A Hard Day's Night

Long night last night.  I arrived and only had 5 patients, but within a few hours the hallways were overloaded with the kinds of patients I have the hardest time dealing with.  We had a drug-seeking 20 something female crying for hours on end to get her dilaudid, a schizophrenic man who was impossible to deal with, a sweet but completely demented old lady dumped by her nursing home, and a diabetic from lockup who threw his urinal on the floor.  On top of all this, we had a new medicine intern doing his rotation in the ED, and he got hopelessly backed up leaving us stuck with these patients for hours.  Later in the evening, a car pulled up to the waiting room and dropped of an 18 year old gun shot victim who was pale as a sheet.  They cracked his chest, but ended up calling it, and I listened to the sister sob uncontrollably as she collapsed in the hallway behind the area I was working.  Things started to clear out after midnight, and the last couple hours weren't bad, but it ended up being one of those nights where everything piled up and felt a little overwhelming for a while.  Tonight should be better.