Signs and Symptoms of Improvement

I had a patient the other day who has been in the hospital for a long time. Many nurses and doctors all around the cardiac floor know about him. I've heard many stories about caring for him and quirks about his personality-- his dry humor in particular.

I'll admit-- I was pretty excited to take care of him! Dry humor! How refreshing! And I enjoy caring for patients in his particular state-- over the big hurdles, and now just trying to figure out how to live at home with this new lifestyle. It's a lot of regaining strength, regaining skill, and (mostly) regaining confidence.

So I was pretty disappointed to find him in his present state-- which is to say... personality-less. He was so sleepy from all the medications he was taking that he literally didn't have the energy for personality. I worked with the doctors and his wife on brainstorming how to best strike a balance between controlling his pain without totally knocking him out. (This was for his benefit, not my selfish desire to experience his personality... no energy = no physical therapy, no appetite and therefore no nutritional intake, and no teaching about disease/meds/etc). This man needed to WAKE THE HECK UP! So we adjusted a few things in his medication regimen.

... And evidence of improvement promptly followed. How could I tell? This convo:
Me: Mr. X, I've got another pill for you to take. Do you feel like taking it now with water or with juice?
Mr. X: Is it my birth control pill?
Me: Yup. That's the one.
Mr. X: Good-- I don't want to get too far off my schedule.

Welcome back, Mr. X's personality :)