Today was one of those days where I wanted nothing more than to take my nursing cap and turn it in, turn around, and walk right out of the Emergency Department doors. It was one of those days where I wish I could have stayed in bed or at least stayed home.

Everything that could possibly go wrong did:  late co-workers, callous, big-headed doctors who acted like they knew everything, belligerent patients, annoying family members of the patients, misbehaving, unsupervised kids, arguing with lazy people who don't pull their weight around (yet they expect ME to turn into "Super-Woman" and do their jobs on top of mine).

By the time I was ready to go on my hour-long break, I was close to tears and my thoughts roiled around like angry storm clouds.  The last patient before my lunch break, a man in his forties, didn't help matters any.  He was rude, crude, and kept making inappropriate comments about my chest.  He was also in the ER because his girlfriend basically beat the living hoo-ha out of him when she caught him messing around with her little boy in a most disgusting, lewd manner.

Even though he was injured, that didn't stop the verbal garbage that spewed from his mouth.  I was doing everything possible to "act professional" and do my job.  I was biting my tongue and praying in the holy spirit, asking God to give me patience to deal with this difficult man.  That helped some, but not nearly enough.  I was still plenty angry by the time we were ready to send him to his room on the medical floor.

When they took Mr. Loudmouth to his room, the tears that I had held back for so long finally surfaced.  I began to cry.  I was crying not so much for me or for the patient, but mainly for the little boy he had molested.  The little boy in question wasn't even a child: he was only six months old, too young to be subjected to this kind of inhumane, barbaric treatment.

Jules, one of my best nurses, happened to see me standing by the door, sobbing.  She knew why I was in tears.  She helped treat the man as well; she was in the room when he kept making his comments and groping me, grabbing at my chest.  I wanted nothing more than to scream at him, "What kind of man ARE you?!" or to zap him one with a sedative to send him to LaLa Land.  Yet I held firm and tried my best to do what was expected of me.

I kept my emotions in check ... that was, until they sent him upstairs.  Then I lost it, I completely lost it.  All Julie could do was hold me in her arms and let me cry it out.  I then felt a little better as the two of us walked to the cafeteria, to get something to eat.  By now I was getting pretty hungry.

The day was not much better after that.  We lost three patients in the ER when they crashed and burned; nothing we did could bring them back.  More reason to mark this as one of my worst days ever at work.  We also had a mental patient attempt to escape and we had to put an APB on him so the cops could bring him back while we finished treating him.  Then, after all that, a kid who was bored pulled the fire alarm, and we had to evacuate for over a half hour while the fire department came to check out the hospital, to make sure everything was okay and that there wasn't a fire.  (Thank God there wasn't.)

I was never so glad to see three o'clock come around!  (Today was my "short day": worked only eight hours.  I usually work twelve or better.)

Thank God I'm off tomorrow!  All I can do is kick back and try to sleep in and then take care of my own family ... that is, IF they will let me sleep in (they usually don't, especially the youngest two).  I can also try to forget about today; Lord knows, I need to!!