Ileus is everywhere this week. Also, Developmental disability plus mental illness equals mess

So, my patient got transferred. Turns out she and my cat have Ileus in common. Go figure. Hers is a blockage. The cat's was functional secondary to severe gastroenteritis. Either way, both were full of shit in a deadly kind of way. Good thing i can detect FoS from a mile off... lol. And good thing it was something that shows up on x-ray. The doctors can't argue with that.
Also, to continue a former rant, we have a plethora of the developmentally disabled on the unit lately. We are not trained for this, so it is really hard to do much but medicate them and move on. We have almost no staff, especially on the weekends, and our days are not structured enough for them. In any case, yesterday, the one with FAS and stuff was yelling like a howler monkey and spitting on her roommate's stuff. We moved the roommate. She got meds and then kept acting out. Yelling she wanted gum, snacks, kool-aid (the blue kind), etc. I walked over past her sitter, looked her in the eye and said, "If you sit down, calm down and act like an adult,we will consider giving you something. Until then, you get nothing. So, relax and listen to your staff." We had a staredown. I love those. She sat down. The end. Meanwhile, the autistic one down the hall was having some trouble with boundaries, but told me he loved me because i made sure he was getting pizza and chicken tenders for dinner. Up the hall, our other one, who has a huge abuse and depression history decided to tie something around his neck and get up on his toilet looking for a way to hang. This proved unsuccessful. Luckily, his roommate heard him, because we were between rounds and busy elsewhere.
In the end, everyone survived the weekend. We had one or two staff on the floor, which is far less than ideal, so groups didn't really happen. The addicts were jonesing and pissed off at everyone else (one threatened to strangle another patient and then asked to use the phone. Um, no, not right now. And, apologize.), while the psychotics were freaking out from all the commotion and running for the door.
A typical weekend. The one with ileus was kind of lucky she missed it. Me, i just keep wondering how other units manage as diverse a population as we get with an average of one floor worker per 6-9 patients. Between the addicts, psychotics, developmentally disabled and all the other flavors of the rainbow, it's a wonder everyone gets through it some days.
Back to my day off in the rain.
Later, minions.