cruella deville

I am really good to my patients. I am sensitive, sympathetic, and spend more time than most listening to them. But recently, for the first time, my well of compassion ran completely dry...

I had a scheduled C-section with a patient who I was warned was crazy. Having encountered difficult patients before, I thought nothing of it. This patient was a drug abusing alcoholic who had showed up on labor and delivery pregnant and drunk several times. Her own brother called DCFS on her ass. Since I once aspired to be a psychiatrist and have a lot sympathy for addicts, I wasn't bothered in the least by this informaiton. That is, until I finally met the patient.

A more annoying individual has never walked the face of the earth.

"A doctor once told me that since I had a C-section with my first baby, my bowels and bladder could be stuck together. Do you think my bowels and bladder are stuck together? Do you? Do you? Do you?" After hounding me with this question, she hounded the anesthesiologist, the nurse, and the medical student, then came back for me.

Now that she was on the brink of having her baby (along with certain DCFS involvement, given her history of substance abuse) she was full of irritatingly vocal remorse. "Oh!" she wailed loudly, "My poor baby. I hope my baby is okay because I love her so much. I love my little baby. Do you think my baby's okay? Do you? Do you? Do you?" She began to sob, sitting on the OR table while the anesthesiologist tried to do her spinal. "Oh!" she wailed. "I just love my little baby so much! So much!"

"Ma'am," said the exasperated anesthesiologist, "you have to try to sit still so that we can place your spinal." Thank God for the medical student, who walked over to the patient and held her hands. "There, there," she said. I leaned against the back wall of the OR and examined my cuticles.

It was the same thing during the procedure. Before we had even cut open her uterus she was sobbing and yelling, "is my baby okay? Why isn't she crying yet?" Since I was weilding the knife I decided to ignore her and focus on the task at hand. My chief resident, bless her heart, did her best to answer the patient's questions.

Contributing to my irritation was the fact that I had a bad cold. The definition of misery is wearing a mask during surgery while snot runs down your face and into your mouth. And you can't do a damn thing about it because your hands have to remain sterile. In my mind I muttered a string of Yosemite Sam expletives: "Yassafrackafrickamaka..."

Rounding on her post-op was a nightmare. She was attention-seeking and would make up problems. Even though I was certain she was full of crap, I couldn't ignore her complaints on the slim chance that she wasn't crying wolf. So my morning rounds were slowed down by orders for lab tests that all came back normal.

I bought myself flowers on the day she was discharged from the hospital.