Friday, October 10, 2008

Love Not Love

May has a post up over at at About a Nurse which describes a situation strangely familiar to me.

"she was unarousable, holding a 10 ml syringe with about 2 ml of powdery, whitish fluid remaining, about 4 inches away from her IV access."



I walked in on the same sort of thing a few years back. Actually, the astute nursing assistant working that day called me in to see the patient, who was sitting in a heap on the bathroom floor of her room.

We woke her up and helped her to a standing position. She denied that she had passed out. "I'm fine!" she chirped, then she looked up, spun around, and passed out again. We dragged her to bed and another nurse fetched the Narcan.

They always bitch and moan after the Narcan. They're in so much pain. No doubt. No doubt at all.

Needle and the Damage Done. I remember seeing that on TV when I was little. The descending bass line against strummed chords. Afterwards I went to my room and learned to play it myself.

You have to cook heroin because it's not water-soluble at room temperature, like cocaine. After a while it doesn't really matter anymore, I suppose. The question of properly dissolving tylenol and oxycodone probably doesn't get lengthy deliberation when you're shooting up in a hospital bathroom.

When you're spitting out cheeked pills, mushing them up in a little plastic medicine cup, drawing this potion up into a discarded syringe, and injecting it into your intravenous fluid line, what exactly are you thinking about?

She had long wide scars on the internal aspect of each forearm. Necrotizing fasciitis. She was lucky to still have them.

Dark wavy hair, a beautiful-but-brainy countenance, a stunning figure; she had it all. In her early thirties still, and with a Harvard MBA, the world was her oyster.

Was.

One of her boyfriends had a friend who had a friend. That was not long ago; just a handful of years. She said that when she first tried it she fell in love.

3 comments:

Awake In Rochester said...

I'm not sure if she was trying to kill herself, or get high. Not good either way. I've always thought that sharps containers should either not be kept in the room, or make it harder to get a hold of syringes.

If it was attempted suicide why not just inject air into your vain?

may said...

complexities all around. such is our lives.

GingerJar said...

Probably just finding another way to get high. Had a patient last night telling me he wanted Ambien, Loratab, IV Benadryl and whatever else he could get all at the same time because He wanted to go to sleep...well sounded like he wanted permanent sleep since he is facing possible amputation of one lower extremity...hummmm and all that on top of his Ativan...man he knew his drugs! ... oh I said 'NO'.