Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Bedside Conan

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Conan speaks with ICU nurse Effie from Durham, North Carolina to find out how she and her fellow nurses keep themselves entertained and how Conan might be of service in a hospital setting. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Konan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Konan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Konan. Okay, let's get started. Hello. Hi, Effie. Look, Konan, David, Matt. Wow.

Hello. How are you? Really nice to meet you, Effie. Tell us where you're coming from. I am zooming from Durham, North Carolina. No, I meant emotionally. Oh, well, yikes. I'm kidding.

You're in Durham, North Carolina. North Carolina is beautiful. What a gorgeous state. It is. It's really nice there. It's all coming. It's all really the best, yeah. That's so cool.

Well, it's really nice to meet you. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Effie. Okay. Well, I live in Durham, North Carolina. I'm originally from Texas. I am a nurse. I've been a nurse for seven years. What kind of nurse are you?

I've done a few different types. Currently I do ICU nursing, but I've done emergency and I've done flight nursing. Flight nursing. What's that? What's that? Yeah, that is, it can vary, but I did the type where we did

like a helicopter EMS transport. So like, I worked in rural New Mexico and transported people either from scenes or from hospitals. So you're in the, you'd be in the chopper trying to take care of the person while you're speeding them to the hospital through the air.

That's right. Yeah. I don't know why I said through the air because I think it's pretty obvious that it'd be great if you were on a helicopter but you were on a flatbed truck. And the helicopter was just to let people think they were in a helicopter.

But you're driving down the highway. Yeah. And you keep going, isn't this great? We're flying. So Effie, now you're an ICU nurse. What's, that's got to be tough because these are people that have come out

of like a massive surgery. They're in rough shape and that's who you're taking care of? It is, it is rough. A lot of the time, especially in the current state of affairs, but it's also great, you know. You mean it's current state of affairs

because of COVID. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know what you meant. You know, with the, you know, people are sick and then they know about the recession. And so I'm just trying to be clear,

like which bad thing that's happening is making it more, but yes, of course it would be COVID. And what's that like? I mean, I come into work and act like a fool and people say, good job, see you tomorrow. You have to, you're saving lives and taking care of people.

That's very intense. You seem, and you're a very young person. That's got to be rough. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it is rough, terrible at times, awful at times, but also great and awesome.

And I can't imagine doing anything else. So. Well, you're helping people first of all, which is lovely. It's very cool that you're, you're there. I mean, you're the most important person in people's lives when they're going through that, which is, I would think.

Yeah. It's very, yeah. It's a very raw thing. And, but I mean, it's also just kind of a, a privilege that not very many people get to kind of experience a terrible, awful moment with someone as they're going through these things. So, yeah, I mean, it is,

it is a privilege while also sometimes feeling totally dejected and awful. You know what's funny? I have noticed over time that whatever your job is, and you know, no matter how intense your job is, you're going to find ways to blow off steam. You're going to find ways to offset the drudgery or the emotional toll of what's happening at work.

And I know that you must be doing that at the ICU. Sure. Yeah. Definitely individually and I think collectively with my coworkers, we do that for sure. So, give me an example of what you guys do just for fun to pass the time, maybe to have a little enjoyment in your job

while you're in the ICU. Yeah, so. And we'll hide your identity if we have to. Great. Because if it involves, if it involves, you know, taking people's money and stealing their identities while they're out. No, I won't, I won't talk about any of that.

Because this is a sting operation for precisely that. That's why we're pretending to be a podcast. We're here basically to solve crimes. Tell us about the fun thing you do in the ICU. Well, we steal their identities and move, move, move. Your whole career has been a deep cover. Oh, I'm deep cover. Just to get, I'm just here to get Effie.

Okay. Yeah, my whole career for 35 years in comedy has been a plan to get Effie. Impressive. I hacked this long before you were born. That's how far ahead. Well, who knows, who knows to you, I guess. So what was the question?

The question. Oh, please. I guess I went on a little bit of a run there about this being a sting operation. What do you do for fun? Like there must be times when you and the other ICU nurses get together and do something fun. Yeah.

There have been a couple of things. Like last week, my co-worker and I made up a, kind of a rolly chair ballet, if you will. So we did a little interpretive dance. No patience for harm. No patience for harm. Did you guys film it? Can we get a video of that?

Yeah. It went on the, it went on the old Instagram, but, and you know, like with some music and stuff. And you know, of course there were alarms going off, but we just used that like to the beat of the, of the dance. We're doing alarms like. Of course. I'm just kidding.

