Home sick

No, not 'homesick' as in newFNP is at work and missing her 1-bedroom apartment, but home sick as in see 'formula for success.' More time to devote to old NYT crosswords and The New Yorker.

But anyway, the time spent at home sick can't be all fun and games and cursing one's stabbing abdominal pains. As such, let newFNP tell you three little words that will make any newFNP truly embrace her 'sit-near-the-door' policy.

"I hear voices."

Super. I'm 30 minutes behind schedule and you hear voices. Are you sure you don't just have a cough?

Allow me to set the stage. My mid-40's patient was sitting on the exam table, paper gown and drape in place, and had an affect that quite frankly screamed medicated mental illness. She lacked emotion. She was treated with 2 anti-psychotics and 1 SSRI. Perhaps newFNP should let her psychiatrist know that something in her med cocktail wasn't fitting the bill.

So here newFNP is with the voice-hearing lady. After enquiring as to what the voices said to her and thinking, "please don't let it be 'kill the nice blue-eyed NP,'" I was relieved to hear the relatively benign, "Well, they are babies and they are telling me that I am their mother." OK, doesn't sound emergent.

Then she proceeded, as earnest as could be, "Is that normal?"

Hmmm... normal. Possible responses include:

a) "Normal, shnormal."
b) "I think the attraction to motherhood speaks to a lot of women very strongly."
c) "Who am I to say what normal is?"
d) "No. Shit no, that is not normal. Fuck!"

Now, if community-health-newFNP was an infertility-newFNP, she would lean more towards 'b'. But my community health clinic's scope of practice does not include infertility issues and this lady wasn't speaking about her deep-seeded inner desires for pregnancy. I chose a softer version of 'd' with a splash of 'b' thrown in for flavor.

This patient was not a sexually active lady, but believed wholeheartedly that there was a possibility that she was hearing these voices because she was, in fact, pregnant. Now that is getting into a whole area of religion and mental illness with which newFNP is not comfortable. Urine hcg negative. Let's get you in to your psychiatrist.

All in a day's work.

By the way, the swamp nurse article in this week's issue of The New Yorker made newFNP's job look like no work at all. NewFNP is all manicures and pilates compared to Miss Luwana. Here is a quote from the article:

"The mom I'm working with now is a sixteen-year-old unmedicated, bipolar rape victim and crack-addicted prostitute with a pattern of threatening to kill her social worker, who recently abandoned her baby at her ex-boyfriend's sister's, and who has an attempted murder charge in another situation..."

Now that makes me feel like I am working in a private practice.