#most volatile patients I’ve ever had are usually drug abusers

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Hi! This idea has been stuck in my head since I started following your healthcare AU! So I thought I would give it to you in case you wanted to write something…no pressure! Anyway, one of the links, in my head it’s Wind, is helping out with a psychiatric patient and the patient basically panics and either hurts Wind in the panic or just like holds him hostage until they get answers, and other members of the chain are there (like Wars and Legend) and they have to fix the situation while staying calm….or something like that lol. So yeah do with that what you will, that’s just been stuck in my head! : )

Hyrule stood at the doorway to the room waiting to give report after they had transferred the patient to the hospital bed. His partner had already left to clean the stretcher. Legend was clearly busy giving a different patient medication, and Hyrule wasn’t sure if there was any other nurse in this hallway.

Watching Legend chart something at the mobile workstation, brows furrowed in focus, Hyrule chewed on the inside of his cheek. He didn’t really like that his patient got sent to the behavioral health hallway since his patient’s issue was drugs, not psych, but the unit was secure and his patient did need to be watched, so he supposed that was the reasoning. Also, the ED seemed really busy.

Warriors exited the closed off nurse’s station. “Hey, sorry for the wait. I’ll get report.”

Hyrule shrugged with a smile. “It’s all good, you guys looks busy.”

The pair entered the patient’s room, and Hyrule scanned the man sitting on the bed. He looked restless, fidgeting and playing with the sheet. He scratched at his arms a few times.

“Look, man, you gotta do something,” the patient said, growing agitated. “I know I’m having a heart attack.”

Sighing, the paramedic looked at Warriors, who was also observing the behavior. “Thirty-four year old male, complaining of chest pain and feeling anxious. He said he took approximately two grams of—”

“I said I’m having a heart attack!” the patient snapped.

“We heard you,” Warriors said calmly. “Let me get report and we’ll look you over.”

“He already knows what’s going on, he didn’t do jack shit!”

Hyrule tried to continue his report when the patient stood up, fists clenched. Warriors and Hyrule both took cautious steps towards the door.

“You need to do something about this!” the patient yelled.

Hyrule watched the man carefully. He’d been an absolute disgrace of a human being the entire transport, cussing Hyrule out for not doing what he was “supposed to be doing,” and then he’d spat on the floor for good measure. Hyrule’s patience was already worn to the breaking point.

“Sir, we are doing something about it,” Warriors continued. “Please sit down so the medic can tell me what’s going—”

The patient reached out, ready to either grab or throttle Warriors, and Hyrule sprang into action. He grabbed the man’s wrist and yanked his arm behind him before vaulting off the bed onto his back, making the drug user crash to the floor with Hyrule planting a knee in the center of his back while his arm was held behind him.

At this point, the man was screaming and kicking, and Hyrule pinned his other arm. He kicked his legs, but Warriors quickly held them in place as Legend seemingly materialized out of nowhere with a needle tipped syringe in hand. Kneeling down, Legend jabbed the needle into the man’s leg and pushed the medication quickly. The man’s cussing and yelling continued for a few long, loud seconds before he settled and passed out.

Warriors pulled away, putting a hand on Hyrule’s shoulder as he leaned back. The two sat on the ground staring at the patient a moment and then out a sigh of relief.

“The hell are you bringing us, Roolie?” Legend huffed, standing up. “I heard drug use but you didn’t say they were combative.”

“I told charge he was verbally combative,” Hyrule said helplessly as he stood, keeping a careful eye on the patient as Warriors assessed him. “I’m sorry that message didn’t get relayed.”

Legend tossed the syringe into the sharps box, shrugging. “Well it isn’t a problem now.”

Hyrule let out a breath laugh before the three hauled the unconscious man onto the bed and Legend pitched in to help with assessing him for injury. As Hyrule finally managed to give him the full report, the paramedic noticed someone wandering the hallway aimlessly.

“Uh, is she one of your patients?” he asked the pair.

Legend looked up and glanced out into the hall. “Miss Nyren, go back to your room, please.”

“Okay,” she giggled, heading back.

Legend sighed, resuming his work. “She’s harmless. Sweet lady, just in a manic episode. She just needs to be redirected is all.

“Does she have a sitter?” Warriors asked, finally charting and paging the doctor.

“They’re trying to find one for her,” Legend answered. Scratching his chin thoughtfully, he muttered, “Maybe I can get her a busy blanket to keep her occupied in the meantime.”

Hyrule sighed, looking at the patient again. “Sorry for that mess.”

“You kidding? I wish I could’ve gotten a picture of that!” Legend laughed. “Asshole deserved it. Idiot shoots himself up with poison and then gets pissed at the people who he called for help. It’s been a while since I’ve done the good old B52 nap.”

“You thought he was a threat,” Wars piped in. “Simple self defense. I was about to knock him out too.”

As the doctor entered the secured hallway, Hyrule decided it was time to get out of there. Too much paperwork and too many headaches were about to happen. Not that anyone would argue with the course of action, seeing as the alternative was letting a violent patient injure a nurse.

Slipping out of the unit before the door could close and lock, Hyrule headed back to his ambulance to handle the next disaster that was no doubt waiting for him.

