Much like snowflakes, no two patients are ever alike. At the same time, I can’t help but notice that lots of them remind me of other people, namely cartoon characters. One time, I had a patient who genuinely looked like Popeye, with a vocabulary to match. No exaggeration. He called out for help as I was bringing a pitcher of ice water to another patient, and... speaking of which, what’s up with patients and their water? They’ll tell you it’s too warm, so you add ice, and then they say it’s too cold. It’s like geriatric Goldilocks. Anyway, I entered the room and this funny old patient with a wrinkled face and scrunched eyes announced his concerns.

"I got fecus." 

Fecus? Oh, I get it. An old man’s biggest obsession is usually his bowels, sparing no detail about his latest bowel movement or lack thereof. We’re talking size, color, texture, whether it floated or sank, came out smoothly or fought tooth and nail... you name it, they tell you about it, with the same casual enthusiasm normally found among tour guides and sports analysts.

"I think you mean feces,” I said. 

"Don’t’ tell me what I think!" he grunted. I took a breath and chose a new route. 

"Ok, then. Where is it exactly?" I thought maybe he popped out a little piece in bed, a quite frequent occurrence for the setting and much preferable to those massive accidents which look like tootsie rolls on steroids. 

"Where do you think it is?" he barked. "It’s sticking out of my rectus!" I bit my lip to keep from laughing, apologized for my error, and took a look. Indeed, there it was, sticking out of his wrinkled tush like a stem sticking out of an albino prune. I cleaned him up, , he was thankful, but still concerned about his lack of bowel action since his admission. The main reason for his stay, however, was not his pooping habits but rather his trouble urinating, which I had forgotten since it was my first night with him and it was really busy.  

"What time is my test tomorrow?" he asked. "Test?" I responded with a couple of quick blinks, which only added fuel to his growing suspicion that I was clueless.

"What, ya don’t know? That’s why I’m here. I got a problem with my prostrate." An image popped in my head of the old man in church, sailor hat on head and corn cob pipe in mouth, deeply praying to the almighty to send him a new nurse.

"I think you mean prostate," I said calmly. "That’s what I said!" he yelled. This was a man who stood firm in his convictions, and no way was a hoity-toity nurse, let alone a male one, going to challenge his vocabulary. A big rule of thumb in nursing is always give your patients the benefit of the doubt, so rather than continuing a power struggle, I looked up his chart and gave the details. 

"Your test is tomorrow morning, so you can’t have anything to eat or drink after midnight. But it’s still early, so I’m happy to bring you something now if you’re hungry."

"I ate earlier, but I could still go for a bite," he said. "Bring me a sammich."

"No problem," I said, and he smiled. "Maybe eating something will help me move my bowels." This had to be the fifth time he had said that in only a few hours.

"Don’t move your bowels," I said with a smirk. "God put them in that spot for a reason."

But my joke had fallen on deaf ears as his attention had switched to the game show on his TV, and so I set out to hunt down a sandwich worthy of such a personality. 

Preferably something with spinach.