Nursing Humor Quotes

Do you remember back at the hotel when you promised that if we lived, you’d get dressed up in a nurse’s outfit and give me a sponge bath?" asked Jace. "It was Simon who promised you the sponge bath." "As soon as I’m back on my feet, handsome," said Simon. "I knew we should have left you a rat.

My shoulder will never be the same. I expect you to nurse me back to health.

My shoulder will never be the same. I expect you to nurse me back to health.'-Jace 'Just break the door down, will you?'-Clary

Do you have a little white dress? I've had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy.

It's not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It's that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs.

Nick spoke for the first time. "Can I go to the nurse's office too?" Ms. Popplewell looked at him It obviously took her only one look to decide. "No." "I'm traumatized too," Nick claimed, his voice completely flat. "He's a delicate flower," Alan said under his breath.

What have you done to your hair?” Mom’s broken voice said, pinning me back to this tiny hospital room. “Holy shit!” Icka patted her head as if searching. “You think the nurse stole it? She looked shady.

Qualities of a Good Nurse: Go," I said. "1. Doesn't pun on your disability," Isaac said. "2. Gets blood on the first try," I said. "Seriously, that is huge. I mean is this my freaking arm or a dartboard? 3. No condescending voice." "How are you doing, sweetie?" I asked, cloying. "I'm going to stick you with a needle now. There might be a little ouchie." "Is my wittle fuffywump sickywicky?" he answered. "Most of them are good, actually. I just want to get the hell out of this place.

In fact that is why the lives of most women are so vaguely unsatisfactory. They are always doing secondary and menial things (that do not require all their gifts and ability) for others and never anything for themselves. Society and husbands praise them for it (when they get too miserable or have nervous breakdowns) though always a little perplexedly and half-heartedly and just to be consoling. The poor wives are reminded that that is just why wives are so splendid -- because they are so unselfish and self-sacrificing and that is the wonderful thing about them! But inwardly women know that something is wrong. They sense that if you are always doing something for others, like a servant or nurse, and never anything for yourself, you cannot do others any good. You make them physically more comfortable. But you cannot affect them spiritually in any way at all. For to teach, encourage, cheer up, console, amuse, stimulate or advise a husband or children or friends, you have to be something yourself. [...]"If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say; 'Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!' you would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

So the gods,” Moash said, nursing his own drink, “were pleased that you solved problems on your own . . . by going to other gods and begging them for help instead?” “Hush,” Rock said. “Is good story.

I was taken to an examining room where a big butch nurse practitioner came in and asked me if I was pregnant. “No way!” Was I sexually active? “Nope!” Had I ever been molested? “Well,” I said, trying to make a joke, “Oprah says the only answers to that question are ‘Yes’ and ‘I don’t remember.’ ” I laughed. We were having fun. The nurse looked at me, concerned/annoyed.

In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers--or should I say, nurses?--will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.

Now let me be clear; millions of women around the world nurse their children beautifully for years without giving anybody else a hard time about it. Teat Nazis are a solely western upper-middle-class phenomenon occurring when highly ambitious women experience deprivation from outside modes of achievement.

Nurse Duckett found Yossarian wonderful and was already trying to change him.

There is no real bravery in getting paid to save someone's life. However, there is a large amount of bravery in a nurse break dancing at the hospital's Christmas party.

I planned to reintroduce him to my friends lorazepam and oxycodone in a big, big way.

The most work he did on [the urinals] was to run a brush once or twice apiece, singing some song as loud as he could in time to the swishing brush; then he'd splash in some Clorox and he'd be through. ... And when the Big Nurse...came in to check McMurphy's cleaning assignment personally, she brought a little compact mirror and she held it under the rim of the bowls. She walked along shaking her head and saying, "Why, this is an outrage... an outrage..." at every bowl. McMurphy sidled right along beside her, winking down his nose and saying in answer, "No; that's a toilet bowl...a TOILET bowl.

In Plaster I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now: This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one, And the white person is certainly the superior one. She doesn't need food, she is one of the real saints. 
At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality -- She lay in bed with me like a dead body 
And I was scared, because she was shaped just the way I was 
 Only much whiter and unbreakable and with no complaints. I couldn't sleep for a week, she was so cold. I blamed her for everything, but she didn't answer. 
I couldn't understand her stupid behavior! 
When I hit her she held still, like a true pacifist. 
Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her: She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages. 

Without me, she wouldn't exist, so of course she was grateful. 
I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose 
Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain, And it was I who attracted everybody's attention, 
Not her whiteness and beauty, as I had at first supposed. 
I patronized her a little, and she lapped it up -- 
You could tell almost at once she had a slave mentality. 

I didn't mind her waiting on me, and she adored it. 
In the morning she woke me early, reflecting the sun 
From her amazingly white torso, and I couldn't help but notice 
Her tidiness and her calmness and her patience: She humored my weakness like the best of nurses, 
Holding my bones in place so they would mend properly. In time our relationship grew more intense. 

She stopped fitting me so closely and seemed offish. 
I felt her criticizing me in spite of herself, 
As if my habits offended her in some way. She let in the drafts and became more and more absent-minded. 
And my skin itched and flaked away in soft pieces 
Simply because she looked after me so badly. Then I saw what the trouble was: she thought she was immortal. She wanted to leave me, she thought she was superior, 
And I'd been keeping her in the dark, and she was resentful -- Wasting her days waiting on a half-corpse! 
And secretly she began to hope I'd die. Then she could cover my mouth and eyes, cover me entirely, 
And wear my painted face the way a mummy-case Wears the face of a pharaoh, though it's made of mud and water. 

