Happy 8 Day

This post it to the memory of a fellow co-worker who died in the Helicopter crash in AZ while flying for “Classic Lifeguard” . No one ever suspects the work we do to be so dangerous. Thank God we have such brave people willing to sacrifice their life to the saving of others. Brother you will be sorely missed. Please remember to thank every Doctor, Nurse, Paramedic, EMT, Firefighter, Soldier and Police officer you see for the great job they do everyday keeping us alive and safe.

I don’t think I have ever told the story about a young man just out with his friends looking for a good time. Actually I haven’t been telling any stories but that aside I will continue. One night, about two summers ago, a young man and his sisters came into the E.R. to be seen.

The young man came to the window and said that he had burned himself and would like to be treated. We asked him if he was trying to hurt himself? He replayed ” No its not like I was fooling around with some friends and thats how it happened. OK! said the nurse, so she got his vitals and took him back to a room. This is where I come in. I walked into the room and asked him to show me his burn. He looked at his sisters and back at me then stood up turned around and dropped his pants to the floor. I kid you not I stood amazed and dumbfounded at what was before me. Both checks were covered with second and third degree burns. So I asked him how this happened? He replayed “I was out camping with friends and we had been drinking. I thought it would be funny if I mooned them so I did. I lost my balance and fell right in the fire.

I looked at him and in the straightest face possible said ” Well at least you didn’t do a half assed job” We all laughed to the point of tears and I then spent the next hour scrubbing and peeling the dead and burned skin from his body. If any of you have had a bad burn then you know how hard it is to numb the skin as well as how much I would have to scrub to get the burn clean to reduce any chance of infection. Needless to say I believe this young man learned his lesson.

Please believe me I am going to write something really soon. And it will be good. I have work thirteen days in a row.

Never fear my peoples. I have not forgotten you. I have been busy, but will post soon.

This was sent to be by a co-worker I thought it would make for a good post. I don’t know who wrote them, but if you work in any E.R. it pretty much how it is. Enjoy!

1.The world of the er does not revolve around you. There are sick people here and you may or may not be one of them. We get to decide that. If it’s chronic, and already diagnosed by your doctor,its not an emergency. (Ex: back pain for three years).

2.Our definition of sick may not be your definition of sick. If a member of the ER staff says that someone is sick,it means that they are in the process of DYING. They have had a massive stroke,are bleeding out, having a heart attack, or have been shot. We don’t consider a tooth ache as sick. Painful yes. Sick no.

3.Don’t be a whiner. Do not ask for a meal tray and a warm blanket before you get into the gown. This is not a bed and breakfast. It’s also rude to eat and then leave against medical advise.

4.Physicians and nurses are not waiters. We are not customer service representatives. This is not McDonalds, and you very well NOT have it your way. Our job is to save your life, or at least make you feel better. If you want a pillow, two blankets, the lights dimmed, and the TV on the channel of your choice, go to a hotel.

5. If you have one of these four things, go to you own doctor in the morning:

1. A cold 2.The flu 3.A stomach virus 4. Anything chronic

6. If your child has a fever, you had better have given him Tylenol before coming in. Do NOT let the fever remain high just so we will believe the child has a fever. Do you want your child to have a seizure? Well do you?

7.We have priorities. We understand that you have been waiting for two hours in the waiting room. If you don’t want to wait make an appointment with your doctor. The little old lady that just walked in looking OK to you is probably having a massive heart attack. Thats why she goes first.

8. Do not ask us how long it will be. We don’t know. We don’t know what’s coming through the door in 30 seconds from now..so we surely don’t know when you’ll be getting a room. Never ask the triage nurse if you’ll be admitted.

9. We are not here for primary care. An EMERGENCY is something that is life or limb threating and that requires immediate attention. Get a family doctor and go see him.

10. If you have diabetes and do not control it, you are committing slow suicide. Non-compliance will not get you much sympathy. Especially the fourth time this month.

11. We know how many times you’ve been to the ER. We can usually tell you are faking it or just seeking drugs in the first 5 seconds of talking to you. Do not lie to us. If you lie about one thing, we will assume you are lying about everything. Coming in for de-tox 2-3 times a week is insincere.

12.If you are well enough to complain about the wait you are well enough to go home.

13. If your mother is the patient and we ask her a question, let her answer it. We are checking her level of consciousness, not yours.

