For Jodee

He walked in with 2 nails sticking through his left hand, holding a bag of chips. And he was laughing. "Duuuuuuuude!" he giggled. "Look what I did." Snort, giggle, laugh.

Interesting.

"Sir, please take a seat on the stretcher. Can you hand me the bag of chips?"

"Why? You got the munchies too? HeeHeeHee." He giggled like a little school girl. I couldn't help but laugh. "See? You DO have the munchies!" he said as I chuckled.

"Sir, hand over the chips. I need to see your hand."

"Oh sure. Just save 'em for me - I'm still hungry." He tossed them at me.

I set the chips on the counter and grabbed his hand. The nails were about a quarter of an inch apart, embedded directly through his hand. The head of the nails were on the top side of his hands. "What did you do?" I asked him.

More laughter. A few snorts. "Ah man - it was classic. Nail gun wars! Wheeeeee!"

Seriously? Yes. By this time I was laughing as much as him. He was high as a kite and seriously thought that having 2 nails stuck through his hand was the funniest thing he'd seen in 3 months, 2 weeks, and 17 days (exact quote).

One might wonder what happened 3 months, 2 weeks, and 17 days previous. I didn't even want to ask. Unfortunately I did (morbid curiosity kills me at times). That happened to be the moment he felt he could ride his dirtbike through a couple of trees that were about 30 inches apart. He didn't make it - but his bike did.

It was a very slow afternoon so I sat there and chatted with him while we waited for Xray. He told me he and his buddies had been getting high in his shop he was building, when one of them pulled a nail gun off the top of the compressor and started shooting at people. He abruptly stopped his story, looked at me sideways and said "You ain't gonna tell the cops are ya?" I assured him I wasn't going to release that information and got a high five from him. "You're cool as shit," he said.

Actually, shit is kinda warm so I don't know that it was truly a compliment.

He went on to tell me that everyone started running out of the shop except him. He grabbed another nail gun and started firing back. "Dude! I jumped and rolled over the stacked lumber and fired at him backwards. It was fucking amazing! Just like the movies." Unfortunately, he put his other hand up in front of him to block of the onslaught of nails coming at him. Those nails fell short, but he fired 2 beautiful ones right into the back of his hand. "That there's just funny," he snorted.

Why couldn't all my patients be this entertaining?

He started to tell me about all the other times he has injured himself. They all involved doing something with his buddies, and usually a substance or two. I asked him if he thought maybe not getting high every time would keep him a bit safer. "What good is life if you can't have fun?" he said. "Why would I want to sit on my ass doing nothing when I could be jumping my dirtbike (broken ankle), rolling my truck (broken arm), jumping off my roof (leg impaled on rebar), or wrestling with my friends (broken nose, broken finger)?" He kind of had a point.

Xray came and took him for his pictures. The only injury he had was to one tendon which would limit his mobility in his middle finger. That was the icing on the cake for him. He was laughing so hard he was crying. "You mean I won't be able to bend my birdie down? I'll always be flipping people off? That's fucking cool!"

Dr. Q tried to explain that it wasn't as nifty as the patient thought it was. Dr. Q has no sense of humor.

"Yeah, whatever man," the patient replied. "I gotta go tell my friends!" He jumped off the stretcher, slapped me on the back as he walked out of the room and said, "You rock Nurse Julie. I'm gonna tell all my friends to come see you."

As soon as I got the air back in my lungs I gasped, "Gee, thanks." I threw his bag of chips back at him and he caught them in his other hand and held them high above his head as he sauntered down the hall. "See ya Duuuuude!" he called.