I'ze gotsta J-up

That's TX prison slang for, I need to get a job. The first time I heard this phrase was Friday, and I thought the man was speaking a foreign language. The phrase all ran together, thank goodness I recognized the term J-up from my pre-rotation prison slang reading packet. The patient who said this was a relatively large white possibly hispanic male who put in a sick call (office visit here in jail) because of a hernia. He has been working in the kitchen for the last year or so and has found that when"lifting cans of slop I feel my insides come through my belly button" oh and his lower back hurt. Medical personnel can't change someone's job, but can place restrictions if legitimate. For example, those with HIV, Hep C and TB can't work in medical, those with documented seizure disorders have high bunk restrictions, etc. Further on in the interview, "I can'ts be liftin no more cans of slop, I'ze be gettin written up for not going to work cuz my back hurts and for not doin my job, I'ze gotsta J-up with the yard crew, they sez I can do that" TRANSLATION: I've had disciplinary action taken on me for not going to work due to my back pain and for not lifting the vats of food, I need to get a job with the grounds crew mowing grass or trimming"

Not all of the inmates have such an interesting dialect, but many of them do. Some even sound like this in the hallway when waiting and then are incredibly proper with impecable grammar during the actual office visit.

Friday was pretty bland. I did 1 urethral swab for an STI. The guy was such a baby. Shawn told me to not be so callous about the whole thing and I wasn't trying to be, I'm sure it's uncomfortable, but really, it can't hurt if I'm not touching you and the whole thing only takes 2seconds or less. In retrospect I should have said to the patient 2 seconds of swabbing or lifetime of impotence - your choice. This same guy was shocked to learn that HIV is spread the same way as chlamydia and that HIV can in fact be spread through unprotected heterosexual sex. I was shocked to find that a 20-osmething didn't know this, and still wasn't convinced after the doc told him so. Anyway, it's funny how some of the inmates look at me like I haven't seen certain parts before - the PA tells them "don't worry she still has her brick." For some reason the saying in our facility is: if we see something we've never seen before we get to throw a birck at it - and we still all have our bricks. Don't ask me why this saying works but it does.
We also had some strange labs come through, an almost 50 y/o who dropped their Hgb 3 points in 3 weeks (he's at 9), the kidney is shutting down (Creatinine 1.9)and a few other things are way off. WE do have our share of lab errors, and the guy didn't look ill when he came in, no complaints either. We're working him up to find the cause of the anemia, hence the presentation I should be working on, but I really just don't want to read anything else about anemia. Could be colon cancer, some type of deficiency, maybe undiagnosed Liver disease, HIV, something. We'll see.

Only 12 more months and I too will have to J-up.