No Psych Meds?

This post stems from my experience at work the other night. I just wonder why it is when the psych patients get moved into the hospital that their psych meds do not tend to come with them or get ordered accordingly. There is a reason that they are on these meds! And when they do not have them, they can be restless and agitated and combative. Case in point, Mr. Fists. A rather non-eventful fellow, as long as you weren't touching him. He did not like to be touched, so getting his vitals and fbs was a bit of a problem. I did get him to lift up his arm for his bp, but as soon as I slid the cuff up and under, he changed his mind and flexed his arm catching my left arm at his elbow/bicep. Now he is a strong fella, but as I tried to get him to relax his arm, he decided he wanted to dig his fingers into my left wrist. Ugh. It broke the skin and caused a little bit of bleeding, nothing serious by any means. Unless of course you think about where his fingers had been before that and omg.. who knows what kind of crazy diseases this person might be carrying. I even had gloves on, but he dug through the end of it and still managed to get my skin. So, I quickly move to the sink and begin scrubbing my wrist with the warm water and soap. Heck we all know that the skin is our first line of defense, and so many infections are introduced by a break in that integrity. So I scrub. And try not to be upset, because he really doesn't know what he is doing.. or does he? And why didn't he have enough of his psych meds to calm him down so that we aren't having to be put in these types of situations. Anyhow, I ended up having to take a urine test - because the patient scratched me. I think that is ridiculous... I would much rather them test him to see what was growing under his nails rather than to test my urine. I have no worries; I am clean.. but is he? I have kept some antibiotic ointment on the site for a couple of days now, but one spot is still a little red. I have no doubt that I will be okay, but it is just the thought of bringing something home from the hospital that I just really do not want. I just hope that when I go back tomorrow night that he has been discharged. (please?) Although I am sure that our lovely Ms. Situation will still be there.

Ms. Situation was just admitted to the floor Tuesday night. Her responses were mostly limited to "yeah" and "uh-huh". To every question. Although she would answer "that would cause another situation" to some questions, such as when asked if there was any pain upon palpation of her abdomen. Not quite sure what her situations were, not sure I really wanted to know, but I did find it mildly humorous at the time. It can be difficult to ascertain specific responses from these type of patients, when they aren't exactly in their right mind, nor their left as it seems sometimes. This is when the training into non-verbal cues can become very handy. Even though the palpation may have caused a "situation", her grimace on her face told a larger tale. It was painful for her, perhaps she just didn't know how to express that in the right words. Well we shall see what happens when I go back tomorrow night :)