Just a small sampling of my day:

Stupid #1: Per wife: He's had n/v for an hour. It won't stop. He always gets an IV and medicines for this. He has chronic UTI's since childhoold d/t some congenital thing.
Rachedy: That emesis looks like pure water, has he been drinking water?
Stupid #1: Yes, he has, his throat is dry!! He needs to be admitted, we don't have insurance and no money to buy antibiotics!
Rachedy: He's being discharged, there is no indication to be admitted.
Stupid #1: WHAT? We always get admitted. We're leaving this dump and going to the big house downtown where they always admit him and give him medications for his pain and nausea.
Rachedy: Bub-bye.

Stupid #2: I have mucus in my throat and I can't stop coughing, I'm wheezing. I had a UTI last month and an ear infection. When I cough I have chest pain.
Rachedy: I see, do you have asthma? Right now your lungs are clear.
Stupid #2: Yes! I'm sick, I don't want to be blown off, I know how this works, I'm a nursing student at the technical school.
Rachedy: Okay, but all your tests are negative. Your urine is clean. Your ears are clean, they are discharging you.
Stupid #2: I want to talk to the manager!
Rachedy: Okay, but I have to put you in the hall, I'm sorry. The manager will be with you shortly (when they get back from a meeting and lunch and afternoon break and then another meeting followed by the ice cream social that none of us have time to attend.

Watching the look on her face while pushing her into the hall while the code is rolling into her room: Priceless.

Meet the New Boss

It's been a few months since all the old doctors were fired, er, replaced by a new physicians group. Needless to say, I miss Dr. Crotchety. I miss Dr. DoNothing who only ordered Motrin and a Sierra Mist for every complaint except a head bleed or STEMI.

The new director, Dr. Silverfox, thinks he's the Sultan of the ER. His shenanigans even have the biggest ho's I work with complaining. He'll walk by you and reach out and touch your back or comment on your make-up or hair, make comments like, "Thanks for bringing me coffee this morning." Ugh, he's so disgusting.

One newly graduated doctor who is on staff has a bad habit of peeing in the staff toilet and not flushing. All the red bull he drinks makes for a huge pot of frothy yellow piss that stinks. I hate him because he does a full-court press work-up on everybody, bar none.

I prefer to spend my time in triage these days. At least I know what I'm dealing with out there.

Got a box of T-Shirts?

The usual suspects shuffled in and out of my triage room with the sniffles, cough,
aches, some worse than others. One lady who reeked of menthol cigarettes and had a nose that sounded like it was full of rotting grits whipped out an old white, now grayish tinged stained tee shirt in a size 3x and blew a huge honker into it while I was typing her up. She then stuffed it back into her backpack.

Really, skank? Having been sick myself all week, I seriously had to excuse myself before I threw up all over my keyboard.

Sick

I'm not one to get sick with stomach stuff but this week has been a week from hell with vomiting and some diarrhea. After vomiting every 15 minutes the entire night on Sunday, it briefly crossed my mind how I was going to get to the ED. Scratch that, I would never go to the ED for N/V/D. I mean, really, I'm not elderly and I'm not under the age of 5. Besides, I don't want to be laughed at by all my co-workers.

What I don't get is how these people manage to even get off the couch to come in. I could barely walk down the stairs, let alone go back up them until night time. So, I did the sip thing, took some Zofran/Immodium and tried to ride it out. It's now Tuesday night and I still feel sick. WTF?

Making it worse was one of my crowns starting hurting like a real bitch and I had to drag my sick ass out to the dentist today. After some adjusting to my ever increasing mouth full of porcelain, I came home and tried to eat a little something. No go. Seriously, I can't eat anything without getting this over whelming urge to hurl. Then, to top it off, the cat has diarrhea. Nice.

I've got one more day off then it's back on Thursday. I might just have to call in, even though every time I have called in, it's the same excuse of N/V. All lies, maybe I better come up with a better excuse.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Halloween

You all know how immature I am.:

What will I tell my boys?

We got the call that a 44 year old female was coming in hot with an asthma attack. She arrives in full arrest, lungs too tight to bag and the story is that she was getting ready for work when she told her boyfriend to call 911. Somewhere in the story as I was triaging, a by-stander had told EMS there was some meth smoking going on prior to the incident. Crap, now I have to call the sheriff and all that poo cuz she dies and we don't know what happened.

She looked well nourished, no meth teeth, no skin pickings. Coming in, she was a Jane Doe but we soon had a name and word that her estranged husband was in the waiting room, alone.

He had gone to the house to pick up his two boys age 5 and 7, when the first responders had just arrived. Slowly, we get the story that he was separated from her, that they use to be drug addicts and had been clean for over 5 yrs. He had left her in April because he thought she might be using again, but wasn't sure. She had a boyfriend living with her but he had left the scene as soon as he called 911.

All he could say when told that she was dead was "Oh my God, what will I tell my boys?" Over and over he said it. I thought I was going to lose it when he pulled out the cell phone and showed me pictures of two tow-headed cherubs. Seriously, peeps, this one got to Rachedy, the cold dark heart that never bleeds was almost a sniffling wad of snot.

After all was said and done, the sheriff found a meth lab in the house and were actively looking for the boyfriend.

It's been three days and for some reason I can't let this one go.

Damn.