You know you're a nurse if.....
• You believe that every patient needs tlc, diazepam,temazepam and haloperidol.
• You would like to meet the inventor of the Nurse call buzzer some night in a dark alley.
• You believe not all patients are annoying, some are unconscious.
• Your sense of humour gets more warped each year.
• You can only tell time by the 24 hr clock.
• Almost everything can seem humorous....eventually.
• When asked what colour that patients diarrheic was, you show them your
Shoes.
• You know the smell of different diarrhoea to identify it.
• Every time you walk you make a jingling noise because of all the
Scissors and clamps in your pocket.
• You can tell the pharmacist more about the medication they are dispensing than they know.
• You carry more "spare" meds in your pocket rather than waiting for pharmacy to deliver them.
• You refuse to watch ER because it is too much like the real thing and it triggers flashbacks.
• You check the caller id on your day off to see if anyone from the hospital is trying to call and ask you to work.
• You've been telling stories in a restaurant and made someone at another table throw up.
• notice that you are using more 4 letter words than you did before you started nursing.
• Everytime someone asks you for a pen you can find at least 4 of them on you.
• You can intubate your friends at parties.
• You don't get excited about blood unless it's your own.
• You live by the motto "to be right is only half the battle, to convince the doctor is more difficult"
• You've basted your thanksgiving turkey with a nasogastric syringe.
• You've told a confused patient that your name was that of your co-worker and to holler if they need help.
• Eating microwave popcorn out of a clean bedpan is perfectly normal.
• Your bladder can expand to the size of a Mack Truck's Radiator Sump.
• When checking the level of a patient’s orientation you aren't sure of the answer.
• You find yourself checking out other customers veins in grocery waiting lines.
• You can sleep soundly at the hospital cafeteria table on your dinner break and not be embarrassed when you wake up.
• You avoid unhealthy looking shoppers in the mall for fear that they will drop near you and you'll have to do cpr on your day off.
• You have ever referred to someone's death as a transfer to the "Eternal Care Unit".
• You have ever wanted to hold a seminar entitled "Suicide ... Doing It Right".
• You have ever had a patient look you straight in the eye and say "I have no idea how that got stuck in there".
• You have ever had to leave a patient's room before you begin to laugh uncontrollably.
• You throw a party for a co-worker and use a urinal (clean of course) as a lemon-aid pitcher and use a bed sheet for a tablecloth
• You believe that the government should require a permit to reproduce.
• You hate to get dressed in "real clothes" because scrubs are what you live in and why can't they make jeans that comfortable.
• You have ever restrained someone and it was not a sexual experience.
• Your most common assessment question is "what changed tonight to make it an emergency after 6 hours / days / weeks / months / years)?".
• You often stay awake for 24+ hrs at a time when you work nights realize you don't need alcohol or drugs to hallucinate just lack of
sleep...
• You pull over in some parking lot after working nights because you are too tired to drive home and wake up to someone knocking on your window thinking you have had a stroke because you are passed out in your car and drooling.
• Your finger has gone places you never thought possible.
• You have seen more penises than any prostitute
• You disbelieve 90% of what you are told and 75% of what you see.
• You've sworn to have "Not For Resuss" tattooed on your chest.
• You threaten to strangle anyone who even starts to say the "q" word when it is even remotely calm.
Its just to help you understand our mindset and questionable mental status/sanity.
Most of the time we function in spite of this sick sense of humour, fairly normally and very responsibly.
Believe me, this is how we think, ALL THE TIME, Scary huh??
It must be added to the list that you hate flying just incase the air stewards announce "if there is a Doctor or Nurse on board... please make yourself known to the cabin crew" At which point you cringe and hide!