weird blog post # 678

I made an interesting discovery yesterday that has nothing to do with the blog, and yet it does.  I was on my way to a store and noticed a store that sold coffins.  Well...thats a new one.  I have never seen a coffin shop before.

On the window was marked "coffins for $95".   Man, that's cheap.  You don't get much of a coffin for $95. Probably made of plywood.  Your family has to be really down and out to buy a $95 coffin.

Coffins are really weird.  Its like they are a measure of how much you loved the person, how much they meant to you.  Stupid as that is.  Its really pretty ridiculous.  Spending all that money on something that is going six feet under to rot.   Imagine the billions of dollars in the ground.

The thing about it is, whether you buy a gold plated coffin or a plywood coffin, everybody is equal when we're six feet under.

What a weird blog post....I couldn't resist looking up some weird coffins.  Here are three of my favorites:

weird triage question #345

I kid you not...weirdest question ever asked in triage:

"Can I go to the bar while I wait?"

Ah...sure sir, just give us your cell number and we'll call you when its your turn....

the poop queen

Here is how wikepedia defines poop:

Feces, waste product from an animal's or a human's digestive tract expelled through the anus, including synonyms crap and shit.

I was the poop queen today, a title I didn't want, really didn't deserve.  But alas there it is. I wear the crown, I have the sash.

This is the kind of day when you make bad choices.  In my ER we don't assign rooms, we just take our share of patients.  It works fine.  But see, in this kind of system, its all about choice.  You see whats in triage, you see the magic move from triage to  a room on the computer.  You see the complaint.  This is the time when you decide whether to go for it or suddenly have to go to the bathroom.

Well, like a fool, I went for it.  And thats when the day went downhill.  Poo poo pants on arrival by ambulance. Uh oh.  Now its too late.  I am committed.  Why didn't I go to the bathroom when I had the chance?  Damn it!

Okay, one poop, no big deal.  But then there was another and another and another.  And of course, when someone is incontinent in the ER, it is not your normal stool.  It is usually liquid and odorous.  Its the kind of thing where it stays in your nose for the next hour.

Okay, they are gone, up to an inpatient  room for someone else to worry about.  Whew..

Here's the thing about this kind of day, when you have one, you will have more.  So my second patient with a poo poo problem.  More cleaning. I'm doomed.

Its the kind of day that when you get home you want to boil your scrubs.

smack attack

Is heroin making a comeback? I have seen more heroin addicts in the last couple of weeks than I have in a long time.  Young ones too.  Teenage. Sad.

Heroin addicts coming to ER present for various reasons:

- They want to get off it. Unfortunately we aren't going to be able to help much with that.

-They overdosed.  They come in one of 2 ways: by ambulance with narcan already on board. Or they are brought by a "friend" almost dead.

-They have an abscess from an injection.

All in all, a fun time for all involved.  My job is so glamorous.

you move to the suburbs to avoid them

Is it just my imagination or do people get more down and out as the days go by?  Maybe its just that my ER is attracting more of  the down and out.  When I say down and out, I mean DOWN and OUT.  As in living on the low rung of society and barely clinging to that.   We're talking middle aged crackheads, people who are homeless alcoholics and every couple of weeks go to a different hospital claiming to be suicidal, people who choose not to bathe, the mentally ill off their meds, teenage runaways,etc.  I am seeing  more and more of them, those on the losing end of society. These are the people you move to the suburbs to avoid.  You cross the street when you see them.  You roll up your window when they are begging for money at the freeway entrance. You shoo your kids away.  I deal with them everyday...


Its sad, pathetic, troubling.  Its tiring. They are difficult to deal with.  We are not going to do much for them, unfortunately, but send them on their way to work toward their next fix or drink.

the sperm that won

I know that this is life in the emergency room, but sometimes I grow weary of taking care of all the crackheads, drunks, neurotic middle aged white women,  borderline personalities, drug seekers, dumb as a box of rocks people.

That is all.

Move along, nothing to see here.

my job in a nutshell

YUP

Sorry about the lack of blog posts. I'm going through a dry period or maybe I'm just bored, I don't know.
I'll come around. Don't give up on me..

props for your props

Don't you love a drug seeker with props?  You know, the one who comes with crutches, braces - neck or knee, etc?   I  have to give them props for their props....very creative.

Here's the thing, drug seekers ultimately are dumb.  They think they are clever, that somehow we won't figure them out.  Some of them even try using another name or rearranging their own name.  The thing they don't realize is that the average ER nurse can spot them a mile away.

To those who don't lie, give their real name, there is the state prescription data base.  Every time you fill a narcotic prescription it is registered.  We all get this perverse sense of satisfaction when we bust one of these fools.
 

thats me in a nutshell

yup

uh oh

You know what sucks?  When you send your critically ill patient up to ICU and within 10 minutes you hear:
"Anesthesia stat to room ______".  That's the room the patient went to. Uh oh.
Now they need to be intubated..

Their sats were good when they left, what happened?  Everything else was in the shitter, but the sats were good.

There is no one to tell you what happened.  With HIPAA we can''t ask what happened.  It would be an invasion of privacy and all that. We never find out what happens to our patients and that sucks.

Larry the LOUD vomiter

OK I've got a question for y'all:  Why is it that some people have to be such frickin' loud vomiters?  I mean really, do you have to put on a performance when you vomit?  A performance everybody has to share in?

In triage, occasionally there is someone who is so damn loud that I can't even hear the person I'm trying to triage in the other bay.  These people don't just vomit, they VOMIIIITTTTT.  I always think they are going to rupture their esophagus.

They are annoying more than anything.  They are the kind of people you want to tell STFU!  Get over yourself.  You aren't the first person to nauseated.