Frosted Flakes

It was about time to do another round so I was going from room to room checking on my team of patients. This one guy had just eaten his breakfast and was up in the bathroom brushing his teeth.

"He looks good," I thought to myself, knowing that after he was discharged there'd soon be another patient assigned to the room, and I'd be doing the usual ten pages of mindless paperwork/documentation that goes along with admissions.

He'd had a valve repair done last week and had moved along pretty well after they got him off ventilation. Having been (emphasis on past tense) a two-pack-a-day smoker, an extra day or so on the vent was required before he could breath on his own well enough.



He was flossing while I straightened up the linens on his bed and removed his breakfast tray. I heard him say "Oh, that's going to bother me all day" and when I looked into the bathroom he was picking up a strand of dental floss that he'd just used and discarded. After retrieving this from the waste basket, he re-used it, then again tossed it away.

He tongued his teeth to make sure he'd gotten it all from between them.