After I’ve complained about stomach pain for a few days, along with vomiting and nausea, my mom takes me to the ER.

Doctor: “Have you considered you might be pregnant?”

Mom: “Excuse you?”

The doctor turns away from my mom and takes my hands, moving her chair closer.

Doctor: “I know it may be hard to admit this in front of your mom, but you have to consider the chance that you might be having a child soon.”

She keeps on talking like that, giving me recommendations and numbers to call for help with teen pregnancy. My mom and I are looking at her in horror, until my mom can’t take it anymore and leaves the room.

Me: “Lady. I am, one, a fifteen-year-old virgin, and two, asexual, with a girlfriend. No. I am not pregnant. Can you let go of my hands and actually do some sort of exam now?”

Doctor: “Sweetie, things like this can happen by accident. Maybe your boyfriend and you were not—”

Before I got the chance to correct her, my mother came back into the room with a nurse, who told the doctor the head nurse was calling her. I ended up being seen by a different doctor, who sent me to do some actual exams. After a lot of different exams and many weeks of pain, whatever I had finally passed. We never knew what it was, but it was certainly not a child!

I am working at the front desk of a hospital during flu season, so kids are not allowed. A mother and two kids walk in. After I explain the policies, the mother is visibly angry and tries to explain that the kids want to visit the patient.

She begins screaming in the kids’ faces and turns to me. She tries to claim that I made her children cry despite them not caring about visiting and the fact that she literally screamed and tried to make them cry on purpose.

Mother: “Look at this! You made my children cry. They want to see their [family member]!”

Me: “I just saw you scream in their face; that doesn’t make any sense.”

She turns to the kids and speaks in a tone that implies I somehow ruined their evening.

Mother: “C’mon, kids, let’s go.”

I work at one of the main hospitals in the city, and I rotate between different entrances. Hospitals have been very strict with who they allow into the hospital since the health crisis, with only patients and select visitors being permitted. There are many people who try to come into the hospital despite not being a patient or knowing a patient who has been admitted, and a lot of my job involves calling the main switchboard and various units to ensure random people aren’t just wandering around and that people actually have someone they are going to visit.

One day, a visitor comes in.

Visitor: “I’m here to visit my grandmother.”

Me: “Can I have the spelling of her name, please?”

Visitor: “[Male First Name], uhh… [Last Name]?”

I call the main switchboard to see if they can locate the patient, and sure enough, they can’t find anyone under that name.

I report back to the visitor.

Visitor: “Oh, I have this friend here, [Male Name], and he’s in a wheelchair. You know him?” 

This hospital has almost 1,000 beds, and I’m not exactly on a first-name basis with patients!

I asked for the spelling of their name, and… they couldn’t tell me. I informed the visitor that they needed the correct spelling of any patient’s first and last name in order to visit. The patient wandered out the door. This happens at least once a shift.

I was leaving a doctor’s appointment and my ride arrived, so I stood up and propped myself on the outside of the seat while I was getting ready to fold my wheelchair. A woman ran up and tried to wheel it away — great brakes on my chair — and I had to struggle with her while my driver got out and came to help me.

Woman: *Whining* “But I need this chair for my mom! She’s aged! And this chair is so much nicer and cleaner than the other chairs around here!”

We had to get the guard involved. I could understand if it was a generic wheelchair in basic aluminum, but I guess she didn’t understand that the hospital didn’t have royal purple wheelchairs with cup holders, cane holders, and a chair bag.

I’m a nurse and have been working like crazy in these wonderful times of plague.

I need to get a patient to another ward and, luckily, it’s in the same building, so instead of waiting for the porters — who have been run ragged as much as anyone else in a hospital; praise to them, too! — I decide to wheel the patient there myself. We have a large lift — elevator for you Americans — designed for gurneys and the like, so I bring the patient there.

The door opens, and in the middle of this large space… is HER. The hair, the clothes, the age, the sneer. Everything about her screams, “I want to speak to your manager.”

She gives me one look with my patient and steps forward, blocking my path.

Woman: “No. Wait your turn.”

Me: “What?!”

Woman: “This is my lift. Wait for the next one.”

Me: “No, this is not your lift. I need to get this patient to the ward upstairs.”

She actively sticks her FOOT out to block my gurney before I can get the patient in.

Woman: “SOCIAL DISTANCING! SOCIAL DISTANCING! STAY BACK!”

Me: “Back off! Patients take priority, so if you don’t want to be close to anyone else, you wait for the next one. Or take the stairs. I don’t care, but get the h*** out of my way.”

Woman: “But he could infect me!”

She’s pointing at my patient, who is just staring at this woman like, “WTF?!” I am DONE with this woman.

Me: “I am nine days into an eleven-day run of shifts, most of them running twelve hours. I do not have time for this, or you, or your f***ery. F***… OFF.”

Something breaks in me and I think she sees that, too. She five a loud “harrumph” and storms off, making sure to “accidentally” hit me with her handbag as she swings past me. So much for social distancing!

As the doors close, all my patient can say is:

Patient: “I’m about to have an operation, but that was the most painful thing I’ll experience in this place.”

He (and I) are doing fine!

The woman, hopefully, is still waiting for a lift somewhere, wondering why she has to share them in a busy hospital.

Related:
Why Nurses Should Rule The World, Part 13
Why Nurses Should Rule The World, Part 12
Why Nurses Should Rule The World, Part 11
Why Nurses Should Rule The World, Part 10

This story is part of our Best Of August 2021 roundup! his is the last story in this roundup, but if you’d like to read more of our favorite stories, you can always check out July’s roundup next!

Read the next Best Of August 2021 roundup story!

Read the Best Of August 2021 roundup!