So I realized that after writing all those things that I forgot to mention any of my exploits in the Emergency Department for the past few weeks. Last week, was pretty interesting a whole lot more than this week. So it started off like any other day in the ED, I was changing beds and it was busy just like it always was. I started out in triage and then it got interesting. There was a patient that came in that had a compound fracture on his forearm. His arm was in the shape of an “S” if you can picture that. I wanted to get pictures but alas, I wasn’t allowed to. There was also a lady admitted that we (the nurse, two paramedics, and I) had to do a GI tube on. It was really cool to get to watch and assist. Because of the compound fracture I got to know one of the orthopedic technicians that put on splints and what not. So later she asked me to assist with a splint, we were putting it on a man who had fallen from a forklift that was raised thirty feet. His head was caked with blood and his eyes were swollen shut because of the trauma. Interestingly enough he was in a non-trauma room which surprised me. But what do I know; I am not the doctor so he could have been “fine” so to speak. My night ended with a man that had an up GI bleed. He had diarrhea and was vomiting up what appeared to be blood. It looked more like coffee grounds but I guess that is what happens when blood is mixed with hydrochloric acid (stomach acid) and then vomited through the esophagus. But again what do I know, except it looked disgusting and smelled pretty bad too. Oh and I hadn’t eaten all day so seeing that made me nauseous. I had to excuse myself and get outside so I wouldn’t throw up in the patients room. I had a “Red Shirt” with me which is a High School student mainly just observing what I do and what the staff does. He followed me outside and watched me dry heave for a few minutes. I went back inside and finished my shift.
Tonight, it was the polar opposite. I was bored out of my mind most of the shift. It was dead quite no pun intended. There were only a couple things of note tonight; there was a twenty something that decided because he had a “really big headache” that he would consume twenty three pills of ibuprofen at once. The nurse called poison control to find out the amount of toxicity and found out that that amount was non-lethal to him. That is a good thing to know. I don’t think I will ever consume that much ibuprofen but perhaps someone I know might. After Mr. Ibuprofen guy there was “morbidly obese woman that had every health ailment know to man” woman. If there is one thing I have learned from my internship, it is this: obesity is by far more destructive than almost any other health problem. I mean let’s face smoking of course is as bad as they come but it doesn’t cause so many other problems. Obesity on the other hand, well it causes a lot more destruction. So there wasn’t much after that, I was in the last few minutes of shift and I needed a wheelchair for a patient of mine so I went to locate one and I got nailed to discharge a patient. Little did I know how involved this simple discharge was going to be. The patient was in a cast because he had fallen and broken his arm so he only had one arm to hold on to me with. We did the “wheelchair shuffle” to get him into the wheelchair only he decided to sit down a little too soon. So I was holding him up while I pushed him onto the wheelchair. I took him outside and waited for his daughter to come pick him up. While we were waiting for his ride my patient started convulsing and he indicated he was dizzy. I was like this isn’t good; I mean he was in the hospital for a fall. Who knows if that was caught earlier, so I ran back in and grabbed the nurse and talked to her about what I saw. She told me that he had just been given a dose of pain medication and because we moved him that could have caused the convulsing. She told me to tell them that if it continued to bring him back in. I went back out and informed the family. Then came the amazingly painful feat of getting him into his daughter’s SUV, those things aren’t made for patient transport. The auxiliary volunteer came out and helped me get the patient into the car. It wouldn’t have been so bad but the patient was like dead weight. He was so ridged that I couldn’t get him where I needed to. None-the-less we were finally able to get him in. Well that’s about as much excitement as one can handle on a night like this.
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