It's called the flat line ballet. It's beautiful. Right. No, no, no. Listen, Effie, we joke and we kid, but I know you're a professional, but I also suspect you occasionally use devices that are available to an ICU nurse to have fun.

I know you do. Yeah. No, we do. Um, so I would say a couple of months ago, we had a contest that was who can, um, hold the most urine in their bladder. And, um, we had that. I got really dicey. Well, how do you,

I'm sorry, but how do you tell if I can be so crass? You're not evacuating the urine and then peeing and then measuring it. Right. How else would you know? Oh, no, no, no. We have a, uh, a bladder scanner device. Yeah.

The urinator 7,000. Exactly. I have one of these. They're fun. I use them at parties all the time. What I do is I use them. I, I have one that's portable and I go up to people and put it, press it against their abdomen and say,

you need to use the bathroom. See, that's an A-lister thing. We can't get those. Trust me. All the celebrities have them. Yeah. And if someone's at the table with me and they say, well, and I'm telling a story and they say,

actually, I've got to go pee. If I suspect that they're cutting out because they don't want to hear more of my story, my seventh story of the night, I use the, uh, I use the bladder scanner and I say, no, no, no, no, you've, you've only got a quarter of a liter of urine in your bladder. Sit back down. I was just about to say I got to go pee to get out of this.

No, no. It comes down. It comes down. We have one here. Wow. So you used a bladder, a bladder scanner and who won? Uh, one of my coworkers, his name is Sahayli and she won with almost a liter.

Oh, 10 gallons Sahayli won? Yeah. Yeah. She sure did. That's incredible prize. What? A liter. She got the prize of pride.

Um, I actually lost the competition. I had like a hundred before I broke it was, it was, and I was dubbed like peanut sized PSAC. Wait, can I ask a question generally? How long did you all have to wait to do this? Like how long did you not go to the bathroom to do this? Um, I'm in hours. Like, I would say like six days.

Like six to eight hours. I'd never make it. No. Have you ever used the defibrillators for anything fun? I'd like to start a car. Yeah. Because it can't be a big car, but a four cylinder. If it was a four cylinder car, late, you know, late 1960s Japanese model,

you can get it started with defibrillators. Clear. Let's get going. Let's get in that Datsun and go get some beers. No, unfortunately, that's frowned upon. Oh, that's frowned upon. That is? But not the old nine hour P contest in the corner.

That's probably frowned upon as well. So, uh, all right. Tell us about if it's okay. I don't want to pry, but your personal life. Are you single? Are you seeing anyone? Are you married? What's up?

Yeah, I'm married. Oh, you are? I'm only married. Yeah. All right. Okay. I didn't ask about happily. I don't know why you started shouting that.

Um, so, uh, and tell us about your husband. He is, let's see, we've been together since high school. Um, and some might say high school sweethearts though. I don't think it was really like that, but, um, we've been together. Let's see. 12 years. Wait a minute. Go back there.

Yeah. What's that? What happened there? We just, uh, he just like wouldn't really give me the time of day at first. And we didn't get together until like the end of high school. And so we weren't like holding hands through the hall. It was more of like a ignoring each other type of thing. To be fair, my wife wouldn't give me the time of day for the first six years of our marriage.

And I found it to be highly, I mean, that got my attention. Yeah. It's just playing hard to get. That's all. It's a story as old as time. Yeah. He got, I mean, he got it. I guess he did it.

So he got it. He got it. Okay. So you guys, you got married and, uh, how long have you been married for? Years. Oh wow. That's incredible. Does, you have a very, uh, tough job.

What is, what does he do? Uh, he's a psychiatrist. Oh my God. You married a psychiatrist? I did. I mean, I didn't, I didn't know he was going to be a psychiatrist. Was he doing some kind of reverse psychology on you throughout those high school years? That's what he was doing.

Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. Oh, I ignore you. I'm not going to give you the time of day. Yeah. And it worked perfectly. He fell right into his head.

What is, he must be playing mind games with you right now. Right. Yeah. Is it tough being married to a psychiatrist? I would think that'd be difficult. Yeah. Sometimes. I mean, you know, he, he's a good listener, which.

Yeah. But he bills you by the hour. That's the point. Right. Thanks for listening, honey. No problem. That's $135. But sometimes, you know, he's, he, he knows, you know, why you're upset or he's, you know,

so he tries to like make you get there. And it's just really good at like arguing and, and won't deal with my irrational thoughts. Well, first of all, not all your thoughts are irrational. And I think, I think he has put that thought into your head. But I think many of your thoughts, everything you've said so far, excluding how you passed a time in the ICU has been very rational. And I think he's playing mind games with you to control you. That's a big red flag, that one.

