So, with the entire hospital full and packed to the rafters this week, X number of E.D. beds, and 4X number of waiting room patients all friggin' night, I walk into my shift after clocking in early, because of the page of a violent patient in the E.D.
Four hard restraints, three assaulted staff members, two police responses, one bite mark, and a cuckoo in a bare room later, and that issue is settled while the meds kick in.
Oh, and no points for guessing who's getting that patient as part of their assignment.
So as the night wears on, Fate has firmly tattooed her heelprints on my backside, because I'm getting my ass thoroughly kicked, and even though we're closed, we get a call we can't turn away, for a STEMI inbound in 5 minutes.
And I'm also doing the critical beds tonight.
FML.
That'll be me in the white tonight.
So our patient arrives, with the paramedics having done damn near everything (mad props, guys), he's got a STEMI on the field 12-lead, tombstones on the 3-lead monitor, and a STEMI on our 12-lead. And a classic CP presentation. So we're pretty sure it's a heart attack. We dotted all the "I"s and crossed all the "T"s, and we're just waiting for the cath lab doc's arrival to move him over, when the little stinker patient codes. Fifteen seconds of compressions and one defibrillation later, he's back, with the wife biting her fingers off watching, and off he goes to cath lab, finally.
Where it turns out he's got one coronary artery 99% occluded, and another distal one that's at 90%, both of which they stent.
So as I leave, the family is in the ICU waiting room, and I've already talked to his ICU nurse, where the patient is smiling and joking with the nurses, and liable to get a few more decades with his family, after getting to the hospital just in time.
Because everyone from the paramedics to the E.D. to the cath lab to the ICU are badass rockstars, on their "A" game.
And I get to leave the family with smiles, instead of tears.
That'll be me as I walk to the parking lot that morning end of shift.
Good on ya'.
ReplyDeleteI almost died in the ER. It was over-crowded, but a bed was found for me because of a nurse that knew what she was doing. I almost cashed in my chips because of an incompetent nurse; rescued by an MD.
I wrote them all - ALL - effusive thank you notes, and included details. Right down to the admin ass. that found me a glass of water without ice.