What to Look Forward To

In anticipation for my new job, I tend to be reminiscing about certain patients I had when I was in my final placement at Small Community Hospital.  SCH was NOT a trauma centre so we didn't see a lot of craziness injuries, but it was the closest healthcare centre to some of the outlying burbs which were known for heavy partying.

#1 - A twenty-something dude came in with decreased LOC, probably a GCS of 8/15, was already intubated and high on god knows what.  He was quickly taken to the Resuscitation Rooms just in case.  We knew his name and that he was from "Province whose main language English was not" but otherwise nothing else.  EMS stated his friends thought he was drunk and high on cocaine/THC.  He was mostly stable but would spike his GCS and become alert enough to thrash and pull at his ETT so restraints were quickly fitted.  To me it looked like he was regressing to a more primordial thought process as his primal self came through.  Lucky me got to place my first OG tube, and foley the messed up yet "prime" specimen that was on the table.

This happened right at the beginning of my shift, and by the time I left 12 hours later he was alert and speaking in his dreamy Non-English Province accent.  That was the first time I really saw the difference between completely corked out and normal in a patient.

#2 - This was a bipolar woman who had the benefit of being secured in a room with sliding glass doors that could be locked.  She would yell and rant that she was fine and that everyone else had a problem because she could only speak Celtic (which is not a language) and the issue was just a lack of communication.  Well we could understand her JUST fine.  

But my favourite moment was when she was taken to the bathroom and had spent a little too much time in there, so one of the nurses asked if she needed any help.  The door swung open, she yelled "Come right in!" and walked out into the centre of the acute area completely shirtless with her gravity affected mammaries swinging everywhere.  As nurses scrambled to cover her up, I thought to myself while laughing uncontrollably, "I love it here!" 

#3 - Then there was my first incoming Code Blue.  I was in awe at how the staff worked together, though the code itself wasn't very eventful or long.  The guy had suffered an asthma attack in the cold without his puffers and dropped.  He had been down for too long and nothing was going to work.  But the more memorable part was when his sister showed up and we had to break the news.  I don't think that's something that will every be easier to hear.