Yeah. And he's controlled, he's, he's clearly controlled you throughout high school to get you to marry him. And then now he's controlling you by saying, oh, your thoughts are irrational. And you buy into it. We're here to rescue you, to break you free of this monster. What's his name? Wow.

Andres. Andres. Interesting. Interesting. I'm going to have a little dossier brought up on Andres. Andres, the psychiatrist. And we know that he's in North Carolina. Okay.

This is good. I think he's trying to control you and he must be stopped. I do. I think he's okay. Okay. I changed my mind. I think he's okay too. Okay.

I didn't say I was going to cling to this theory that the minute Gorely went the other way, I was like, yeah, you're probably right. He seems like a cool guy. Effie, do you have a question for Conan at all? I do. Yeah. Who the fuck do you think you are? Where do you get off?

Where do you get off talking about my husband with no information? We come to find out he's actually feeding her cue cards. Yeah. He is. Yes. My question is, so in the hospital in the ICU, we have a lot of conversations, obviously, when things get tough about kind of, you know, where you want your life to go and what you want from your life.

And, you know, if it all kind of, if things get taken away from you. So in the event that things go south for you, Conan, if. What do you mean, if? What year? I mean, I can name seven periods of my career where they went clearly south for me. I mean medically south. Oh, medically south. Yeah.

Yeah. So what are your dying wishes and when do we pull the plug? Well, first of all, let me write this down. By the way, speaking of earlier, my wife, my wife wants to pull the plug constantly. She's like, let's insert a plug and then pull it. Fine. That's a really, wow, that's a powerful question. And I do think Gurley is going to probably go and find this episode when the time comes.

That's right. Which if Gurley gets his wish will be very soon. But I'm, that's an interesting question. Conan's directive. This is my directive. So what are my last wishes? Witnessed by David. That's right.

Yep. Okay. Here we go. So far, I wish to, I wish to be immortalized with a giant statue. Oh, I thought you were going to say you wished to be immortal. No, no, trust me, I've looked into it. It's too late for that. It's too late for that.

I would like a big over-the-top funeral. I would like a large statue to be unveiled of me on horseback, even though in life I didn't ride horses. I want to be treated with full military honors, even though I did not serve in the military. Every branch. Oh my God. I want jets going overhead. Coast guard as well.

Coast guard. I want full coast guard salute. It's got to be done near the water so that there can be guns firing from, and I, you know, some people are very humble and they just want, oh, I just want a simple casket or I, and I'm going completely the other way. I want honors that I'm not entitled to in life. I want to get them in death. Okay.

And I want there to be a national day of mourning. And I want my then, I also want my casket to tour the country. Oh my God. Lincoln's toured the country for several weeks after he died, after he was shot. It took this train trip all around the country and people could go and see Lincoln. I want mine to travel to tour for like, like Aerosmith, I want it to be two and a half years. A two and a half year tour.

And I want it to go to Tokyo. I want to go through mostly European cities. International. Oh, international. Yeah. I want it to be, I want to go everywhere. And I just want there to be a huge fuss. Would you mind if this tour is just connected to an Aerosmith tour?

That would be fantastic. You know, in life, you know, Conan gave his all. And then they would bring my, my body out and they, you look better than Steven Tyler. Yeah, exactly. Put some Steven Tyler scarves around me and then using some of the defibrillator technology, get me moving around the stage, you know, just shoot me up through of electricity. I love that. I love that.

Those are my last wishes. And pull the plug. Man, I just think wait till you hear from my tour manager when it's time to go. I want to go. You know, I want to make sure we sell out completely. So once we've sold out the tour, even if I'm starting to recover, make sure I'm killed. Put a pillow over my head and get me out. All right.

Let's sign these. But we're talking, this is going to be a very expensive international funeral slash Aerosmith tour. And he's really drawing up a contract and signing it. Okay. Yeah. I worry now that. This is official now.

Yeah. You know, Adam is already looking into ticket sales over there on the corner. He already sold it. Yeah. I'm worried now this is going to get me killed. The tour starts on Monday. Yeah. We just got such a good rate.

You just got to sign here and it's done. I'm going to sign this right here. And then you need to witness this. Okay. This is my directive. This is my signature. Can you see this pretty well, Effie? This is the whole directive.

Oh yeah. Wow. Okay. And we need you to verbally agree that you, and then I'll put your name down. Okay. Okay. Great. You verbally agree that this meets with your approval?