I wasn't in any position to get rid of her. She'd supported me for so long I was quite limp -- I had forgotten how to walk or sit, So I was careful not to upset her in any way 
Or brag ahead of time how I'd avenge myself. Living with her was like living with my own coffin: Yet I still depended on her, though I did it regretfully. I used to think we might make a go of it together -- 
After all, it was a kind of marriage, being so close. 
Now I see it must be one or the other of us. She may be a saint, and I may be ugly and hairy, 
But she'll soon find out that that doesn't matter a bit. I'm collecting my strength; one day I shall manage without her, 
And she'll perish with emptiness then, and begin to miss me. --written 26 Feburary 1961

A camel in distress isn’t a shy creature. It doesn’t hang around in bars, nursing a solitary drink. It doesn’t phone up old friends and sob at them. It doesn’t mope, or write long soulful poems about Life and how dreadful it is when seen from a bedsitter. It doesn’t know what angst is.

I have a theory that as human beings get older, chemicals are released into the brain to prepare us for the end. Sort of like how the nurse lubes your ass up before the anus-cam. It makes the whole thing a lot easier to swallow. Easier, not enjoyable.

While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top,spreading his laugh across the water. Laughing at the girl,at the guys, at George,at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier and the bicycle rider and the service station guys and the five thousand houses and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He know's there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girl friend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

Seeing your mother naked is not something you easily recover from. Seeing your mother naked and jumping from one side of a king-sized bed to the other with a nurse's hat on while your father, who is also naked, is chasing her with a bandanna around his neck, is reason to put yourself up for adoption.

No one I met at this time -- doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients-- failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all.

My toes are a total wreck, my fingernails worse, and god knows my hair could use a registered nurse.

Sure, I said. But some people would ask, 'How can you expect others to replicate what you're doing here?' What would be your answer to that? He turned back and , smiling sweetly, said, Fuck you. Then, in a stentorian voice, he corrected himself: No. I would say, 'The objective is to inculcate in the doctors and nurses the spirit to dedicate themselves to the patients, and especially to having an outcome-oriented view of TB.' He was grinning, his face alight. He looked very young just then. In other words, 'Fuck you'.

I almost died. Fortunately, my mother was a nurse. She gave me a shot of something, and things turned out brilliantly.” Lucky me, I thought. Why couldn't his mother have been a telephone operator?

It was 1976. It was one of the darkest days of my life when that nurse, Mrs. Shimmer, pulled out a maxi pad that measured the width and depth of a mattress and showed us how to use it. It had a belt with it that looked like a slingshot that possessed the jaw-dropping potential to pop a man's head like a gourd. As she stretched the belt between the fingers of her two hands, Mrs. Shimmer told us becoming a woman was a magical and beautiful experience. I remember thinking to myself, You're damn right it had better be magic, because that's what it's going to take to get me to wear something like that, Tinkerbell! It looked like a saddle. Weighed as much as one, too. Some girls even cried. I didn't. I raised my hand. "Mrs. Shimmer," I asked the cautiously, "so what kind of security napkins do boys wear when their flower pollinates? Does it have a belt, too?" The room got quiet except for a bubbling round of giggles. "You haven't been paying attention, have you?" Mrs. Shimmer accused sharply. "Boys have stamens, and stamens do not require sanitary napkins. They require self control, but you'll learn that soon enough." I was certainly hoping my naughty bits (what Mrs. Shimmer explained to us was like the pistil of a flower) didn't get out of control, because I had no idea what to do if they did.

I am a leaf on the wind," Lou said, and the man-nurse said, "Dude, don't say that. I don't want to start crying on the job.

Humor and gossip provided a buffer against the suffering and grief that came with the job,

Shall we take these candles with us and sit for a while on the piazza, or do you want to go to bed and nurse that tooth?” Nurse that tooth.

Good. While you're playing nurse to Cole, tell us another story about Jack. We need to get your tether back." .... ''What should I talk about?'' Cole looked at me with a suddenly hopeful face. '' Was there ever a time when he didn't resemble a white knight? That would be great about now

I said that additionally, since I was planning to nurse, it be best if you were off the breast before I came back to work. My boss just looked at me dreamily and said, 'That won't be for sixty years, at least.

There was a rare quality about Nurse Grace’s smile. It was the knowledge that sooner or later her smile would inspire some witty observer to say something around the lines of, “Every time you do this, an angel farts”.

Jim Rosato was recently married, to a Greek nurse. Rosato was half Irish and half Italian, and there was a pool on at the 1st as to which of the two would arrive at work wearing the other's skin as a hat within the year.

Nurses are natural kleptos. You don’t want to be in a room without enough supplies, so every time you walk past the med-cart you pocket another saline flush. By the end of the shift you can look like a chipmunk if you’re not careful.

I have to admit," I said when he finished a lengthy discussion on the types of drivers, "I've been golfing and it's about the most boring thing I've ever done. Old men drive around in golf carts pretending they're sporty and getting grouchy if there's any noise. It's like the nursing-home Olympics." Nick's mouth dropped open. "It takes great athletic ability to know how to aim and drive the ball that far." "I get more exercise shopping at the mall," I joked. "I don't come home and tell everyone I won at shopping." Although those red shoes I got on sale the other day felt like a win.

My voice mail message says I work nights and sleep days. Everyone who knows me, knows this. And still, people who aren’t employed at the Nursing Office feel compelled to call me before three P.M. Certain people feel compelled to call me repeatedly, until I pick up—namely, dicks.

I'm going to need some kind of incentive program if I'm going to fork out this kind of money." I held back a laugh. "Incentive program, huh? So what's a stove worth these days?" "Depends. Do you have a nurse's uniform?" I raised a mischievous brow. "No, but I have a Princess Leia slave costume." A deep hunger flashed in his irises. It caused a warmth to flood my abdomen, and only partly because he knew what a Princess Leia slave costume consisted of.

I hope your mamma is quite well?" This unexpected inquiry put me into such a difficulty that I began saying in the absurdest way that if there had been any such person I had no doubt that she would have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and would have sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue.

