When You're Afraid of Blood...

I recently had a patient brought to me from a nursing home for hip pain. The patient was quite heavy and because of the hip pain, which turned out to be broken, he was on the immobile side of mobility. Repositioning him was ideally a four person job but during a busy as hell day shift, I had to make do with only one nurse and some creative stretcher maneuvering. However, his son came in during the middle of the day to help out. This guy was amazing. He was a freaking bodybuilder (!!!!!) so he was a little stronger than me. He helped out with repositioning, changing, feeding and he was a very calming presence for his dad. So it came as a little surprise when he flat out refused to hold down his dad’s arm when I needed to resite an IV that went bad. “Uhh umm uhhh okay?” was my reply to his refusal. “Miss I’m like really afraid of blood! It’s just… so… so… RED!” I respect that so I told him not to worry as I went to grab another nurse to help me. I asked him if he wanted to stand outside the room. He stepped outside, but guilt and filial duty prompted him to come back into the room to help out just as his dad’s vein was cannulated with some blood escaping. I saw his face turn ashen and then he hit the ground with a loud thud. For a few brief seconds everyone was stunned into silence as we stared at the 6”5’ bodybuilder slumped on the ground. Luckily the nurse who was helping me had more sense than I did and rushed over to the son while I finished up with his dad’s IV. Ignoring a few bruises, the son was unharmed. “I told you I was afraid of blood miss”.