He was her favorite patient. Nakamura-san was always quick with a joke or a quip and Ino quite enjoyed being his nurse. He teased her and called her Ino-chan and would flirt with her in front of his visiting grandchildren (who were her age) to see if he could make them uncomfortable. Sometimes he would tell her stories about "real ninja" and how it was back in his day. His stories were always loosely based on events Ino learned about in academy, but Nakamura had a knack for making everything bigger and grander and, sometimes, just a little too preposterous to be quite accurate. She was his favorite nurse, he would remind her of that when she came in to check his drips. "I'm not adding anything extra to your drugs, Nakamura-san. Flattery will get you nowhere" she laughed back at him.
"So cruel, Ino-chan," he pouted. "How is my heart ever going to heal with girls like you around?" and he laughed so raucously at his own joke that one of his many alarms went off and Ino had to shush him quiet. "I tell you," he chuckled softly leaning back into his pillows and catching his breath, "getting old isn't for sissies."
He was a nice old man and he made her shift go by quickly.
That particular night, she was just coming on when his room number lit up at the nurses' desk. The charge nurse glanced at it and grinned over to Ino. "Your man is calling for you. 'Ino-chan, please help me. I've dropped my pen again, oh silly me.'"
Ino stuck her tongue out at the woman, "you're just jealous he doesn't want to see you bend over." There was a short gust of laughter from the charge nurse as Ino made her way down the hall to Nakamura's room.
His door was ajar and she pushed it open still laughing to herself. "Nakamura-san, what do you need tonight?" The bed was empty, the covers pushed off to one side. Ino caught site of the glow of light from around the door to the toilet. She knocked gently, putting her ear to the wooden panel, "Nakamura-san?" There was a slight shuffling and Ino carefully pulled open the door.
There, still sitting on the toilet was the old man. The entirety of the tiled room was splattered with feces. The mirror, the sink, the floor, the walls, Nakamura himself. It was even somehow on the ceiling. He looked up at her, shaking hand still clutching the buzzer for the aid. "Ino-chan," he choked out, "I just… I just don't know what happened."
Ino nodded slowly, "just one moment. Let me get a few things." She pushed the door closed again and set her shoulders against it. Never, in her years of being a medic had she seen anything quite like that. Blood and guts, yes, but not that. She wasn't even quite sure if it was possible for all of that to come out of one human being. She was pulling in a long breath when the nurses' aide stepped into the room.
The woman eyed the shut toilet door and the look on Ino's face and surmised the rest. "His potassium levels were high" she informed her. Ino nodded in response, her mind spinning. That meant he was prescribed… something… which would push the excess potassium out of his body before it would affect his heart. What was the drug? She should know this, but all that came to mind was the scene behind the door at her back. "Do I need to clean up in there?" the aide asked.
"I'll deal with Nakamura-san," Ino breathed out, kneading her temple. It didn't have to be her job, but she felt she somehow owed it to him. "I'll get him out of there, just send someone to help with the room."
The shower was through a door that separated it from the toilet that had thankfully been closed. Ino managed to strip him as quickly as she could manage and used the soiled clothing to wipe a clean-ish path to the shower room. She scrubbed him down and washed his hair as he sat silently on the shower bench. Neither of them said anything. Outside the closed door she could hear the cleaning staff disinfecting the toilet and hoped the rushing water made the disgusted exclamations too hard for Nakamura's aged ears to hear.
Eventually, there was a knock at the door and a voice called out "Done." Ino patted Nakamura-san dry and slipped out the door to fetch a fresh set of pajamas for him. The outer room smelled so strongly of bleach it made her eyes water. Aside from that, a visitor would never know what occurred in the room.
As she stepped back into the shower room Ino paused for the first time to actually look at Nakamura-san. All through the shower she had behaved as professionally and as detached as possible in respect for the man. But here he was, naked on a shower bench in a tiled hospital bathroom. His hands were clasped in his lap and he was shivering slightly, his hair still damp to the chill. He glanced up as she didn't advance and sent her a half-hearted smile. "When I said I wanted to spend my golden years naked and surrounded by young women, this isn't quite what I had in mind." He chuckled dryly, his breath coming in short huffs.
She got him into his pajamas and helped him slowly back across his room and into bed. "There's no dignity in growing old, Ino," he wheezed out. "No dignity at all." Ino took in the old man before her, one of the few ninja who survived to see his grandchildren, eyes closed as he labored for breath.
"Hey," she said softly nudging his shoulder so that he'd open his eyes and look at her. She smiled down at his creased face, "I thought you said growing old wasn't for sissies."
He mirrored her soft smile back at her. "It's not," he replied and closed his eyes, "but maybe it's not so bad when there are pretty nurses like you to help."
This is actually roughly based on a funny story which a nurse friend told a huge group of us while out eating at a very nice seafood restaurant. Every other table in the room just STARED at her for the entire telling. I can tell you that nurses can laugh at anything. The contemplation is based on conversations she and I have had at other times about how there's no dignity in the hospital, no matter how hard you try.
I think I just paraphrased Bette Davis; that quote seems to have a couple of forms. My friend's grandma seems to prefer saying that "getting old isn't for wimps."