Tales from the ER....

Last night I had a patient who was 34 years old and a quadripalegic. He had been in an accident and broke his neck a few years ago. At the time he was married with small kids. He is now living in a nursing home. He breaths thru a tracheostomy (a hole in his neck) and requires a ventilator to breathe. He is in diapers and totally dependant on others. He cannot speak, but communicates by mouthing words. I had never had him as a patient before, but apparently he frequents our hospital often. He was just there the end of last year for over a month with pneumonia.
When I saw him, I thought to myself, if I was like that, I'd rather be dead. I would not want to live like that. However, he had a different perspective. The ICU nurse that I gave report to told me that he was her absolute favorite patient. She said that he is always happy, he never complains. She said that he told her, he thanks God every day that he is alive. He said he is truly blessed because he gets to live to see his kids grow up!
That really put me in my place. Next time I complain that my life sucks, I'll remember him, and remember that it's all about perspective.

Obsessed

I love to read, I mean really love to read. My books are special friends, and when I get into a good book, I really get into it. I'm right there with the characters, feeling what they feel, living what they are living. So I had decided recently to start the Twilight series. Yes, I know I'm late jumping on that bandwagon, but I just hadn't had time to read them. So anyway, I started book one, late Tuesday night and oh my goodness! I couldn't put it down. I read all 500 pages, in just about 4 and a half hours. And I totally get it now, I get what all those 14 year old girls were swooning over. Edward Cullen...wow, just wow!!! So in typical fashion, I'm officially obsessed. (This is why I cannot ever try drugs, I have a very addictive personality, I find something I like and I surround myself with it, every minute I can.) I went out and bought the movie, and the rest of the books. I haven't started New Moon yet, I'm not sure if I wanna read it right away, or wait until the happy glow from the first one subsides. Anyway, I'm gonna watch the movie tonight, I've heard it's not that great, but I'm sure it will be my new favorite movie for now. Or at least until New Moon comes out on DVD. Which by the way is March 20th. I already checked. And Eclipse comes out the day after my birthday, so guess who will be standing in line at midnight. :)

Las Vegas & Utah

We went to Vegas this past weekend to see Garth Brooks. We left Thursday morning and met my aunt and cousins from Arizona there. Thursday night we went to see Carrot Top, who turned out to be surprisingly very funny. I'd go see him again. Friday, Jay drove from Utah with Chloe to hang out with us during the day. We went to Bass Pro Shops and looked at all the animals. Then we met up with my cousins and walked around Caesar's Palace. We saw that Pete Rose was doing a signing, and there was no one in line, so we asked if we could take a picture with him. He said yes, but didn't even stand up or anything like that. He should be a little nicer since we were there for 15 minutes and no one else even came up to him. He's old news, and should realize it. Anyway, after that we headed over to the Wynn to get out tix for Garth Brooks! The concert was at 8, so we wandered that casino for a bit. It's very fancy shmancy.
The Garth concert was AMAZING!!! It was a very small venue and just him and his guitar. He interacted with the audience throughout the show, even taking requests. He just played whatever he felt like playing. Then Trisha Yearwood came out and they did their song together, and then she sang some of her songs while he accompanied her on the guitar. Then because it was a Friday night and there was no second show, he played an extra 45 minutes for us. All in all, it was one of the best concerts I've been too.
Saturday morning we left Vegas, and headed to Utah. We went to this little town near Zion Canyon and walked around and did a litte shopping. On the way back to my brother's, we stopped at this abandoned ghost town. It was a mile or two down this dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, and it was almost dark so it was a little creepy. We checked out the cemetary, which was a little strange since there were mounds were the bodies were, like they weren't buried deep enough or something. Then we climbed over the fence and checked out the inside of the houses. They were dark, and a little scary.
Sunday, we just played at my brother's house and then went and got Coldstones. Monday morning we headed home.
Here's some pics....

checking out the lions at Bass Pro Shops

meeting Pete Rose

the old cemetary, most of the graves are from the 1860's

one of the spooky houses

inside one of the houses

playing with her toys

LOVE this little face!

playing peek a boo in the car

she loved the coldstones!

playing with Grammie

Tales from the ER...

