"I'm telling God on you!"

I went to a nursing home today to see one of my patients for an eye infection. I really do not like going to the nursing home. Today, I liked it even less than usual.

As I came in the room, the nurse had just moved this patient out of bed and into a wheelchair to go to physical therapy. She did not want to go to PT. The patient kept asking me to tell the nurses she needed to be in bed to for me to examine her, and she was in a lot of pain in the wheelchair. I kept trying to tell her by the time the nurses came and moved her, I would be done checking her eyes. This was not what she wanted to hear.

At one point, she told me she was going to be sick and I should bring over her plastic tub (the mauve hospital ones we are all too familiar with...). She grabbed it and started banging it on the foot-board of her bed. Shortly after that, I saw a note taped to her bed-table that said "Please use the call button to ask for the nurse, do not bang things to get our attention..." Ooops.

It didn't take me more than 5 minutes to do the whole exam (including checking vision--me: Have you noticed any changes in your vision? her: Well, I can't see sh**. OK then.). Unfortunately, it took me about 10 minutes to write out my exam note and orders for her chart. I pushed the call button for the nurse to come take her to therapy before I even started writing. The whole time she is asking me to take my time and to tell the nurses I need her back in bed. At first, she alternated between pleading with me and banging that stupid tub against the bed. But pretty quickly her tone changed and she started getting mean. The last thing she said before the nurses aide wheeled her away--I swear it was an eternity if it was 10 minutes--was "When I die, I'm telling God on you!"