14. If you see someone pushing a red cart down the hall at full speed and you hear bells going off..do not ask for a cup of coffee. Someone is dying.

15. If you have any sort of stomach pain and you ask for something to eat, you are not sick. If you are here for vomiting, we are not going to reload you.

16.If you can complain about the blood pressure cuff being too tight, or that the IV needle is hurting, you are not in that much pain. PS if you have more than three piercing or tattoos, don’t tell me you’re afraid of needles.

17. If you want to get something be nice. I will go out of my way to tick off rude people.

18. Do not talk badly about the other members of the staff. I work with them. The doctor that you hate i work with every day, and i know that he knows what he’s doing. I trust him a LOT more that i trust you. I am not here to be your friend, and neither is he. I will tell him what you say, and we will laugh about it.

19. Do not utter the words “you have my records.” I don’t have your records and I don’t have time to call and get them. Just tell me what I need to know. Answer my questions even if I ask them more than once.

20. Do not bring your entire family with you. One person at the bedside is all you need. It is really difficult to work around seven people in the event that you really are sick. This is a hospital, not a place for a family reunion.

21. Bring a current list of your medications and allergies. Include the doses. Nobody should be taking medications if they don’t know what they are or what they are for.

22. I know you doctor said to “go to the ER and I will call and tell them you are coming.” He probably didn’t. And the chances are even less that he will “meet you there later.”

23. If your doctor sent you here because his office was busy you may want to let him know that you waited 5 hours in the waiting room with 60+ contagious people and 4 more hours in the actual ER to get your sore throat looked out.

24. Its not cool to call 911 and tie up an ambulance crew for a non-emergency just because you don’t have cab fare. Coming to the ER by ambulance does not guarantee you will get right in. We routinely move people from the ambulance stretcher to a wheel chair to the waiting room.

25. If you come in on Tuesday with chest pain that started on Saturday don’t expect us to get excited..you didn’t.

26. We’ve seen it ALL. Moaning, writhing, and screaming. Falling to the floor or faking a seizure will not speed up the process one bit. Making obnoxious retching noises and then spitting in an emesis basin is not convincing either. If your going to barf, BARF!

Early in the day a women came into the E.R. to be seen for an infection in her mouth. She had a large abscess the size of a golf a ball growing from her cheek. So one of our physicians saw and treated the patent by giving her antibiotics and some Loratabs, to help with the pain, and told her to come back in eight hours to receive more antibiotics.

Later that night close to 10p.m. the patient returned to receive her antibiotics. The doctor on duty went to see the patient and asses how she was doing. She stated she was feeling better but she still had pain and wondered if she could get more pain medication. The doctor replied “O.K. well, when you get home just take some of the pills we prescribed to you earlier.” The girl then said “Well I wont be going home right away I am going shopping with my child.” The doctor then said “At ten o’clock at night isn’t that a bit late, Listen we will start your antibiotics and I am not going to give you anymore pain meds. You’ll just have to wait tell you get home to take them.” The doctor then turned around and walked away, to which the girl then flipped him of with her middle finger behind his back.

Recently on a really busy night we had a wait time of over an hour. Now one would think for an E.R. thats not very long, but the hour long wait was just to be triaged. Not to mention the forty five minute wait just to see the doctor. So all together we are talking about an hour and forty five minute wait to be triaged and seen. Now that’s pretty good compared to the national average of two hundred and twenty two minutes, thats three hours and forty two minutes. That’s according to Tom Costello from MSNBC’s nightly news. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15817906/

With these long wait times we have had some unfortunate problems arise. Most of this increase in wait time are due to the lack of resources available to those who don’t have health coverage. Or wait! could the long wait times be due to the drug seekers, hypochondriac’s, lazy doctor offices? At any rate people are increasingly using the E.R. for their personal doctor office, demand pain med’s, who seek tests that are unnecessary and unwarranted.

Now I would hate to sound too insensitive but if you knew me, many of you do, it’s not that hard. But on this rather busy night previously mentioned we had a real emergency. A man in his forty’s came in and asked to be seen. He stated his tooth hurt really bad and had to see a doctor right away. When we told him it would be a while he then asked how long. We let him know we do not know exactly how long it would be but we would call him when we were ready for him. He then said in a annoyed manner “So I am going to have to wait” as his alcohol breath is waffed in my face. I replied “Yes it’s going to be a while so please have a seat and we will call you up when we are ready for you.”

