"Spiderman"

So really, I need some time to reflect here. For some reason, the last month or so, I just have not loved being a nurse...it has just been a paycheck for me. So anyhow, I've decided every week I will post a story or two of a patient that has made me feel good to be a nurse. I have not written any of these stories down in the past, so it'll be good for that reason as well. I've never really been good about journaling. So lets start with "Spiderman."

As many of you know, my nursing career started off in hospice. For a while, I was assigned to be a case manager in Salt Lake, and more specifically a building called the Multi-Ethnic Senior Housing development across from the Delta Center. This is an apartment complex for very low income senior citizens.

"Spiderman" was the first person I took care of in this complex. He was suffering from end stage liver disease, and as many of you know, when your liver doesn't function as it should, toxins build up in your body and you can become somewhat confused. "Spiderman" was perfectly capable of taking care of himself other than occasionally he would have hallucinations and have some crazy ideas on life and why we were here on earth.

One day I pounded on his door with no answer. I finally let myself into his apartment. I went straight back to the bathroom because I heard water running. There he stood with the bathtub overflowing and a big spoon in his hand. I asked him what he was doing flooding his bathroom. He told me that baby spider eggs were coming out of his faucet. He made me walk in and sit down and look at these "spiderwebs" coming out of his faucet. I did not see these spiderwebs, nor the spiders infesting his apartment.

This went on for a few weeks, and thus he developed the nickname "Spiderman." He was obsessed. Everytime I'd walk in the door, he'd have a jar full of spider eggs or something crazy.

"Spiderman" was also an avid gambler. Wendover was his heaven. He must have spent quite a bit of money there in the past, because he was a Platinum member at the Rainbow Casino. He would invite me to go there with him from time to time, and offered to get me my own room (granted, that never happened!) One day he had me meet him as he was leaving for Wendover. Being a Platinum member, a limo would come and pick him up from this ghetto complex and take him out there and bring him back. He was sooo happy when I was there to see him off in his fancy limo.

With some coaxing, I finally talked him into going to a nursing home as he got more and more confused. Thank goodness we did. The night after I took him to the nursing home, he went unconcious and was taken to the hospital. If he were at that ghetto apartment complex, it may have been days before anyone would have found him (he had no family around, nor did he know where his children were). "Spiderman" died a few days later at the hospital.

He definitely never will be forgotten in my mind. Whether it be his crazy stories or the crazy religious literature he'd send me home with on each visit.