The carbon copy blue bloater

Disclaimer: The following was written by an anonymous author. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.

You'd think with only five patients on my clipboard I'd have an easy night, right? Wrong! I have five very highly demanding patients. And, the funny thing is, they are all exactly the same. In fact, they all seem to be carbon copies of the other.

Yeah! Tonight I have the carbon copy patients. They all have or are:

1. end stage COPD and lung cancer
2. blue bloaters
3. severe dyspnea with even minimal exertion
4. members of the 50/50 club (chronic po2 50 and co2 50)
5. basically bed bound or recliner bound
6. severe anxiety
7. severe restlessness
8. highly demanding
9. somewhat annoying after a while
10. challenging
11. enjoying to talk with
12. exceptionally cordial and pleasant underlying dispositions
13. insist you stay in the room until their treatment is done
14. want you to stay in room after the treatment is done ("Please, don't go!")
15. clock watchers
16. want their treatments every two hours
17. require BiPAP to catch their breath
18. refuse to wear their BiPAP most of the time
19. call to have BiPAP hooked up when they get panicked
20. demand you increase their nasal cannula liter flow at their request (one insists on the liter flow being 10 lpm even though he's wearing a nasal cannula)

Thank you for the opportunity to share my piece.