Ugh! It was a long week at work. The last night was the worst...it started with toilet paper and balls, and ended with toilet paper and balls. Not fun! Here's how it went...
We have frequent fliers in the ER. People who call 911 for the most ridiculous reasons, drunks who come in all the time. For whatever reason, they are there almost as much as we are. So we have this patient, I'll call him T.T., I worked 3 days in a row this week, he was there three days in a row. Sometimes twice a day. He's a drunk, he passes out on the street and some good samaritan sees him and calls 911, so they bring him to us. Or he gets drunk and doesn't want to pass out on the street so he calls 911 himself and claims chest pain. Either way, they bring him in, almost every day. So anyway the first night I worked he was there, with a blood alcohol level of .347 (legally drunk is .08). So we let him sleep there all night, sober up and sent him home in the morning. I came back the next night and he was there again, with a blood alcohol level of .361.
So I come in the third night and this is how it goes...
First thing I see as I walk into the nursing station is another one of our frequent fliers walking back to his bed from the bathroom. It was a typical TV hospital moment...gown wide open in the back, nothing but his birthday suit on underneath. The whole ER got a nice view of his butt, with a toilet paper trail hanging out from between his cheeks. He climbed into his bed, and we all saw the "full monty". Toilet paper and balls!
So I take a look around the ER, bed 1 is another one of our frequent fliers, who this time is actually sick. He's a little agitated and keeps getting out of bed. Bed 9 is T.T., back again for the third night. Passed out and snoring on the gurney, this time with a blood alcohol level of .317. The night was pretty calm at first, we got bed 1 admitted and up to the fourth floor, TT eloped about nine o'clock. It was peaceful. About 11 o'clock, we hear code gray paged over head. Code gray means a patient is combative, fighting. It was our guy from bed 1. So Alex and I head up to the fourth floor to see what was going on. We see 6 guys standing there, but no patient. They had let him get away. We knew he was still in the hospital because his tele monitor was still picking up, so we were scouring the hospital but couldn't find him. It was like a game of hide and seek. The next thing we hear is the emergency exit door alarm. He had headed outside. We followed him out, but lost him. He was gone, with his IV still in and his tele box, so we had to call the police and let them know he was missing.
Alex and I headed back to the ER and the phone rang, it was the medics bringing in another patient. They showed up and guess who it was....TT! He had left the hospital and headed straight to wherever he goes to get his drink on. This time his BAC was .401. We got him settled and I headed to see what was going on with my new patient.
She was paying a visit with a complaint of vaginal discharge. We get alot of people coming in with complaints of these kinds of issues. I like to call them dirty snatch disease, or stinky winky disease, depending on the gender. So anyway she's complaining of vaginal discharge that had been going on for about a week. So the doctor gets ready to do a pelvic exam. I was standing by to chaperone. As soon as we get her up in the stirrups there is this foul, foul odor. I hear the doc say "what is that?" (Never, ever a good thing to hear during a pelvic exam.) And he pulls out this horrible smelling, grayish colored blob of something. Turns out it was a tampon she forgot was in there. And her last period ended a week ago, so it had been in there that long. The smell was horrific, the best part was the doctors face as he was trying to hold his breath and not gag. Classic!
About this time the ambulance door open up and it was our guy from bed 1 who had run away earlier. They had found him passed out in the empty field next door. He was covered in mud. Because he had left, we can't just send him back up to his bed, we have to start all over again, who knows what he did while he was out there. This time he was even more agitated, and still kept trying to get out of bed. We medicated him to try and sedate him but nothing worked. We gave him enough medicine to take down a horse but nothing was working. We ended up restraining him, but even then, he kept trying to sit up and get out of bed.
While that was going on, I get another new patient, this one was complaining that her intestines were falling out her rectum. (It can happen, its called a prolapsed bowel, and it can happen if people strain too hard to have a BM, or people with some chronic conditions, but it's really rare.) So the doc and I head in to see what was going on. The doc goes in for a rectal exam, spreads her cheeks, and out comes a large wad of toilet paper. Apparently she had been wiping really hard and leaving pieces of toilet paper in there and it had just built up between her cheeks and she thought it was her intestines coming out. It was a disgusting mess, and had another not-so-nice odor about it.
I sent her on her way, and went back to help out with the guy in bed 1 again. He was still so agitated, and we needed to do some exams, so we ended up intubating him so we could really sedate him. We gave him some good meds and he was pretty sedated. The last thing I do before I leave is put a catheter in him. Kim was helping me and as I sticking the catheter in, Kim says "What a night, we started with balls, and we're ending with balls."
My reply was "Toilet paper and balls."
Sometimes we just don't get paid enough, but at least we get good laughs about it later.

Refiner's Fire

As we were singing the song in church, it reminded me of this email I got a year ago....


Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get
back to the group at their next Bible Study.
That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining Silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.
The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time.
The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.
The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"
He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it."
If today you are feeling the heat of the fire , remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

Refiner's fire
My heart's one desire
is to be holy,
set apart for you, Lord.
I choose to be holy,
set apart for you, my Master
ready to do your will.