MyDoorsAreOpen
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2003
- Messages
- 8,542
One of the most un-PC things I take joy in is when people use a proper name to refer to a stereotypical person. Some fierce redheaded Natasha took my passport. That Habeeb jacked up his gas prices again. What does this Guido want? Are you a Stu or a Steve?
Having worked the past few years scurrying the floors of nursing homes and hospitals, it's become rather evident to me that 'Willie' is defined as a gnarled, geriatric black man who mumbles incoherently, but still has a really strong will to survive. I have so far worked with five people who meet this description, all named Willie, not short for William. Last night, I came face to face with the quintessential Willie. I hold out little hope for the remainder of my career of ever encountering another individual more graced with Willieness than Willie D.
Willie D. was 88 years old, and out of his gourd. He was admitted to the hospital under a nice little loophole of a medical diagnosis called 'Change in Mental Status.' I roll my eyes whenever I see this diagnosis listed for a new inpatient, because such individual almost always turns out to be nearly intolerable, probably quite senile, and was dumped at the hospital by a family member who just didn't know what to do with him and can't afford a nursing home.
Willie D was found by his wife wandering a distant neighborhood, looking menacingly at people who saw his confusion and tried to engage him in conversation. Having made it so far from his house on foot, it came as no surprise to anyone when Willie climbed off the stretcher and walked the few steps to his bed no problem. On the other hand, the gunfire crack we all heard, which was Willie's forehead smacking the floor, was rather unexpected.
Willie didn't bat a yellow encrusted eye as the house doctor bent over him and tied seven stitches into his head, closing up a scar that made him look ready to act in a Blaxploitation version of Harry Potter. It was his toughness in the face of pain that led all of us present to notice, for the first time, how strong Willie was for an 88 year old. He had the lean and muscular physique of a farmboy, with broad, pulsating veins under his inky, droopy skin. At his age, Willie might very well have originated in some rural area of the Deep South. I had no trouble picturing him with overalls on.
Boy, were we ever right about Willie's strength. Later that evening, I caught him pulling on the tube to his catheter. Knowing that he'd have no sensory objections to pulling an inflated water baloon from his bladder down through his dick, I intervened. No sooner had I laid my hand upon his, when he grabbed my hand and squeezed, still holding the catheter tube. What a grip! I could feel the pressure against the bones of my fingers, and needed help to pry his hand off of mine, so that I could work on snatching the tube away. He would not be a fun patient to re-catheterize.
The nurses and I ended up having to wrap a velcro back brace around Willie's midsection, so that he wouldn't be able to touch his dick or the crucial part of the catheter line. But what an ordeal that was. Willie resisted our every touch, grabbing the hand of the offending party with lightning speed and squeezing hard. He grabbed my ID on a lanyard, and later the plug to a machine, and used them to try to whip us. Removing them from his hands proved difficult, and I was startled to feel a warm pair of gums clenching my forearm at one point, when the melee got a bit close to his face. The fucker had bit me.
Meanwhile Willie had freed his legs of the blanket, and was proceeding to aim some can-can kicks at the nurses near the foot of his bed. He breathed hard, but never relented. As the nurses scrambled desparately to put his IV tubes in, His biceps resisted my grip on his hands like a great black pair of pneumatic pistons, giving me quite the workout. All the while his face never changed from its blank expression, and his mouth mumbled quiet, unintelligible things like 'Wha yawan maba mo fo bo!'
At first we just told Willie to relax, and tried to calm him down and convince him we were just there to help him. But I don't give off the sweet motherly instinct that female nurses use as their secret weapon. Plus, when I realize that I'm going to be resisted or told off no matter what I do, I decide to have a little fun with it and switch into full wiseass mode. I began to smirk at Willie as he resisted me, and say flippant shit to him like 'Easy there, tiger!' and 'You break my finger and I'm filing for worker's comp, Gramps.' Eventually we were able to wrench a pair of protective mittens onto Willie's hands so he couldn't grab, and I had a lot of fun, putting my fists up like a boxer and watching him try to hit my pretend jabs with his mittened hands that looked like boxing gloves.
After finally giving Willie all the treatments he needed, we left his bed parked near the nurse's station, safe in the knowledge that he couldn't grab anything. But as I said, Willie's rage knew no bounds. Within minutes, he'd figured out how to get the mittens off, and had pulled the nursing station's 6'x6' whiteboard clean out of the wall above his bed, and flung in in the general direction of a horrified nurse.
Willie was hypothermic when he was admitted, and needed an electric hot water blanket placed over him as a safety precaution. A hapless janitor got caught up in the craziness when he came to mop the floor. Willie had managed to rip the blanket clean off the machine that powered it, gushing lukewarm water all over his bed and the floor. Thank goodness we had someone bigger and stronger than me to hold one of his legs as we changed him, because I would've been launched.
That was the last straw. We called the house doctor, who told us to break out the benzos. A standard dose of Ativan had seemingly no effect on Willie. He still attempted to grab at things and climb out of bed, and still was able to cut off the circulation in one of my arms when I tried to prevent him from doing so. The house doctor was annoyed when we called her again, and balked at our suggestion that a double dose of Ativan was warranted, until she came up to the floor herself and saw Willie snap the plastic safety siderail off his bed, his nostrils flaring with each breath like an enraged bucking bronco. The second shot didn't put him to sleep, mind you. It only made his breathing slower and his grip *slightly* less deadly.
