Life With a Nurse

Nurses have an image of being caring and gentle. But if you live with one, it's a different story.
My husband tells people the real deal. His mom is an Emergency Department nurse and his wife is an Oncology nurse. Compared to what nurses see at work, you're just whining. My mother-in-law says people come into the Emerg and say, "I'm dying!" She thinks (but doesn't say), "I've seen dying, and you're not it."
Nurses triage you. 1)Airway 2)Breathing 3)Circulation or 1)Breathing 2)Bleeding 3)Bones. If all those things are fine, you're met with a blank look.
When our kids wanted to skip school because they weren't feeling well, I was ruthless. "Unless I see a measurable sign like a fever or vomiting, etc., you're taking a Tylenol and going to school."
My husband was surprised at my apparent coldness, but I told him they were dealing with the Queen of Malingering. When I was a kid, I could invent any number of symptoms and even manufacture some signs, to get out of school. I had more tummy aches (read, belly-aching) and low-grade fevers than you'd think possible. We had a mercury thermometer. My mom would pop it in my mouth and leave the room. Did you know that friction raises the mercury? I would rub it on our couch briskly, until it was at a suitable temperature, shake it down if it was too high to correspond with how hot my forehead was (or wasn't), and enjoy my day off.
I know, I was a scoundrel.
School stressed me out, and my Mom was extra attentive to me when I was 'sick.'
Occasionally, I would get busted, like when I tried to heat the thermometer under hot water, and it would break. That happened twice.
When my husband had cancer, people said, "Oh, good, at least you have your own oncology nurse." Well, I wasn't so heartless, then. I did some things for him that I could do because I was a nurse, like flush and dress his PICC line or give him a Magnesium bolus I.V. if it was ordered, or know when to take him to Emerg. But in other ways, I didn't like it. He was my husband, not my patient. I was dealing with cancer patients at work and at home. My husband was bald and skinny like my patients and it was more than a little wierd. But we got through that time and now just look back on it as a bad memory. I wouldn't want to go through that again.
Anyway, I suppose having a nurse in the house has some benefits, even if it's only to teach the kids to tough it out and not hide from their problems.