*** YOU KNOW YOU’RE A NURSE WHEN ***

Your kids get their presents in TED stockings and
hospital pillowcases. And their presents are wrapped with Micropore tape.



You know the phone number of every late night food delivery place by
heart.


Almost everything can seem funny ... eventually.



When asked by the doctor what color that patient's diarrhoea was,
you show them your shoes. If they missed your shoes, you use the well-known "poo
curry colour scale" ranging from chicken korma to spinach vindaloo.



You can identify different causes of diarrhoea by the smell of it.



Every time you walk you make a jingling noise because of all the
keys, scissors and clamps in your pocket.


You can tell the
pharmacist more about the medication they are dispensing than they know.



You use bladder lavage bags to drip water onto your plants when
you're on holiday.


You refuse to watch ER because its too much like
the real thing and it triggers flashbacks or... Your family refuse to let you
watch ER because you spend the whole time correcting everyone and pointing out
upside down X-rays.


You avoid answering the phone on your day off in
case anyone from the hospital is trying to call and beg you to work.

You've been telling stories in a restaurant and made
someone at another table throws up.


You notice that you are using
even more 4 letter words than you did before you started nursing.

You've seriously considered catheterising your
children before a long car journey.


Every time someone asks you for
a pen you can find at least 4 of them on you. Most of them have the names of
laxatives on them.


You don't get excited about blood; unless it's
your own.


You live by the motto "to be right is only half the
battle, to convince the doctor is more difficult"


You've basted your
Christmas turkey with a 50ml syringe.


You've told a confused patient
that your name was that of your co-worker and to shout if they need help.



Eating crisps out of a clean sick-bowl is perfectly normal.



Your bladder can expand to the size of a Winnebago's water tank.



When checking the level of a patient's orientation you aren't sure
of the day yourself. Or if nightshift, the month.


You find yourself
checking out other customers' veins in supermarket queues.


You can
sleep soundly at the hospital cafeteria table on your dinner break and are not
embarrassed when you wake up


You avoid unhealthy looking people in
the shopping centre for fear that they will drop dead near you and you'll have
to do CPR on your day off.


You throw a farewell buffet for a
co-worker and use a bed sheet for a tablecloth and bedpans to hold the nachos.



You often stay awake for 24+ hrs at a time when you work nights and
realise you don't need alcohol or drugs to hallucinate just lack of sleep...



You pull over in a layby after working nights because you are too
tired to drive home and wake up to someone knocking on your window thinking
you've had a stroke because you're passed out in your car drooling.



Your finger has gone into places you never thought possible.



You've seen more penises than any prostitute.


You've
sworn to have "Do Not Resuscitate" tattooed on your chest. Soon.


If
you are not a nurse and have been sent this by a friend who is, it's just to
help you understand our mindset and questionable mental state!




Submitted by John Hutchinson.
Sent to me by
Lesley Boulding