opportunities for blogging have been few and far between this summer. partly because i'm concerned my words will be used against me, partly because nothing seems strange to me anymore and partly because i've been exhausted. summer is notorious for being crazy. it's the time of year when people fly into rages because they're so hot, drink too much, and ride various wheeled things without helmets. summer is always full of trachs, chest tubes, and (my fave...NOT) road rash. so here's the summer in a nutshell:
19 year old gentlman with a GSW. he's a familiar face because he also got shot last year and was on the unit. he goes off for surgery one day, and his fiance and baby mama take the opportunity to throw down. the day RN kicked them off of the floor, so they continued their business at the bus stop. as a result, the fiance was banned from the hospital for 24 hours and the baby mama got her car towed and can't ever come back. i spent the rest of that shift on the look out for the offenders. unfortunately the only physical description i had were "has fake eyelashes" and "wears really short shorts". this does not really narrow things down.
40 something with some mental health issues...tried to commit suicide in several ways and didn't. she got up to go to the bathroom and suddenly became all grey and catatonic. we got her back to bed and she still wouldn't respond to us. we paged our MDs 3 times without success, so i stalked them in the trauma bay (as i learned was expected of us here. i got a less than helpful nurse who informed me that there was a trauma alert (ask me if i care. do i care? NO.) and hung up. she called back 2 minutes later to pass on a message from the trauma team: call a code and call the ICU resident. well lets all step back a minute here and think about this. did i say the patient wasn't breathing? that she was pulseless? and really people, if the patient were coding do you think i would walk away and ask the doctors what i should do about it? girl, please. so anyways, i didn't call a code, the ICU resident came down, and the patient was whisked away to the CT scanner. the trauma team never came up to see her. the intern, however, did call back after everything was done to drop a few F-bombs and criticize our management of the situation. so there's that.
my summer project: a middle aged diabetic with necrotizing faciitis...basically flesh eating bacteria. because he didn't manage his blood sugars, the bacteria tore through his left leg and groin. the doctors went in and removed the dead tissue down to muscle and vessels. he's been on the floor for 2 months with surgery after surgery to try to repair his leg. now i'll admit, at first i wasn't a fan. he was constantly on the call light and i never got to him fast enough for his liking. he was always farting and burping, peeing on open wounds or calling for the bedpan. he liked discussing his bodily functions in exquisite detail and scratching his man-parts. i won't lie, he utterly repulsed me. but after a while, i got to see the person underneath all the grossness. and as i took care of him more, i found an average guy who just wanted to live a normal life. he uses walkie-talkies at walmart to talk to his girlfriend. he sells vintage lightbulbs on Ebay. he knows how to fix cars. inside he's a gentle man who just wants to go home to his girlfriend, their cats, and his simple life. i won't lie, sentimental fool that i am it breaks my heart just a little. and it's always a good reminder for me: people are just people.
so trauma season is drawing to a close...i'm a little sad because it's my favorite time of year, and i creepily enjoy picking gravel out of people. oh well, there's always next year.
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