But my head is splitting in two!" "It's doing a remarkably neat job since I can't see so much as a seam.

If nursing were easy, there wouldn't be so many helpful products.

If we wear our nursing covers backwards like capes, then everyone can see we're breastfeeding superheroes.

New Rule: Designers of women's Halloween costumes must admit that they're not even trying. They just choose a random profession, like nurse or referee, and put the word "sexy" in front of it, thereby perpetuating the idea of Halloween as a day when normally shy women release their inner sluts and parade around like vixens, and I just completely forgot what I was complaining about.

Are you ready to party?” Younique joked the first time she hooked me up to an intravenous morphine drip. Blessed be the excellent nurses with excellent senses of humor: They make everything better.

When the nurse leaves, Doctor Rose mouths, “Act like you’re in pain.” Then she mimics a painful expression in case Summer doesn’t understand. On the contrary, Summer’s an expert at interpreting body language and reading lips. It’s all thanks to her observant nature while enslaved on the Cosmos. Who else could tell that Peter’s discomfort is due to him wearing the same pair of underwear for a week straight? Ah, yes, she always knew when day six and seven approached. She watched the crew member with much amusement as he waddled, pulled wedgies, and scratched his bum relentlessly. Not that anyone else cared to know that little nugget of information.

When just a kid, moved back to Canada and looking for a taste of England, I’d picked up a book of my Gram’s, a dog-eared romance from the ’sixties about English hospital ‘sisters’ trying to get it on with the doctors, and thought it very shocking behaviour for nuns.

It was getting late, but sleep was the furthest thing from my racing mind. Apparently that was not the case for Mr. Sugar Buns. He lay back, closed his eyes, and threw an arm over his forehead, his favorite sleeping position. I could hardly have that. So, I crawled on top of him and started chest compressions. It seemed like the right thing to do. "What are you doing?" he asked without removing his arm. "Giving you CPR." I pressed into his chest, trying not to lose count. Wearing a red-and-black football jersey and boxers that read, DRIVERS WANTED. SEE INSIDE FOR DETAILS, I'd straddled him and now worked furiously to save his life, my focus like that of a seasoned trauma nurse. Or a seasoned pot roast. It was hard to say. "I'm not sure I'm in the market," he said, his voice smooth and filled with a humor I found appalling. He clearly didn't appreciate my dedication. "Damn it, man! I'm trying to save your life! Don't interrupt." A sensuous grin slid across his face. He tucked his arms behind his head while I worked. I finished my count, leaned down, put my lips on his, and blew. He laughed softly, the sound rumbling from his chest, deep and sexy, as he took my breath into his lungs. That part down, I went back to counting chest compressions. "Don't you die on me!" And praying. After another round, he asked, "Am I going to make it?" "It's touch-and-go. I'm going to have to bring out the defibrillator." "We have a defibrillator?" he asked, quirking a brow, clearly impressed. I reached for my phone. "I have an app. Hold on." As I punched buttons, I realized a major flaw in my plan. I needed a second phone. I could hardly shock him with only one paddle. I reached over and grabbed his phone as well. Started punching buttons. Rolled my eyes. "You don't have the app," I said from between clenched teeth. "I had no idea smartphones were so versatile." "I'll just have to download it. It'll just take a sec." "Do I have that long?" Humor sparkled in his eyes as he waited for me to find the app. I'd forgotten the name of it, so I had to go back to my phone, then back to his, then do a search, then download, then install it, all while my patient lay dying. Did no one understand that seconds counted? "Got it!" I said at last. I pressed one phone to his chest and one to the side of his rib cage like they did in the movies, and yelled, "Clear!" Granted, I didn't get off him or anything as the electrical charge riddled his body, slammed his heart into action, and probably scorched his skin. Or that was my hope, anyway. He handled it well. One corner of his mouth twitched, but that was about it. He was such a trouper. After two more jolts of electricity--it had to be done--I leaned forward and pressed my fingertips to his throat. "Well?" he asked after a tense moment. I released a ragged sigh of relief,and my shoulders fell forward in exhaustion. "You're going to be okay, Mr. Farrow." Without warning, my patient pulled me into his arms and rolled me over, pinning me to the bed with his considerable weight and burying his face in my hair. It was a miracle!

I sank into the chair and checked to see if the charge nurse could see me—not if I didn’t lean out too far. The night was looking up! Two patients who ought to sleep all night long, and an Internet connection. How lucky was I? Pretty damn lucky, at least until someone needed a diaper change.

Every year when I take my girls in for their yearly checkup, the nurse hands me a questionnaire about their upbringing. It asks how many fruits and vegetables they eat, how much TV they watch, how much I read to them, how much physical exercise they get, etc. Each time I see the questionnaire, I laugh and think, “Yeah. I’m not answering any of these questions honestly.

Granny has had nine different nurses since she was admitted. Seven of these she refused to cooperate with, and two refused to cooperate with her, one of them because Granny said he had a “nice ass.” Granny insists it was a compliment to his ass, not to him, and he shouldn’t make such a fuss about it. Then Mum told Elsa to put on her headphones, but Elsa still heard their argument about the difference between “sexual harassment” and “basic appreciation of a perfectly splendid ass.

He could barely open his eyes. 'Hello? You there, God? It's me Judy.' 'Kipling. Can you hear me?' 'I'd like to order room service, please. I'd like the spaghetti Bolognese.' He rolled off the raft into the pool, sinking. I pulled off my shoes and raincoat and dove after him, finding him drifting motionless along the bottom. Madly I kicked back to the surface. 'Kipling! Can you hear me?" "'It's the final countdown,'" He sang, his eyes slits. I was the lone nurse working in a madhouse.

