When we have been patient-free for the last 2 hours of the shift, the final 10 minutes before we release the crocs into the moat, pull up the drawbridge and lock the castle can be stressful. We lock the various cabinets, restock what needs to be restocked, and watch the camera.
Sure enough, at 10:5o someone pulls into the parking lot.
Sigh. Hopefully it is something quick; the doors may lock at 11 PM, but the empathy shuts off at 10 PM.
It is an annoying child with a really annoying father. The father decides that the most important thing on his agenda upon entering the department is taking a piss. I decide to interview the kid; she appeared to be anywhere between 11 and 13.
Reason for visit: "My ear is swollen".
Hmmm. It appears the kid had gotten her ears pierced 6 days before and had a swollen ear lobe for 2 days. NOW it's an emergency. Not.
The father was back, so the kid I ignored since she had a steady stream of verbal diarrhea going: "What are you going to do? Will you have to take out the earring? What will happen to the hole? Will it hurt? Will I need stitches? Why is the sky blue? Do you have any chocolate?"
This, apparently, is the second time the girl had gotten an infection in a freshly pierced ear lobe.
Annoying child had fat earlobes to begin with, just the kind that don't do well with the standard sized pierced ear studs; what she needed was some kind of hoop. Or much longer studs. Or not to pierce her ears at all.
Cripes already had his jacket on and one foot out the door when I told him he had another patient. "Not abdominal pain....something pretty quick", I said to him as he looked crestfallen after a 16 hour shift.
The first thing this 11 year old did was to PUT HER HANDS OVER BOTH HER EARS. Unacceptable. Annoying father was a big help as you can imagine. Why is it that as we approach closing time the IQ of the patients drops exponentially?
