Poppin Bottles!

Ok so finally I get to put some of these compassionate, all embracing, therapeutic communication skills I learned in  nursing school to practice. As a nurse, naturally, we are trained to be non judgmental regarding patient care. Thus far I have embraced these opportunities. My mentality was no different when I walked into my patients room and asked during the initial assessment "So, what underlying health issues do you have?" I then learned that my patient was a young homosexual, HIV positive African American male. I sighed inside with a smile and thought, 'this will be good for me, this is what I signed up for'. My patient was relatively compliant. He was funny and warm. Because his labs were "off", the physician ordered that we draw blood cultures from him. He was a hard stick, after eventually puncturing a vein, I held the butterfly needle in place with one hand and single handedly flipped off the top of the culture bottle ( they are similar in shape to a glass Coke bottle only a little smaller) in order to complete the task at hand as seamlessly as possible. Watching my handiwork, my patient gleefully shouted "Uhhh Ohhh, We poppin bottles up in here! This is where it's at". Thank you for this patient. I laugh every time I step into room #27