There has been a distinct lack of posting here for the past few days. Counting the commute, I’ve been doing 15 hour days lately. So enjoy some stories from the ED.
Back when I was a street medic, I had a 911 call that involved a woman who was concerned that her 4 year old daughter had been eating ants. I reassured her that people all over the world eat insects, and doing so would not harm the child, unless she was somehow allergic to them. I then spend the next little bit explaining what an allergic reaction looked like.
The mother then looked at me, with this relieved look on her face, and said: “Oh good. I was so worried that I gave her a teaspoon of ant poison.”
Say what? “Uh, we have to take your daughter to the hospital, right away.”
“I thought you said ants wouldn’t hurt her,” she says.
“Yes, but you gave your daughter POISON,” I said. She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and replied, “Duh. Didn’t you hear me? It’s ANT poison.”
So as I said, it’s been a busy few days. For every COVID patient, we are getting 3 or 4 flu patients. This flu season is pretty nasty. Just today I had fifteen patients:
- 1 COVID patient
- 2 Stroke Alerts
- 2 Community Acquired Pneumonia
- 4 Septic Influenza Patients
- 1 chemotaxic eye
- 1 Seizure patient
- 1 Choleocystitis
- and…
There was a guy who had 4 toes that looked necrotic. He was a diabetic with a fasting blood sugar of 325. His A1C was 11. I asked him what he had for breakfast, and his reply was “biscuits and gravy.” Then he asked me when he was getting lunch. It was only 9:30 in the morning.
Then there was the guy who came in complaining of abdominal pain in the right upper quadrant that woke him from a sound sleep. For those of you who don’t know, that’s where your liver is located. The whites of his eyes were turning yellow, and he admitted to me that he drank 4 to 5 beers every day. At 10:30 in the morning, and he told me that he had already had two beers that morning.
A 30 year old black woman who makes $18,000 a year, but has 3 kids. She came in complaining of a headache. She is so broke that she had to apply for financial assistance in order to cover her bill. While I was in the room giving her the medicine, I had to listen to the video that was playing on her phone. It was a guy saying that “You are being taken advantage of by the white man. They are trying to keep you down and you are being used as slaves, and you know why.”
They BELIEVE this. They hate you. Remember that.
4 Comments
SocoRuss · November 28, 2023 at 12:38 pm
Thanks for the ED updates. I love them, very informative and hilarious at times.
So many Darwin award winners, so little time.
At times they scream NO one will come to save you and we don’t have enough ammo yet…..
Skyfall · November 28, 2023 at 1:53 pm
I had blood sugar of 800 when they saved my wretched ass! I drove family to doctor appointment that day and so glad it didn’t happen on the highway. They said I sat down at PC desk went stiff and then started flopping on the floor. Totally different person before and after stroke, used to be quiet mellow and take it easy type, now talkative energetic and hyper active.
Ambulance drivers and House style doctor with Rollie Fingers mustache and the dreamboat goddess Nurse C are in my prayers everyday and always giving thanks to God.
Also don’t ever give up on anything, God has got this.
Aesop · November 28, 2023 at 2:24 pm
I don’t call it “Lifeguard in the shallow end of the gene pool” for nothing.
From the Left Coast:
One genius nearly signed out Against Medical Advice for her septic cellulitis legs, because staying meant we had to go through their stuff so they couldn’t bring in weapons, or fire up their meth pipes inside the hospital.
Pt. turned out to have eight of them in baggage after ultimately deciding having legs was slightly more important than meth.
Second genius was drunk family who came in to visit drunk parent, who suffered severe gravity poisoning and a brain bleed after falling off bar stool with a blood alcohol of >.400, i.e. drunk enough for five people.
Drunk offspring’s ass got tossedTFO of the hospital and nearly arrested for being combative and assaultive with ER staff.
Third genius: bounced right out of triage – drunk – for getting abusive when asked basic screening questions related to having somehow achieved an entire can – soda, beer, energy drink, whatever – inserted so far up their own tailpipe they couldn’t get it back out.
“Everyone,
Just for the record, nothing ever “accidentally” goes up your butt.” – signed, Every E.D. Staff On The Planet
Good News: Other than Saturday night, which was just the usual Hell, the only people coming in the whole weekend were either legit really sick/dying, or escorted to us in handcuffs, and precious few of the latter. Really quite nice to work, overall.
From here to New Years’, it only gets uglier.
COVID? What’s that? We haven’t seen ten cases in as many weeks. One small outbreak (no hospitalizations) from the local board-and-don’t-care Geezerplex.
Pro Tip: Do not get put in SNFs (Skilled Nursing Facilities; like MREs, three lies for the price of one) if you have the physical ability to escape and evade, by any means possible. Even if we’re talking double leg amputations.
Very little flu, lotta strokes.
No tally on how many legit strokes are double/triple/more Vaxxed. IOW, TPTB don’t wanna know that answer.
Best wishes.
Stay healthy.
Divemedic · November 28, 2023 at 4:51 pm
Luckily, I am off for all the Fall/Winter holidays this year: Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Day, New Year’s Eve. All off. I hate working night shift on New Year’s Eve with the heat of 1,000 suns. It is the worst day of the year for Emergency Medicine.
I called the stroke alert for facial droop. It was negative.
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