I do. Yeah. We'll make a copy of it, put it in the chart. She can be our nurse on tour. Oh yeah. You deferbler. Oh yeah. To dance.

Yeah. I would be glad to do that. You know what the one reason I want to be a doctor is, Effie, and my dad's a doctor I never went into it. But the one thing I would love to do is walk into a room and pick up a chart, that move, and look at it, look at the chart, and then start saying things. Just looking at charts. I love that move.

Coming into a room. It feels so powerful. And then saying things to the patient that in my case would not be true. Like what? Well, surgery was an overwhelming success. We did have one. That's not true. Oh God.

We did have one issue. We found an old train pocket watch in your rectum. Grandfathers. Still ticking. I would just love to say it. I mean, it was just, I love it. Anything of fish that involves papers and a clipboard, I love. I've always loved that.

And I've always wanted to go in. And when I walk in just to visit friends, I always pick up their chart and start going through it. Some of these potassium levels are most alarming. I'm going to put you on seven C C's of cytoselophil. And let's check your resting heart rate in four hours after you run up a hill with a bank safe on your back. Nurse, thank you.

I'll be on my rounds now. Wouldn't I be good at that, Effie? You know, I question that. I don't have an idea. Wow. Not a ringing endorsement from Effie. Yeah. Okay.

I do think you'd have something to offer, I'm sure. Like, you know, entertainment or. Come on. I'd be a lot of fun around the ICU, wouldn't I? I think so. You know, we actually have an order that. I'm an international superstar. What do you see my funeral?

Let me get another piece of paper. So I think I would, I think I would have a good time hanging out at the ICU. I think I'd bring a lot of smiles to some faces. I think so. I have an order that says, we can put in that says musician to bedside and we could just put one in that says Conan to bedside. Yes. You know the way they have service animals that come and visit an ICU?

You should have a service Conan. And I just come in and I have that little red vest on and I get up on the bed and I slobber them. Oh. Oh, come on. You know. No? No.

Oh, right. I wasn't with him ever. No, he just didn't like the whole idea of me even talking to Effie. Well, Effie, I like you a lot. You seem very cool. I think you're a fine person. I love what you're doing for a living. You're helping so many people and that is very impressive.

I worry somewhat that Andre's controlling you. But. I'm going to think about that. Yeah. Well, then he's going to say one or two very clever things that get you not to think about it because that's Andre's power. But he's lucky to have you. He's a lucky man.

And I'm serious. He really is. And you see him. I'll tell him. You see him. I'll tell him. Well, I'll tell him, you know. Okay.

That'd be great. As soon as he gets home from pretending to be a psychiatrist because he just tells you he does that. He just goes and hangs out at the train station, needs a ham sandwich and then comes home. It was a difficult day. Many interesting patients. Admit it. You've never seen a paycheck from him.

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. He just says that, you know, he just says that it's there. Trust me. Go to the train station tomorrow. Put a ham sandwich on a little fishing pole. You'll see him there.

You'll see him there. You know, how long we've already reduced him to a guy that loves his ham sandwich and will follow one attached to a fishing pole. We're idiots, Effie. And you've wasted your time with us, but we're fans of yours. You're a very cool person. So thank you for talking to us. Thank you guys.

Can I take a screenshot? Sure. Is that a thing? Okay. Is everyone ready? Get the camera. Yeah. Ready?

One, two, three. Very cute. Did it come out? Yeah. It came out great. Of course. Your friends will tell you just made that. Yeah.

Easy. Photoshop. Oh, okay. Last thing I promised. My friend sent me a text about a dream that she had with you. And it says... Oh, hello. Please, please be sexual.

Please be sexual. God. Not quite. It says... Damn it! This is so my life. It says I had a dream last night. It says I had a dream last night that you and I invited Conan to a barbecue.

He showed up and then we ignored him the entire time. Oh. Wow. That is the opposite of sexual. What an erotic tour of force. Yeah, wait. Also, was this Andres that sent this to you? Ignored him?

No. Okay. No. Well, you tell your friend, I'd be impossible to ignore. Yeah. Because whatever you guys think of me from afar in person, I'm told I'm incredibly magnetic. Isn't that right, David? What?

Go back to sipping your water, David. Okay. Anyway, I'm going to get some real back up here next time. But, Effie, tell your friend we said hi and I hope we see you on down the road. Okay. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Thanks, Effie.

Bye. Bye. Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gorely. Produced by me, Matt Gorely. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Soloteroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples.

Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Byrne. Engineered by Will Bekton, please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.