[bethgreeneishopeunseen]

how is your life going? Ive followed you for a while and I was curious how your coping without your family? best of luck xx

Hey anon! Your message actually motivated me to answer a few asks about my personal life (x) (x). I’ve been closed off on this blog most of the year, and it’s empowering to know that people have listened to my story and are following what happens to me. I started my senior year of college last month – taking five classes (three of which are once a week), working on capstone materials. I have three majors, but through fastidious planning I’ll be graduating on time in the spring. Even with my volatile mental health, I’m still fighting to live as normally as possible. I’m even still working some part-time jobs, which include a new position as a student assistant at the reinvigorated Women’s Center on my campus. I will be helping with event prep and can even be in charge of my own projects. When she and I first met, I told my boss about ideas that I had for a project about financial independence for women and financial abuse. Financial/economic abuse is found in 99% of domestic violence cases, it’s one of the most dehumanizing forms of covert abuse and often what forces the target to break away. That’s what happened with me. 

“And if he spends my change then he had it coming.”

-Taylor Swift, I Did Something Bad

When I started working at 18, I gave my parents most of my wages so they could keep them for school; it was easy for them as their names were on my bank account. At the end of my sophomore year it became clear that they were focused only on how much I brought in, as they threw in my face that my brother made more than me. When he went to school in D.C., a city with +$10 minimum wage, and didn’t take classes everyday like me. Over the summer was when things came to a head, especially in July when I received my first paycheck. 

In hindsight, my parents weren’t using my money for my education but rather for themselves and maybe my brother’s tuition too. When my friends suggested the possibility to me last summer, I was almost broken by it. If they could do that, especially after a lifetime of hearing, “We treat you two the same,” then anything was possible and the lies were even greater than I could image. I don’t know exactly where the money was going – maybe the small recording studio my father wanted to construct – but the details don’t matter anymore. I was taken advantage of and exploited, but I got out, and that’s what matters.

Working at the center is empowering me, knowing that I can use my pain to help others. And I can do so much with this project. A credit union has an office on our campus, and I plan on reaching out to it, probably for an actual educational event. I’ve even started EMDR in counseling. EMDR is a highly successful treatment for trauma, based in bilateral stimulation of the brain akin to what it does during REM sleep. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing; counselors often move their fingers or something similar, having patients follow with their eyes. It’s believed to repair damage to the campus, and it works with memories trapped in the body and subconscious, moving them from short-term into long-term. It sounds kind of magical, and it can feel magical, in the almost dark, primal way that magic is in a fairytale. I’ve only done two sessions of the eight I’m allowed in a semester, but this treatment gives me the most hope in rebuilding my mental health and my sense of self.

I had my second session on Friday.  I had asked my counselor to help me work with a trigger related to an old doll of me. I collected Kelly dolls when I was very little, and my favorite one went missing, never found again. After I spoke with friends, I think my parents may have taken her. She was an Easter present when I was three-ish, and later I created a story that explained her disappearance, saying that the Easter Bunny kidnapped her. Kind of strange that an Easter gift would be seized by the very giver, no? In France I looked up the doll and was noticeable triggered by a website that archived pictures of the dolls, especially by that particular Kelly character and her costumes/doll personas. The website mentioned a Kelly movie that I had a kid, and when I watched it on YouTube, I could make it through the first 30 seconds before I had to close the window – it upset me that much. I rested the trigger a week-ish before this session, and the images alone rendered me less verbal, nauseous, and hit with a recurring body pain that I think is a symptom of muscle armoring.

There is a block in my mind related to that doll, something violent in that particular neural network. I could feel it during the session, and my memories were even more fragmented than usual. (I probably remember less than ten percent of my childhood, another way my family dehumanized me.) I often heard my father yelling my name. When I focused on my doll, for a moment I went back to being about three years old, tears in my eyes and a quiver in my voice. I just said, “I miss her. She’s gone. Something happened to her. She’s down somewhere in the dark, and I can’t save her.” At the same time I kept having strange bodily sensations, my nerves tingling and shots of pain in my neck. There was a reoccurring feeling of someone at my shoulder and/or looming over me. Likely my father. 

Less than ten minutes after I left that session I vomited and then experienced lightheadedness, a mildly unbalanced walk like a drunk, and an almost trippy moment under some pine trees. (I think the way they towered over me reminded me of some tiny pine trees near the beach house of my childhood – brains are weird.) The whole experience was like being shrunken down and then stretched back out in some personal Wonderland. Before my counselor even activated the bilateral stimulation, when she had me just focus on the dolls, I could feel the body of my childhood self  within my adult one – as if something had shrunken and revealed another, more delicate and vulnerable layer. All of that is another reason why I will never do hard drugs.

It’s not easy now, but the goal is to make the rest of my life easier. I don’t miss my family or old friends from Delaware in the slightest; sometimes I miss the idea of it all. Just the idea, like the memory of a dream. My ambition and drive are pretty much gone, my sense of identity shattered and dead. Subjects like French, which I took with ease, are harder than ever for me. But I’ve started writing again. I went to my school’s art gallery opening at the beginning of the month, and there I spoke with a woman and mentioned my story. I didn’t go into detail; it wasn’t the giant tragic backstory for my character. It was simply a thing to note as an example of my strength and all that I’ve achieved. In that moment, it was like I had flashed into a future where I have moved past this and let it settle into the back. A future where I was confident and safe with myself, twirling a glass of wine. That’s why the Delicate music video best captures my headspace. Alone and vulnerable, I am learning to love myself. At the same time, I am constantly cycling through an emotional maelstrom. I am Taylor at the dive bar, taking a deep breath, and preparing herself to enter the unsafe and be seen again.