Secondhand Magpie With A Side Of Powder To The Face

Ya'll are going to love Britt (this is my only chance to throw that phrase in there since Britt is from Texas and all). First off, she has a hilarious story to share. Second, she is a sharp and sassy writer, goes on lovely adventures in one of the coolest cities, and has exceptional taste. You're definitely going to want to follow along her whimsical life!

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 Hi there! I'm Britt, the brains, beauty and brawn behind Secondhand Magpie. Well. So I like to think anyway.  

I live in sunny and quirky Austin, Texas and may or may not have a slight addiction to thrifting. This city is a great place to do just that. If you look around, you'll see old men in thongs riding bikes, impromptu nighttime bike riding street parades, hipster culture at its finest, and people selling incredible food out of airstream trailers. You also will see a ton of people with excellent, eclectic style.

When I'm not thrifting, paddleboarding, playing at the park or sampling the wares of various food trucks around town, I work in the medical field. I can't be too specific for patient and my own privacy reasons, but I have a Master's degree in a rehabilitation based science. It puts me in endless hilariously compromising situations, and anyone who works in direct patient care knows, things happens. Most of the time, it's either you laugh or cry, and it's safer to pick laugh.  

Working in a hospital can be a very emotionally trying environment, especially when you become responsible and invested in the recovery of not only a patient, but their family as well. No, this isn't going to be a heavy post. Hang tight. A lot of times you're on edge, and don't realize it until something drastic happens and snaps you back to reality. Life is funny, life is messy, and life is unexpected. All of which this story is.  

I worked in a hospital that treated and rehabbed patients with traumatic brain injuries, in comas and vegetative states. A lot of times, their rehabilitation simply meant getting them out of bed and sitting up in a wheelchair to increase their circulation and prevent bed sores.

Another therapist and I were working with a patient in a persistent vegetative state who had contracted a stomach bug, and we were trying our hardest to get them up and into a wheelchair. Because of their size and level of consciousness, they required the help of quite a few people to get them up and out of bed. Problem was, every time we sat them up, well, things that rhyme with ‘coop’ ran south.

On the second round of changing out their clothes and brief, the other therapist and I were rolling the patient onto their side to powder them up. I rolled the patient on their side to face me so that the therapist could powder one side, and then they rolled the patient to face them so that I could powder the other side.

Now, if anyone reading has changed a diaper, they know that the back end is now facing me. Well, my best guess is that the rolling movement shifted the patient’s guts around, because the next thing I knew, I heard what can only be described as a small ‘boom.’ The room suddenly went very white, and I realize that I had just been shot. The patient had passed a very, very large amount of gas, and the sheer force behind it blew all of the powder that I was sprinkling back onto me. Right in my face.

As the dust, er, powder settled into my hair, my scrubs and on the bed below, I stood there in complete and utter shock. I was rendered completely speechless, and wasn’t quite sure what to do next. The other therapist stood across from me, wide eyed and turning redder by the second, stifling a laugh and not doing an excellent job at it.

A family member of the patient was sitting maybe two feet behind me, and simply giggled and scolded them for not saying ‘excuse me’ and went back to their work, completely unaware that the patient’s indiscretion left me a powdery and humiliated snow beast.

And all I could do? Finish my job, walk out of the room with my newly powdered do, and laugh until I almost had an accident of my own.

Such is life.