Organic Bitterroot Juice is not an Approved Treatment for HHNS

I don’t think any nursing text book will actually publish this but I think the biggest challenge to a new nurse is how to deal with stupidity in all of its jaw-dropping manifestations while keeping a straight face. The latest round of battles were fought with the family, specifically, the wife of a portly elderly man in rip roaring HHNS who decided that his poorly controlled diabetes could be ‘cured’ with organic foods and bitterroot juice. As expected, he stopped taking his oral anti-glycemics along with his BP meds. From the second I started to do my assessments and place lines in him while trying to make sure I heard the correct dosages from the doc, the wife kept badgering me with conspiracy theories about how ‘the suits’ are trying to create dependence on pharmaceuticals to maintain and increase profits. She also insisted on knowing whether or not the fluids and meds were organic. Judging from her ‘humph’, ‘sterile’ wasn’t a good enough answer for her. At one point, she started to sob hysterically about how we were polluting her beloved’s body with ‘chemicals of the apocalypse’. I wanted to stab her with a 10G filled with Ativan.

Now before I get flamed for hating on organic foods, let me explain something. I’m a HUGE proponent of nutrition as part of an overall healthy lifestyle. Eating wholesome foods (including some organic foods) on a consistent basis is going to be a lot better for one’s health than eating over-processed and fatty foods. However, when a medical condition starts to spiral out of control, some heavy duty medications are needed to help the person. Drinking organic bitterroot juice is not going to ‘fight the free sugar in the body’ when a patient is barely alert.

When I finally got a chance to ask the wife why she brought him to the ER if she didn’t believe in western medicine, she sheepishly replied, “His daughter is an internal medicine resident here and she said she’d call the police and have me thrown in jail if I didn’t bring him over”. I tried to explain to her about the importance of controlling his blood sugar and hypertension in conjunction with proper nutrition but she just accused me of not being as enlightened as her. My forehead hurt a lot from consistently being in high impact contact with the walls for the rest of the day.