I asked a nurse for dental floss and was told that I am not allowed dental floss. Apparently dental floss can be used for several functions besides the maintenance of healthy gums. These apparently include self-harm. When instructed that I was not permitted dental floss because of “risks it raises associated with suicide” I envisioned a noose made entirely of floss. Realizing such a noose would require a dramatic amount of floss to effectively uphold any human person, I brought it to the attention of a nurse. “I don’t believe that even the most practiced engineers could fashion any functioning noose out of a single container of floss,” I say. “People use it to cut themselves,” she explained. “Oh,” I replied. I had just about come to terms with the no-floss rule until the hospital, in a flagrant display of disrespect for its patients, chose to serve us corn on the cob for lunch. “Are you aware that we are not allowed dental floss?” I yelled at the nurse bringing me the corn. I then threw the corn violently from my plate into the nearest wall.

Saturday, July 2, 2016 1:51 PM "One ancient retired Air Force nurse does nothing but scream 'Help!' for hours at a time from a second-story window. Since the Ennet House residents are drilled in a Boston-AA recovery program that places great emphasis on 'Asking For Help,' the retired shrieking Air Force nurse is the object of a certain grim amusement, sometimes. Not six weeks ago, a huge stolen HELP WANTED sign was found attached to #4's siding right below the retired shrieking nurse's window, and #4's director was less than amused, …

He did not find out until the wedding that she was simple. Her father had been scrupulous about keeping her veiled until the ceremony, and my father had humored him. If she was ugly, there were always slave girls and serving boys. When at last they pulled off the veil, they say my mother smiled. That is how they knew she was quite stupid. Brides did not smile. When I was delivered, a boy, he plucked me from her arms and handed me to a nurse. In pity, the midwife gave my mother a pillow to hold instead of me. My mother hugged it. She did not seem to notice a change had been made.

The Nurse's Song This mighty man of whom I sing, The greatest of them all, Was once a teeny little thing, Just eighteen inches tall. I knew him as a tiny tot, I nursed him on my knee. I used to sit him on the pot And wait for him to wee. I always washed between his toes, And cut his little nails. I brushed his hair and wiped his nose And weighed him on the scales. Through happy childhood days he strayed, As all nice children should. I smacked him when he disobeyed, And stopped when he was good. It soon began to dawn on me He wasn't very bright, Because when he was twenty-three He couldn't read or write. "What shall we do?" his parents sob. "The boy has got the vapors! He couldn't even get a job Delivering the papers!" "Ah-ha," I said, "this little clot Could be a politician." "Nanny," he cried, "Oh Nanny, what A super proposition!" "Okay," I said, "let's learn and note The art of politics. Let's teach you how to miss the boat And how to drop some bricks, And how to win the people's vote And lots of other tricks. Let's learn to make a speech a day Upon the T.V. screen, In which you never never say Exactly what you mean. And most important, by the way, In not to let your teeth decay, And keep your fingers clean." And now that I am eighty nine, It's too late to repent. The fault was mine the little swine Became the President.

A voice: “My goodness, Nurse Jones.” I look up, startled. Simon’s in the doorway, leaning against the frame, smiling. No doubt I’m quite the sight in my bloody, sexy nurse’s outfit, sitting on a bed next to a tied-up, taped-up target. “Oh, please.” I collect my purse, my phone and my stun gun and walk around the bed. Simon’s smile reaches deep into his dark blue eyes. He has a long face and delicate features for a man. I grab the sleeve of his black jacket and pull him into the outer room. “What the fuck are you wearing? You look insane,” he says. “This? This is the creepy outfit the Alchemist put me in after he kidnapped me.” Simon stops smiling. “Are you okay?” “Yeah.

She had humor and common sense and she soon knew what she must do. She must have done with her dream world, laugh at the ridiculous Mary who had lived in it and get to know the Mary whom she did not want to know, find out what she was like and what her prospects were. It sounded an easy program but she found it a grueling one. The phantasy world, she discovered, had tentacles like an octopus and cannot be escaped without mortal combat, and when at last her strong will had won the battle it seemed as though she were living in a vacuum, so little had the real world to offer the shy, frustrated, unattractive girl who was the Mary she must live with until she died. But free of the tentacles she was able now to sum up the situation with accuracy. She would not marry and being a gentlewoman no other career was open to her. She was not gifted in any way and she would never be strong and probably never free from pain. She was not a favorite with either of her parents, both of whom were vaguely ashamed of having produced so unattractive a child, and yet she was the one who would have to stay at home with them. The prospect was one of lifelong boredom and seemed to her as bleak as the cold winds that swept across the fens, even at times as terrible as the great Cathedral in whose shadow she must live and die. For at that time she did not love the Cathedral and in her phantasy life the city had merely been the hub from which her radiant dreams stretched out to the wide wheel of the world. What should she do? Her question was not a cry of despair but a genuine and honest with to know. She never knew what put it into her head that she, unloved, should love. Religion for her parents, and therefore for their children, was not much more than a formality and it had not occurred to her to pray about her problem, and yet from somewhere the idea came as though in answer to her question, and sitting in Blanche's Bower with the cat she dispassionately considered it. Could mere loving be a life's work? Could it be a career like marriage or nursing the sick or going on the stage? Could it be adventure?

[The presidential candidate] was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his “ideas” almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that “of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store. Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. (...) He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an “aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts—figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect.

Any chance you might be pregnant?” I knew that wasn’t it. “Well, it wouldn’t be impossible,” I humored him. “But I know that’s not what it is. I got this same thing on our honeymoon, just as soon as we got to Australia. It’s definitely some kind of vertigo/inner ear thing.” I swallowed hard, wishing I’d brought along some Froot Loops. “When was your wedding?” he asked, looking at the calendar on the wall of the exam room. “September twenty-first,” I answered. “But again…I know it’s my ears.” “Well, let’s just rule it out,” the doctor said. “I’ll send the nurse in here in a minute, okay?” Waste of time, I thought. “Okay, but…do you think there’s anything we can do about my ears?” I really didn’t want to feel this way anymore. “Marcy will be in here in just a second,” he repeated. He wasn’t acknowledging my self-diagnosis at all. What kind of doctor is this?

