Christmas in the ER

I hope that everyone had a very merry christmas and thoroughly stuffed themselves with wonderful christmas goodies. For those of us that spent the holiday working, I hope that your day was not as hectic as mine. Here's a small recap of how my holiday went:
I rolled out of bed around 10 am on Christmas morning, sat around for a while reading the newspaper, got ready and headed out the door to work my third straight 2p-2a shift in the ER. The past 2 nights had been extremely busy so I was looking forward to a nice slow evening, as I had been assured by one of the ER docs that is was normally slow on Christmas and that we would just sit around, eat, and it would be no big deal. Well, he lied. I walk in to the ER to a scene that can only be described as chaos. Most of the rooms are filled with patients, and the handy dandy Tracker is showing a long list of patients still in the waiting room. Never a good way to start a shift. Some patients were actually pretty sick and did really need to be there, however most of them left me wondering if it is really possible to live with out a brain.
To add to my fun night, I got in a yelling match with a black man which prooved to be quite interesting. He and his wife had gone to eat at the Huddle House and he fell on a greasy floor, hitting his head, jaw, and lower leg before blacking out. He was very polite when I first went to see him and I got his full history, examined him, talked for a little while with him and his wife about their christmas, explained what I was planning on doing and left to put in the orders. Since he had blacked out and had some facial trauma, I decided to CT his head to check for bleeding and to check for any fractures. The injury to his leg was just a bruise with some swelling and since he was walking around fine decided it didn't need to be x-rayed. So I think things are fine at this point. When he comes back from CT, he comes up to the desk and starts yelling about how he needs an X-ray of his leg and he's hurt and nobody is checking him out and on and on. So I very calmly ask him what the problem is and try to explain that I did not feel that it was necissary to x-ray his leg and that it was just bruised. He continues to yell and carry on in front of everyone and goes on about the fact that he was a nurse aid and he knows that when something is hurt you should x-ray it and I don't want to check him out right cause he's a man and I'm a woman and I'm trying to belittle him (they taught him that in some class) and all this nonsense. I-still very calmly at this point- ask him to step into his room and I will discuss the situation with him. The yelling continues, and it is obvious that his wife is embarassed. So now comes the part, where I start yelling back. He tells me I am just a student and I do not know what I am talking about, and I pretty much lost it at that point. I worked hard to get the "C" after my PA and I will not let anyone insult my intelligence or my education. So I very loudly say back that I am not a student and that I am fully certified, know what I am doing, and I am not going to stand for him to talk to me like that. After all this, I finally get him calmed down, re-explain the situtation to him, and apologize for any misunderstanding there may have been. Needless to say, he didn't get the x-ray of his leg, his wife came and apologized for his behavior, and the CT was normal.
So yeah, it was an interesting night. Of course there was the high point of flirting with the really cute EMT, but that's another story. :)
Love to hear how your holiday went, hope it was better than mine.