WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY – “I do a medically-themed costume every year. This year was diplopia. People were loving it. The people who weren’t falling down were absolutely loving it.”
Nurse Marlenas, who works at Nofun Hospital, was recently reprimanded for her potentially questionable costume choice, following a literal domino-effect of passed-out patients who were admitted under the influence. There was also a resurgence of psychotic episodes, “but keep in mind that it was also a Thursday afternoon in a psych ER,” advised a psychiatrist, in a rare sighting during a crisis.
Many of these patients were 23-hour admissions, but became full admissions when Nurse Marlenas walked by causing a seizure. This created a lot of work and got a lot of people to complain.
“I wanted to get home to Trick-or-Treat but now I’m knee deep in Ativan up here!” Nurse Shannon complained.
Marlenas’ ER colleagues came to her defense in unison.
“How was she supposed to know if that chick had vertigo? Or if that schizophrenic was weaning off Haldol? Or if that schizophrenic was schizophrenic?” voiced a psych ER administrator.
“Man, if I were sober I would have loved to be messed with like that. Her double-vision costume was the closest I’ve gotten to that kind of fun since 8 bookies, 2 marriages, a real job, 12 steps, and 1 fun life ago,” expressed one patient, bringing into question the HIPAA policies of Nofun Hospital.
“Hospital rules are just getting ridiculous,” said a fellow nurse. “We had a lot of laughs on the unit when she went as an antidepressant a few years back. She had the childproof cap and everything – it was fantastic. We had to assure some patients that ‘No, your medication is not a nurse walking down the hall,’ and, ‘Yes, this will be funny to you one day.’ But what’s new?”
“People don’t realize how much her costumes actually help people,” continued the nurse. “It was really helpful for all of us when she went as the ICD-9. She sacrificed her entire Halloween to stand right by the medical coders all day, just so that they only had to defer to her dress for reference.”
“Ah, the psych ward on Halloween,” an art therapist said while exhaling an at-the-butt Newport, clearly dreading her likely volatile next group. “Best time of the year. For someone. Anyway, I gotta go tell my group to make a watercolor out of their worst childhood memory and teach them how to paper-mache their dreams.”