So,” Cole says. “Did you decide on a name yet?” Before I can answer, everyone starts speaking at once. “You should name him Jace after your favorite brother.” Cole shoots Jace a dirty look. “You should name him Cole after your good-looking brother.” Dylan gives me a rueful grin. “Dylan is a great boy’s name, too. Just saying.” Sawyer nudges her in the ribs. “So is Sawyer.” Oakley and I exchange a humorous glance. “Okay,” Oakley declares, rubbing his hands together. “The bidding starts at fifty dollars.” After pulling out his wallet, Jace slaps some money on the tray table. “I got a hundred for Jace, right here.” Cole shoves some bills into Oakley’s hands. “I got two hundred for Cole.” Wayne reaches inside his pocket. “Do you take credit?” “Sorry, Pops. Cash only.” Fanning the money in his hand, Oakley looks around the room. “Any more takers?” Dylan pulls some money out of her bra. “Yup. Four hundred for Dylan.” “Well, I didn’t bring my checkbook with me.” Smiling smugly, Sawyer pats her stomach. “But we are having a girl and a boy. Perhaps we can work out an exchange.” Jace glowers. “That’s not fair.” “It’s called bartering, bro.” Reaching over, Cole high-fives his wife. “And that right there is just one reason I love you so much, Bible Thumper. You’re so fucking smart.” Oakley’s shoveling the money into his wallet when a nurse waltzes in. “Hi, Bianca. I’m the lactation nurse. Do you think you’re ready to try breastfeeding yet?” Jace makes a face. “And that’s my cue to leave.” Cole shakes his head. “Not me. I’m not leaving until I know my nephew’s name is Cole.” I’m shifting to get into a more comfortable position when I notice the blue, green, orange, and purple butterflies scattered across the nurse’s scrubs. My chest swells and I look over at Oakley who’s smiling. There’s only one name that feels right. “Liam,” we whisper at the same time.

I’m really enjoying my solitude after feeling trapped by my family, friends and boyfriend. Just then I feel like making a resolution. A new year began six months ago but I feel like the time for change is now. No more whining about my pathetic life. I am going to change my life this very minute. Feeling as empowered as I felt when I read The Secret, I turn to reenter the hall. I know what I’ll do! Instead of listing all the things I’m going to do from this moment on, I’m going to list all the things I’m never going to do! I’ve always been unconventional (too unconventional if you ask my parents but I’ll save that account for later). I mentally begin to make my list of nevers. -I am never going to marry for money like Natasha just did. -I am never going to doubt my abilities again. -I am never going to… as I try to decide exactly what to resolve I spot an older lady wearing a bright red velvet churidar kurta. Yuck! I immediately know what my next resolution will be; I will never wear velvet. Even if it does become the most fashionable fabric ever (a highly unlikely phenomenon) I am quite enjoying my resolution making and am deciding what to resolve next when I notice Az and Raghav holding hands and smiling at each other. In that moment I know what my biggest resolve should be. -I will never have feelings for my best friend’s boyfriend. Or for any friend’s boyfriend, for that matter. That’s four resolutions down. Six more to go? Why not? It is 2012, after all. If the world really does end this year, at least I’ll go down knowing I completed ten resolutions. I don’t need to look too far to find my next resolution. Standing a few centimetres away, looking extremely uncomfortable as Rags and Az get more oblivious of his existence, is Deepak. -I will never stay in a relationship with someone I don’t love, I vow. Looking for inspiration for my next five resolutions, I try to observe everyone in the room. What catches my eye next is my cousin Mishka giggling uncontrollably while failing miserably at walking in a straight line. Why do people get completely trashed in public? It’s just so embarrassing and totally not worth it when you’re nursing a hangover the next day. I recoil as memories of a not so long ago night come rushing back to me. I still don’t know exactly what happened that night but the fragments that I do remember go something like this; dropping my Blackberry in the loo, picking it up and wiping it with my new Mango dress, falling flat on my face in the middle of the club twice, breaking my Nine West heels, kissing an ugly stranger (Az insists he was a drug dealer but I think she just says that to freak me out) at the bar and throwing up on the Bandra-Worli sea link from Az’s car. -I will never put myself in an embarrassing situation like that again. Ever. I usually vow to never drink so much when I’m lying in bed with a hangover the next day (just like 99% of the world) but this time I’m going to stick to my resolution. What should my next resolution be?

Yet the homogeneity of contemporary humanity is most apparent when it comes to our view of the natural world and of the human body. If you fell sick a thousand years ago, it mattered a great deal where you lived. In Europe, the resident priest would probably tell you that you had made God angry and that in order to regain your health you should donate something to the church, make a pilgrimage to a sacred site, and pray fervently for God’s forgiveness. Alternatively, the village witch might explain that a demon had possessed you and that she could cast it out using song, dance, and the blood of a black cockerel. In the Middle East, doctors brought up on classical traditions might explain that your four bodily humors were out of balance and that you should harmonize them with a proper diet and foul-smelling potions. In India, Ayurvedic experts would offer their own theories concerning the balance between the three bodily elements known as doshas and recommend a treatment of herbs, massages, and yoga postures. Chinese physicians, Siberian shamans, African witch doctors, Amerindian medicine men—every empire, kingdom, and tribe had its own traditions and experts, each espousing different views about the human body and the nature of sickness, and each offering their own cornucopia of rituals, concoctions, and cures. Some of them worked surprisingly well, whereas others were little short of a death sentence. The only thing that united European, Chinese, African, and American medical practices was that everywhere at least a third of all children died before reaching adulthood, and average life expectancy was far below fifty.14 Today, if you happen to be sick, it makes much less difference where you live. In Toronto, Tokyo, Tehran, or Tel Aviv, you will be taken to similar-looking hospitals, where you will meet doctors in white coats who learned the same scientific theories in the same medical colleges. They will follow identical protocols and use identical tests to reach very similar diagnoses. They will then dispense the same medicines produced by the same international drug companies. There are still some minor cultural differences, but Canadian, Japanese, Iranian, and Israeli physicians hold much the same views about the human body and human diseases. After the Islamic State captured Raqqa and Mosul, it did not tear down the local hospitals. Rather, it launched an appeal to Muslim doctors and nurses throughout the world to volunteer their services there.15 Presumably even Islamist doctors and nurses believe that the body is made of cells, that diseases are caused by pathogens, and that antibiotics kill bacteria.

