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Pain.

The next morning, not only did they not go away, but she was in even more pain than the night before. Emily told the surgeon what Lori had told her, and the guy looked at her like she had just said that she was promised a third arm to be attached to her asshole.

He said that half of that wasn't even remotely true. The gas was most definitely causing the pain, but it doesn't just go away on its own, and it absolutely doesn't come out from your ass. You have to walk it out. The movement causes the bubbles to work their way up, and then they just dissipate through the skin. But laying there and waiting for them to just go away was about the worst thing a patient could do. Kind of important, because as it turns out, if we had known that right off the bat, they could have had her up and walking within just an hour or two after surgery.

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While I encouraged her from a more comfortable position.

The bullshit information she passed on combined with the lack of information from the other Lori, ended up causing us to stay an additional day (and if we'd been among the uninsured, that extra day would be like buying a used car). Because Lori has reached a point where there's no time or energy to double check these things. You give whatever answer will make the patient stop asking things.

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Do I blame her? I don't know. If all of this makes it sound like I think I could do any of these Loris' jobs differently, you're right. I would be patient and efficient and as sympathetic to each patient as I am to my own family ... for about 10 minutes. Then I would throw a water cooler through a window and go running off, screaming into the wilderness, never to be seen again.

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That is, I know it's easy for me to judge, now away from that place and standing here behind my new rolling computer cart. So let me say, thank God somebody has the patience and endurance to do the Lori jobs, or else we'd all have to stay home and try to heal ourselves with witchcraft. I realize these people are burnt out, like cops cracking jokes over the mutilated body of a teenage girl. The part of your brain that cares just runs down like a battery.

You have my sympathy, Loris. You really do. But know that you pretty much make every stay at the hospital a living hell.

For more medical nightmares, check out 8 Medical Terms Your Doctors Use to Insult You and 5 Horrifying Tales Of 911 Incompetence.