the heart knows what it wants

Summer melancholy and scorching heat

Summer melancholy and scorching heat

School For Dragon Babies (1884) + Seminary For More Advanced Dragon Babies (1892)

Anyway at the end of my shift, after a night of monitoring his GI bleed until he can get to surgery in the morning, his blood pressure is now waaaaaay down and his morning labs show his hematocrit and hemoglobin are only juuuust above the level where the results come in with two bold red exclamation points behind them. It’s a classic 6:30 am rapid response, complete with an order for a blood transfusion to start in the no man’s land of shift change. His numbers aren’t great, but he’s stable. I adjust the pulse ox on his finger to get a better read on his oxygen levels, and I go, “ooh man your hands are so cold. Do you feel cold?”

And he goes, “I don’t. Wait. I do. I feel cold in one spot.”

I ask, “where do you feel cold?” Some questions you know the answer to before you even ask. Anyway, would you believe it was his penis? But the thing is, there IS a potential medical crisis happening right now. We’re triaging it in the hopes it doesn’t become a crisis. I had this vision of a patient with a medical problem he isn’t able to articulate being continually blown off by staff who then dies of Penis Explosion. “My god, the signs were all there,” we would say to each other. “If only specifically female staff randomly answering his call light had examined his penis!”

So I snap my gloves on and am like, “alright. show me your penis.”

He’s happy to oblige. I give it a quick but thorough assessment. I’m checking shaft. I’m checking balls. I’m retracting foreskin. It’s all normal as hell. I tell him that. He goes, “but can you look?”

“I did look,” I said.

“Yeah but can you look with your hands?”

“A male nurse can.”

“That’s okay,” he said sadly. “You looked.”

I haven't seen anyone talking about this and just wanted to make a quick post on here.

Akihiro Miwa recently passed away peacefully june 20th, and was not only a drag queen and a queer icon, but also the japanese voice of Arceus in the movie Arceus and the jewel of life, as well as the witch from Howl's moving castle and Moro from Princess Mononoke.