Work work work

Last weekend was one of the nicest work weekends, ever. I worked on Easter Sunday, which was not busy at all. I was assigned to be a 'floater', which means, I don' t have a team of patients, but instead I help out when a nurse gets swamped with critical patients. Then I float around to the next critical thing, cover breaks and lunches, answer the ambulance (telemetry) calls, help out where needed. We had true emergencies that day, two code arrests, and one respiratory arrest. The codes didn't make it, but the resp. arrest was quickly intubated and stabilized for transfer to the pediatric ICU over at the University. He was a dumb teenager, and either gave himself an asthma attack smoking pot, or eating 'peanuts', depending on which story one subscribes to.

Monday was busy, but not as bad as I had expected. The staff were all griping about how we were expecting "our asses handed to us" for monday. It never really materialized as such. Then we got a call to expect a "unconscience unresponsive" coming in. She was an itty bitty little thing, flipping all over the bed. She had "crack lips" (think Dave Chapell's crack-head skit) and turned up positive for a plethora of illegal drugs. They had also found an empty bottle of tylenol PMs at her side. I hope she didn't take all those, cause it will KILL her liver. Anyway, she was rapidly intubated and stabilized as well. Oh, and then, UGH! Then the cops brought us a dude that reportedly swallowed all his bags of meth to keep from being caught with it. I think I would rather go to jail than suffer what this poor bastard went through by our hands. Ever heard of stomach levage? Its better known as pumping the stomach. We jammed this gardan hose down this guys gullet, then proceded to push two giant syringes full of water in and out of this guy's gut. He had a bite thing in his mouth to keep him from chomping the tube. He was the most unwilling patient, and it took two to hold his head, one for each limb (while four point restrained!) Then another to manipulate the giant ass syringe. It was awful. Then we deposited a gallon of 'go-lytely', a industrial strenghth laxitive down his stomach. So the last we saw of this guy, one of the techs was placing him in a diaper, tatoos and all, for the trip to jail. The cops gleefully hopped around in the hospital room giggling madly about how the man deserved all that he got today. Apparently the man had quite the arrest record, meth history, and was a general asshole delux. I dunno. I feel that we put him through torture "for his own good". D'you think we recovered any baggies? No.

Then tuesday brought us a pair a young persons, unconscience and unreponsive. When we got the call about a 24 year old female, with a drug and alcohol history, coming in... A cold hand of panic gripped my heart. I barely breathed until the medics showed up with the patient. "Oh god, what would I do if that were Jen?" My mind reeled. Then we intubated and stablized her. Later when the 2nd pt arrived, we intubated and stabilized him as well. Then at about 1830 (630pm) or so, all hell broke loose in triage. There was a vomiting-blood child, a snake bite, a bleach drinking child, and a chest pain all signing in at the same time. It was chaos! So I took the vomiting child and set her up in a room. The kid looked sick, but had been eating carrots for lunch, and was indeed vomiting. But not blood. Just orange. Carrots. Then one of the other nurses took care of the snake bite. The pt brought the offending reptile in with him.
Patient: "Is it poisonous?"
Nurse D: "Where'd you get bit?"
Patient: "On my arm.."
Nurse D: "Oh God, we will probably have to amputate!"
Patient: "WHAT?!"
Nurse D: "No, dude, its only a king snake. You'll be fine"
So I absconded with darling little thing. It was about 18 inches long, about pencil thick, and bright green and black stripes. It was most grateful to be let free. What kind of idiot plays with a snake unknowing if its poisonous or not? What a moron.

Anyway. How was your week??