He then turned around and headed toward the door. On his way out he stopped at the candy dispenser, looked at the candy, grabbed the top of the dispenser with one hand wrapped the other around the base and pulled. This allowed the top to come off. He then reached into the candy, grabbed a handful, placed the top back, and continued on out the door. I then said out loud to the clerk “I bet that candy is really going to help with his tooth pain.”

Early one morning in the E.R. while a few of my co-workers and I were sitting around talking when a young couple approached the triage and asked to be seen. While our registration was checking in the couple I asked what they are being seen for. The young man replied “I don’t want to say it out loud could I just come in there, meaning triage, and tell you”.

So we let the couple in and started to take his vitals and asking a few general questions. The nurse then asked “what can we help you out with today?” The young man replied “I just want to die”. “Oh!” said the nurse “and why do you want to die?” “Do you plan on harming your self or others?” “No! No!” replied the young man “I don’t want to kill myself I just want to die.” The nurse then said “Well then what do we need to treat for you today?” His girlfriend standing in the corner then spoke up “Just tell them, look this morning we were fooling around and he got a dildo stuck up his butt”. “Oh! OK” replied the nurse. Then we finished with the patient and then took him back to a room awaiting the physician.

Once the couple left triage all of us broke down laughing, it was to hard to hold it in. The sad part is the girl with the young man was not sympathetic towards him at all. We then got an x-ray to see how far up his butt the dildo was and its location. The doctor also questioned the couple to see how this happened. The woman said ” I was holding on to the end of the dildo when all of a sudden it slipped out of my hands and slid up on its own”. In the medical field we call this “the point of no return.” That is the sphincter tightens up so much it not only lets things out put keeps thing from falling out on their own. The next step was to consult a surgeon to see if the young man would have to go into surgery to have the dildo removed. The surgeon felt pretty confident that he could remove the dildo with just a local anesthetic and some ringed forceps. He was right and he pulled out a nine inch dildo out of a 5′10″ 140lbs. guy. The nurse looked at the girl and she said ” Don’t look at me its not mine that’s way to big for me”.

Hey kids! It’s time for everyone’s favorite game–Guess What’s Up My Butt? Now, if you can guess what’s up my butt in the next twenty-four hours you win a free Crispy Shrimp Taco from everyone’s favorite Del Taco. OK? Are you ready? Good luck bitches!

Ok since no one left a comment I am going to give everyone 24 more hours to guess what’s up my butt. Now get on it and start guessing what’s up my but.

So last week at work I was just minding my own business when out of the blue I heard a loud crash. I got up from my desk,  looked down the hall and I saw our housekeeper picking something up off the ground. When all of a sudden I saw a trash can come flying out of a patient’s room. I remember earlier that security was watching this patient but they had since left the department. So, I walked down to see if I could lend any assistance and looked in the room and saw the patient standing there in front of me. All 6′4″ and 300 lbs. of him staring at me.  The computer, which is usually bolted to the wall, was sprawled across the floor.

Suddenly the patient bent down and picked up a rolling stool and threw it at me. The doctor and I both reached up and grabbed the stool from out of the air. I jumped over the mess in front of me and stood before this giant. I say giant because I am 5′7″ and 152 lbs. He spoke but his words were inaudible. I said to him in a stern voice, ” You need to calm down and have a seat NOW!” He looked down at me and started to raise his right arm so I grabbed it quickly and bent it behind his back bending it high and causing him to buckle slightly in pain. When he did this I pushed against his side and forced him onto the bed. Others standing close by grabbed his other arm and together we pinned him down.

I called out to have security come and help us restrain him in his bed. It took them a few minutes and when they arrived they paused with this dumbfounded look on their faces. Another person and I held him down yelled for security to get their cuffs out and put them on. The patient struggled slightly, but after a moment we had him cuffed and laying on his back. The patient started mumbling nonsense so I looked down at him and asked if the cuffs were to tight or if he was hurting anywhere. He replied “No, but thank you for asking.” I then asked if someone could get the four point restraints which they quickly obliged.

I have had a few other run ins with psyche patients in the past but no one compared to him. It felt pretty good to know I have the strength to take someone so big down. That is until one of the other techs asked “Uh, Where do we put this restraint, he’s missing a leg.” I replied ” He’s missing what?” Wow! No wonder he went down so fast.