I couldn't help but respect Willie. I sure hope I'm a quarter as strong as him when I'm 88. I also hope some young mugger who thinks of batty old men as easy marks crosses Willie someday soon, and meets his match. May he be a lesson to Willies great and small across the nation.
Having worked the past few years scurrying the floors of nursing homes and hospitals, it's become rather evident to me that 'Willie' is defined as a gnarled, geriatric black man who mumbles incoherently, but still has a really strong will to survive. I have so far worked with five people who meet this description, all named Willie, not short for William. Last night, I came face to face with the quintessential Willie. I hold out little hope for the remainder of my career of ever encountering another individual more graced with Willieness than Willie D.
Willie D. was 88 years old, and out of his gourd. He was admitted to the hospital under a nice little loophole of a medical diagnosis called 'Change in Mental Status.' I roll my eyes whenever I see this diagnosis listed for a new inpatient, because such individual almost always turns out to be nearly intolerable, probably quite senile, and was dumped at the hospital by a family member who just didn't know what to do with him and can't afford a nursing home.
Willie D was found by his wife wandering a distant neighborhood, looking menacingly at people who saw his confusion and tried to engage him in conversation. Having made it so far from his house on foot, it came as no surprise to anyone when Willie climbed off the stretcher and walked the few steps to his bed no problem. On the other hand, the gunfire crack we all heard, which was Willie's forehead smacking the floor, was rather unexpected.
Willie didn't bat a yellow encrusted eye as the house doctor bent over him and tied seven stitches into his head, closing up a scar that made him look ready to act in a Blaxploitation version of Harry Potter. It was his toughness in the face of pain that led all of us present to notice, for the first time, how strong Willie was for an 88 year old. He had the lean and muscular physique of a farmboy, with broad, pulsating veins under his inky, droopy skin. At his age, Willie might very well have originated in some rural area of the Deep South. I had no trouble picturing him with overalls on.
Boy, were we ever right about Willie's strength. Later that evening, I caught him pulling on the tube to his catheter. Knowing that he'd have no sensory objections to pulling an inflated water baloon from his bladder down through his dick, I intervened. No sooner had I laid my hand upon his, when he grabbed my hand and squeezed, still holding the catheter tube. What a grip! I could feel the pressure against the bones of my fingers, and needed help to pry his hand off of mine, so that I could work on snatching the tube away. He would not be a fun patient to re-catheterize.
The nurses and I ended up having to wrap a velcro back brace around Willie's midsection, so that he wouldn't be able to touch his dick or the crucial part of the catheter line. But what an ordeal that was. Willie resisted our every touch, grabbing the hand of the offending party with lightning speed and squeezing hard. He grabbed my ID on a lanyard, and later the plug to a machine, and used them to try to whip us. Removing them from his hands proved difficult, and I was startled to feel a warm pair of gums clenching my forearm at one point, when the melee got a bit close to his face. The fucker had bit me.
Meanwhile Willie had freed his legs of the blanket, and was proceeding to aim some can-can kicks at the nurses near the foot of his bed. He breathed hard, but never relented. As the nurses scrambled desparately to put his IV tubes in, His biceps resisted my grip on his hands like a great black pair of pneumatic pistons, giving me quite the workout. All the while his face never changed from its blank expression, and his mouth mumbled quiet, unintelligible things like 'Wha yawan maba mo fo bo!'
At first we just told Willie to relax, and tried to calm him down and convince him we were just there to help him. But I don't give off the sweet motherly instinct that female nurses use as their secret weapon. Plus, when I realize that I'm going to be resisted or told off no matter what I do, I decide to have a little fun with it and switch into full wiseass mode. I began to smirk at Willie as he resisted me, and say flippant shit to him like 'Easy there, tiger!' and 'You break my finger and I'm filing for worker's comp, Gramps.' Eventually we were able to wrench a pair of protective mittens onto Willie's hands so he couldn't grab, and I had a lot of fun, putting my fists up like a boxer and watching him try to hit my pretend jabs with his mittened hands that looked like boxing gloves.
After finally giving Willie all the treatments he needed, we left his bed parked near the nurse's station, safe in the knowledge that he couldn't grab anything. But as I said, Willie's rage knew no bounds. Within minutes, he'd figured out how to get the mittens off, and had pulled the nursing station's 6'x6' whiteboard clean out of the wall above his bed, and flung in in the general direction of a horrified nurse.
Willie was hypothermic when he was admitted, and needed an electric hot water blanket placed over him as a safety precaution. A hapless janitor got caught up in the craziness when he came to mop the floor. Willie had managed to rip the blanket clean off the machine that powered it, gushing lukewarm water all over his bed and the floor. Thank goodness we had someone bigger and stronger than me to hold one of his legs as we changed him, because I would've been launched.
That was the last straw. We called the house doctor, who told us to break out the benzos. A standard dose of Ativan had seemingly no effect on Willie. He still attempted to grab at things and climb out of bed, and still was able to cut off the circulation in one of my arms when I tried to prevent him from doing so. The house doctor was annoyed when we called her again, and balked at our suggestion that a double dose of Ativan was warranted, until she came up to the floor herself and saw Willie snap the plastic safety siderail off his bed, his nostrils flaring with each breath like an enraged bucking bronco. The second shot didn't put him to sleep, mind you. It only made his breathing slower and his grip *slightly* less deadly.
I couldn't help but respect Willie. I sure hope I'm a quarter as strong as him when I'm 88. I also hope some young mugger who thinks of batty old men as easy marks crosses Willie someday soon, and meets his match. May he be a lesson to Willies great and small across the nation.