Eight Bells: Robert J. Kane ‘55D died June 3, 2017, in Palm Harbor, Florida. He came to MMA by way of Boston College. Bob or “Killer,” as he was affectionately known, was an independent and eccentric soul, enjoying the freedom of life. After a career at sea as an Officer in the U.S. Navy and in the Merchant Marine he retired to an adventurous single life living with his two dogs in a mobile home, which had originally been a “Yellow School Bus.” He loved watching the races at Daytona, Florida, telling stories about his interesting deeds about flying groceries to exotic Caribbean Islands, and misdeeds with mysterious ladies he had known. For years he spent his summers touring Canada and his winters appreciating the more temperate weather at Fort De Soto in St. Petersburg, Florida…. Enjoying life in the shadow of the Sunshine Bridge, Bob had an artistic flare, a positive attitude and a quick sense of humor. Not having a family, few people were aware that he became crippled by a hip replacement operation gone bad at the Bay Pines VA Hospital. His condition became so bad that he could hardly get around, but he remained in good spirits until he suffered a totally debilitating stroke. For the past 6 years Bob spent his time at various Florida Assisted Living Facilities, Nursing Homes and Palliative Care Hospitals. His end came when he finally wound up as a terminal patient at the Hospice Facility in Palm Harbor, Florida. Bob was 86 years old when he passed. He will be missed….

Doremus Jessup, so inconspicuous an observer, watching Senator Windrip from so humble a Boeotia, could not explain his power of bewitching large audiences. The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store. Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. Seven years before his present credo—derived from Lee Sarason, Hitler, Gottfried Feder, Rocco, and probably the revue Of Thee I Sing—little Buzz, back home, had advocated nothing more revolutionary than better beef stew in the county poor-farms, and plenty of graft for loyal machine politicians, with jobs for their brothers-in-law, nephews, law partners, and creditors. Doremus had never heard Windrip during one of his orgasms of oratory, but he had been told by political reporters that under the spell you thought Windrip was Plato, but that on the way home you could not remember anything he had said. There were two things, they told Doremus, that distinguished this prairie Demosthenes. He was an actor of genius. There was no more overwhelming actor on the stage, in the motion pictures, nor even in the pulpit. He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts—figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect. But below this surface stagecraft was his uncommon natural ability to be authentically excited by and with his audience, and they by and with him. He could dramatize his assertion that he was neither a Nazi nor a Fascist but a Democrat—a homespun Jeffersonian-Lincolnian-Clevelandian-Wilsonian Democrat—and (sans scenery and costume) make you see him veritably defending the Capitol against barbarian hordes, the while he innocently presented as his own warm-hearted Democratic inventions, every anti-libertarian, anti-Semitic madness of Europe. Aside from his dramatic glory, Buzz Windrip was a Professional Common Man. Oh, he was common enough. He had every prejudice and aspiration of every American Common Man. He believed in the desirability and therefore the sanctity of thick buckwheat cakes with adulterated maple syrup, in rubber trays for the ice cubes in his electric refrigerator, in the especial nobility of dogs, all dogs, in the oracles of S. Parkes Cadman, in being chummy with all waitresses at all junction lunch rooms, and in Henry Ford (when he became President, he exulted, maybe he could get Mr. Ford to come to supper at the White House), and the superiority of anyone who possessed a million dollars. He regarded spats, walking sticks, caviar, titles, tea-drinking, poetry not daily syndicated in newspapers and all foreigners, possibly excepting the British, as degenerate. But he was the Common Man twenty-times-magnified by his oratory, so that while the other Commoners could understand his every purpose, which was exactly the same as their own, they saw him towering among them, and they raised hands to him in worship.

Raw humor is a quality issue that has to be dealt with; the quality of the humor, or a metabolite in our modern biology, is an important factor in health preservation, a fact that is rarely given attention when merely measuring the quantity of a biomolecule. In a Western-type clinical environment, the physician or nurse may not be aware of this issue since all blood indicators they deal with are quantitative and only measured in the blood, the assessment and treatment is based on whether the test results show above or below the normal range. According to Avicenna, in many instances the raw humor may be higher in concentration within the organ, and not within the vessels, and its effect is local rather than systemic.

From the moment any of us utter our first goo-goo's and ga-ga's, we are as good as gone. At that precise instant, any possibility that It will ever arise in us is irrevocably crushed. If any proof is needed, consider how immune to strong emotion our society has grown. At your next visit to the local funeral parlor, glance at the mourners, who can more properly be defined as spectators. Notice how they smell, how well-dressed and dignified they are. This is because viewing the dead has become overwhelmingly acceptable as a social function. Yes, even the corpse is part of the festivities, lying there as the guest of honor, laid out in his best clothes, pumped full of chemicals and smeared with make-up as the patrons file by and nurse their long buried consciences with silk handkerchiefs.

