and a c-section. Or e-mail me and I'll explain it. But it makes me kind of vurp just thinking about it so I just can't spell it out here. Anyway, I'm in the bathroom straining and trying really hard not to cry. DH sees how miserable I am and calls the nurses' station. NR comes in and tries to get me to just go back to bed. She offered me a Colace. I told her I was way past Colace and she said, "Well, that's the only thing you have ordered." Well then, call the doctor. I may not have been a nurse back then but I at least knew that! She leaves and comes back with the Colace. I took it, and then I told her again to call the doctor and ask for a suppository. She said, "Why don't you just give the Colace time to work?" And I said, "Listen, I don't care what you want, I want a suppository, and I'll give it to myself if you don't want to give it to me!" By this time DH was about ready to punch her, I was crying, and the baby was crying. Ms. Merry F-n Ray of Sunshine huffs off, DH picks up NOS and tries to comfort him, but all he wanted was to nurse and obviously, I was in no condition to do that. So he finds the noonie and plugs up his little piehole and pokes his head out the door to see if he can find someone, ANYONE, besides Nurse Ratched to help us. We weren't that far from the nurses' station so when he peeks out, who does he see? My doctor! Yay! He would help for sure. But now DH has a moral conundrum...his wife is on the toilet crying and she can't really take care of the baby. The baby is still fussy so if he puts him down he's gonna really cry and that's gonna make his wife feel even worse. But they told him that the baby can only be outside the room with staff and in the bassinet...what to do, what to do? He decided the best option was just to carry NOS with him (they did have matching armbands) and go talk to the doctor. He gets to the nurses' station and tells Dr. C what's going on. And then Nurse Ratched rounds the corner...and starts yelling at DH because the baby is out of the room AND out of the bassinet! HORRORS! Dr. C just glares at her and he and DH come down to the room. NR is not far behind them with my Dulcolax suppository. I told her just to give it to me and I'd take care of it myself. About half an hour later I finally pooped and felt a little better. And that, my friends, is my most vivid memory of having NOS. Not the labor, not the c-section, not the first time I saw him or held him, but Nurse Ratched and the bowel management medications.

I hope to God I have never been anyone's Nurse Ratched! And I hope that old hag was just having a bad day and didn't normally act like that. But for some reason, I kind of think that was just her sweet personality coming through.