A Day

How was my day? I don't know. It was a day. I went to work. I worked 12 hours. I did eight calls. Nothing really interesting. Let me try to recall:

1. Old man with increasing dementia. History of CVAs. Says he had chest pain briefly. His wife thinks he might have had a small seizure. He is not complaining of anything now.

2. Nursing home patient semi-responsive with fever, infected foot oozing putrid drainage.

3. Long distance transfer from VA to VA.

4. Fall, patient with MS rolled out of bed. We put him back in bed.

5. 25 year old vomiting.

6. Old lady with nosebleed that had stopped prior to our getting them. Refusal.

7. Motor vehicle with neck pain

8. Maybe we only did 7. I thought we did eight. If we did an eighth, it wasn't memorable.

***

I had another equipment incompatibility problem today. We were out of the small saline vials. I usually draw up saline out of a 250 bag, but the only needles that were long enough to get the fluid out, were not compatible with the saline locks. They had the retractable needles, which if you put in the saline locks, puncture the locks. I ended up having to give everyone an IV bag.

My other minor frustration for the day is I wanted to gets news about the hurricanse in the Gulf, but everyplace I went that had a TV -- hospital waiting rooms, nursing homes, etc, all had their TVs either on Jerry Springer or Soap Operas. I guess no one was interested in the storm of Biblical proportions.

One other tidbit from the day -- the morning paper had a story about the guy who was murdered the day before in the city. It went something like this: "Leroy Jones had just started to turn his life around and tomorrow was going to start a new job..."
Later in the strory his grandmother says, "He hung with the wrong crowd..."

It seems everytime someone is shot, they run the same story. They are always just turning their life around, always just starting a new job. Maybe that's why people don't work. Starting a new job has a death rate higher than cancer.

***

My throat is feeling a little scratchy. Tonight I took some of this "Airbourne" medicine which is supposed to be a cure-all for colds if you take it early. It had worked okay for me in the past. We'll see.