HUMOR IS POWER." ~ Karyn Buxman, RN, neurohumorist __________________     Chapter 1 What’s NOT So Funny About Nursing?     12 hour shifts . . . Doctors with attitude . . . Cranky co-workers . . . Frequent flyers . . . Non-compliant patients . . . Frustrated administrators . . . Antibiotic-resistant superbugs . . . Healthcare reform . . . Disorganized supply closets . . . Dwindling budgets . . . Increasing workloads . . . Bad hospital coffee.

I joked with the anesthesiologist for a while, and then a nurse handed me a baby.

The Deaf and Dumb Mother.—The late Countess of Orkney, who died at an advanced age, was deaf and dumb, and was married in 1753 by signs. She resided with her husband at his seat, Rostellan, near Cork. Shortly after the birth of her first child, the nurse saw the mother cautiously approach the cradle in which the infant lay asleep, evidently full of some deep design. The Countess, having first assured herself that her babe was fast asleep, took from under her shawl a large stone, which had purposely been concealed there, and, to the utter horror of the nurse, who largely shared the popular notion that all dumb persons are possessed of peculiar cunning and malignity, raised it up, as if to enable her to dash it down with greater force. Before the nurse could interpose to prevent what she believed would bring certain death to the sleeping and unconscious child, the dreadful stone was flung, not at the cradle, however, but upon the ground, and fell with great violence. The noise awakened the child. The Countess was overjoyed, and, in the fulness of a mother's heart, she fell upon her knees to express her thankfulness that her beloved infant possessed a blessing denied to herself—the sense of hearing. This lady often gave similar indications of superior intelligence, though we can believe that few of them equalled the present in interest. Filial

I closed my eyes, laid my head back on the pillow, and savored my first moments alone with my child. Seconds later, the door to my room opened and my brother-in-law, Tim, walked in. He’d just finished working a huge load of cattle. Marlboro Man would have been, too, if I hadn’t gone into labor the night before. “Hey!” Tim said enthusiastically. “How’s it going?” I yanked the bedsheet far enough north to cover the baby’s head and my exposed breast; as much as I loved my new brother-in-law, I just couldn’t see myself being that open with him. He caught on immediately. “Oops--did I come at a bad time?” Tim asked, a deer caught in the headlights. “You just missed your brother,” I said. The baby’s lips fell off my nipple and she rooted around and tried to find it again. I tried to act like nothing was happening under the covers. “No kidding?” Tim asked, looking nervously around the room. “Oh, I should have called first.” “Come on in,” I said, sitting up in the bed as tall as I could. The epidural had definitely worn off. My bottom was beginning to throb. “How’s the baby?” he asked, wanting to look but unsure if he should look in her direction. “She’s great,” I answered, pulling the little one out from under the covers. I prayed I could get my nipple quickly tucked away without incident. Tim smiled as he regarded his new niece. “She’s so cute,” he said tenderly. “Can I hold her?” He reached out his arms like a child wanting to hold a puppy. “Sure,” I said, handing her over, my bottom stinging by now. All I could think about was getting in the shower and spraying it with the nozzle I’d noticed earlier in the day when the nurse escorted me to the bathroom. I’d started obsessing over it, in fact. The nozzle was all I could think about. Tim seemed as surprised at the baby’s gender as his brother had been. “I was shocked when I heard!” he said, looking at me with a smile. I laughed, imagining what Marlboro Man’s dad might be thinking. That the first grandchild in such a male-dominated ranching family turned out to be a girl was becoming more humorous to me each minute. This was going to be an adventure.

Go hug a nursing mom -- but not too hard. Her boobs may hurt.

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can’t help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn’t four years anymore. It’s a number I wouldn’t even be able to say. It feels like four years. It’s trapped in my tender memory as four years. It’s been an age. Multiple ages. It’s been lifetimes; every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It’s been so long. Why am I alone?

Im my native country I successfully avoided seeing the Grand Canyon; I avoided the Painted Desert, my nurse did not manage to drag me to Niagara. With all respect to Alexander von Humboldt, I will not get myself off this contraption to look at a tree however interesting.

I nurse the small fish on my plate. Cassius is already finished with his, always a man of appetites. I'm more practiced than he in the art of self-deprivation at the dinner table, doesn't feel so long ago that I was a knobby-kneed boy sitting at my grandmother's dinner table when she turned her long neck to me and peered down that Peregrine nose, and in a kindly manner, inquired if I intend to sleep out in the gutter instead of in my bed chamber, because by virtue of the fact that I'd eaten three whole tarts, I'd clearly abdicated being a man in favor of being a little pig.

I suggested Mrs. Goad remarry; she snorted and said whenever a man wants to marry an old woman he is either looking for a nurse or a purse and she was providing neither,

She and Dora are good friends, aren't they? They used to be, as far as I remember." "They used to be; that's what makes them all the more bitter now. Each feels that she has nursed a viper in her bosom. Nothing fans the flame of human resentment so much as the discovery that one's bosom has been utilized as a snake sanatorium.

Becoming a woman means losing a body almost indistinguishable from a boy’s in terms of strength and solidity and growing into one that is softer, more sexually inviting, but more vulnerable, too. For the first few years, you can feel like a hermit crab who has outgrown a shell it must then abandon, blindly scurrying for another. The armor you eventually take up is of a different sort. You can no longer credibly challenge the boys to an arm-wrestling match and expect to win. Forced to rely on subtler talents, you develop them. You learn to strike with a glance; you learn to soothe with one, too. If done right, you fill your quiver with words, humor, intrigue, and emotion. You’ll spend a lifetime learning when to deploy each to greatest effect—and when to forbear and offer none. But for Pete’s sake, whatever type of women young girls become, they should all listen to feminists of a prior era and stop taking sex stereotypes seriously. A young woman can be an astronaut or a nurse; a girl can play with trucks or with dolls. And she may find herself attracted to men or to other women. None of that makes her any less of a girl or any less suited to womanhood. Young women have more educational and career options today than they ever have. Remember to tell your daughter that. Tell her also that a woman’s most unique capacity—childbirth—is perhaps life’s greatest blessing. But whatever else you teach your daughter, remember to include something more. Tell her because the culture so often denies it. Tell her because people will try to make a victim of her. Tell her because it’s natural to doubt. Most of all, tell her because it’s true. She’s lucky. She’s special. She was born a girl. And being a woman is a gift, containing far too many joys to pass up.

What did they tell you about Dylar?” “Never heard of it.” “Did you ask them to look it up? They must have lists of the most recent medications. Supplements, updates.” “They looked. It’s not on any list.” “Unlisted,” I said. “We’ll have to call her doctor.” “I’ll call him now. I’ll call him at home.” “Surprise him,” she said, with a certain ruthlessness. “If I get him at home, he won’t be screened by an answering service, a receptionist, a nurse, the young and good-humored doctor who shares his suite of offices and whose role in life is to treat the established doctor’s rejects. Once you’re shunted from the older doctor to the younger doctor, it means that you and your disease are second-rate.” “Call him at home,” she said. “Wake him up. Trick him into telling us what we want to know.” The only phone was in the kitchen. I ambled down the hall, glancing into our bedroom to make sure Babette was still there, ironing blouses and listening to a call-in show on the radio, a form of entertainment she’d recently become addicted to. I went down to the kitchen, found the doctor’s name in the phone book and dialed his home number.

Buddy wrote that he was probably falling in love with a nurse who also had TB, but his mother had rented a cottage in the Adirondacks for the month of July, and if I came along with her, he might well find his feeling for the nurse was a mere infatuation. I snatched up a pencil and crossed out Buddy’s message. Then I turned the letter paper over and on the opposite side wrote that I was engaged to a simultaneous interpreter and never wanted to see Buddy again as I did not want to give my children a hypocrite for a father.

Maureen is a sweet lady." "Who's completely out of her depth as matron here. I don't know how she passed her nursing exams let alone become the head honcho. She almost killed me not long after I arrived here." "You're exaggerating." "I am not," Dora said, indignantly, "Moron shoved one of my suppositories down my throat at medicine time. I nearly choked to death. She was too busy concentrating on getting an aspirin up my arse to notice me turning blue.

A throat cleared. “Earth to Arik. Come in, boss.” With brows drawn, Arik glared at his beta. “What?” “I was asking what had your boxers in a knot.” “You know I go commando.” “Usually, but something obviously has your panties in a twist. Spill.” Oh, he spilled all right. Arik yanked off the hat and flung it against the wall and then swiveled his chair to get it over with. Indrawn breath. A snicker. A full-on guffaw. Arik swirled again and tossed deadly visual daggers at his second. “I fail to see the humor in my butchered mane.” “Dude. Have you seen it? It is bad. What did you do to piss Dominic off? Seduce one of his daughters?” “Actually one of his granddaughters did this to me!” He couldn’t help the incredulous note. The effrontery of the act still got to him. A thump and a shake of the wall as Hayder hit it, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “A girl did that to you?” His beta convulsed with mirth, not at all daunted by Arik’s glower and tapping fingers. “This is not amusing.” “Oh, come on, dude. Of all the people to have a hair mishap, you are the worst.” “I look like an idiot.” “Only because you didn’t let her finish hacking the rest off.” His fingers froze as he took his gaze off the screen for a moment to address the travesty. “Cut off my mane?” Was his beta delusional? “Well, yeah. You know, to even it out so it doesn’t show.” A growl rumbled forth, more beast than man, his lion not at all on board with any more trimming. “Okay, if you’re not keen on that, then what about a hair weave? Maybe we could get you a platinum one, or pink for contrast since you’re being such a prissy princess about it.” That did it. A lion could take only so much. Arik dove over his desk and tackled his beta. Over they went with a thump and a tangle of limbs. As he was slamming Hayder’s head off the floor, snarling, “Take it back!” to his beta’s chortled, “We’ll get your nails done while they’re weaving,” Leo strode in. A giant of a man, he didn’t even have to strain as he grabbed them each by a shoulder and yanked them apart. But he didn’t stop there. He slammed their heads together before shoving them down. Arik and Hayder sat on the carpeted floor, nursing robin’s eggs, united in their glare for the pride’s omega, also known as the peacemaker. Of course, Leo’s version of peace wasn’t always gentle, which was why he was perfect for the pride. The behemoth with the mellow outlook on life took a seat in a chair, which groaned ominously. “You do know that the staff two floors down can hear the pair of you acting like ill-behaved cubs.” “He started it!” Arik stabbed a finger at his beta. He had no problem assigning blame. Delegation was something an alpha did well. Hayder didn’t even deny his guilt. “I did. But can you blame me? He was pissing and moaning about this precious mane. All I did was offer a solution, and he took offense.” “I assume we’re talking about the missing chunk of hair on our esteemed leader’s head?” Leo shook his neatly trimmed dark crown. “I keep telling you that vanity is your weakness.” “And chocolate chip ice cream is yours. We all have our vices,” Arik grumbled as he heaved himself off the floor and into his leather-padded seat— with built-in heating pad and massager because a man in his position did enjoy his luxuries. “My vice is beautiful women,” Hayder announced with a grin, adopting a lounging pose on the floor. Felines were king when it came to acting as if embarrassing positions weren’t accidental at all. “Don’t talk to me about women right now. I’m still angry at the one who did this.” “I think I’m missing a key point,” Leo stated. It didn’t take long to bring Leo up to speed. To his credit, the pride omega didn’t laugh— long.

The TV shouted an old black-and-white film he didn't recognize, wheelchairs facing it like church pews.