MedicPrincess
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First I should warn you....this could get a tad bit on the longer side....
Had my next to my last hospital rotation last night. Only 5 classes to go....YEA!!!
First patient....48 y/o M, Cardiac Arrest, Unknown Down time, Last seen 50 min prior. No sweat. He was purple from the nipples up. DRT. CC. and all that. Dr put about 3 minutes worth of effort into, checked on the handheld dopplar...nada....time of death 1812.
Next call...3 y/o M, took unknown quantity of 200 mg Caffiene pill. Activated Charcole (and a few other top secret nurse stuff) and VIOLA!!! He is better.
Next call...2 month old Male....Cardiac Arrest. Mom found in in the "crack of the bed" (whatever that means) with blood around his nose and mouth. Medics grab and go, leaving mom at the scene with PD. This baby boy gets worked for a while. Of course all the stops are pulled, with every Pediatrician and Pedi Intern in the friggin hospital in the resusitation room. Tube in place, they have bilat breath sounds AND bowel sounds. Dr pulls the Medics tube and tries for one of his own. He cannot see the cords, so Resp does their special suctioning and one of the interns tries. She is in. Again with the bilat breath sounds and bowel sounds. So they pull that tube. Dr gets the dopplar, and nothing. So its called...time of death 1941. Yep, my first Pediatric. I could not bring myself to leave the room he was in. Not a SINGLE family member was there. I can understand the mom, as she was being held up by PD's questioning. But NOBODY!!!! Not an Aunt, Uncle, Grandparent....NOBODY!!!! came to the hospital to be with this baby. Pastoral care and I were the only ones in there with him (the family from the other Code told him to go in with me as that baby needs to have someone there! Imagine, they just lost their loved one, and they were thinking about this poor baby that apparantly nobody else thought about!!) So it was just him and I in there after the nurse disconnected everything and swaddled him. He looked just like a little baby doll. I just couldn't leave him alone in there. Even when the Pastor had to step out, I was just talking to him. When XRay came to get their films, I unwrapped him and layed him on their boards and helped to get him positioned just so. And I kept talking to him like he could hear me, telling him what they were going to do and how it wasn't going to hurt. And when they were done, I wrapped him up and just rubbed his head and talked to him some more. Then when the Crime Scene detective showed up, same thing. She was so gentle with him and even she talked to him. Told him she wouldn't hurt him and she was so sorry she had to meet him like that. Finnaly, the X-Rays showed no signs of abuse. Thank GOD!!! But still no mom. Turns out she had laid him down for a nap and left the house. Looks like he died from Positional Asphyxia, by rolling into the space between her matress and the wall. It wasn't until the CSI lady said she was going to have to close off the Pedi Resusitation room that I left him. And only because she said everyone had to get out. It was almost 3 hours before ANY member of his family got there. They had all decided to go to the house where the mom was. Not a single one of them thought maybe they should be there with him. :angry:
A few of the standard coughs, colds, non-cardiac chest pains, low back pains, ect. Then the last call.
19 month old M....status epilepticus. The Pedi Nurse knows this kid, thats all she would say after she said he goes into the Pedi Resusitation Room. Sure enough, not 2 minutes after EMS put him on the bed in the hospital the boy coded. So feverish work ensues, no tube this time, and hes back. And back in seizure. The nurse is telling someone to grab the RSI kid and he codes again. And the work ensues again, this time they get the tube, and a pulse. The ER Dr says to get him to Pedi ICU so off we go. The kid goes into full arrest 2 more times between the ER and the ICU. The ICU staff is familiar (to say the least.....they have his picture on the wall) with this boy. Turns out he has Cerebral Palsey, is blind and deaf, has COPD, and is in a constant state of seizure. He is a ward court and lives with a caretaker, however Mom still has medical decision making authority, and here is a SHOCKER....she gets a check from the state anda disability check for him. So as long as he is alive she gets paid. So she refuses to make the boy a No Code...he is a Full Code and apparantly they do this routine once...sometimes twice....a month.
So I am off to shower, and go to work. I have been up since 5 am yesterday morning....and I guess if I don't drive off a cliff in the next week or so I will be fine...in the mean time its a good thing there are no cliffs here and I work in an ER, so I will be able to chat with some of the more expierenced "Grandmotherlylike" nurses today.
Had my next to my last hospital rotation last night. Only 5 classes to go....YEA!!!
First patient....48 y/o M, Cardiac Arrest, Unknown Down time, Last seen 50 min prior. No sweat. He was purple from the nipples up. DRT. CC. and all that. Dr put about 3 minutes worth of effort into, checked on the handheld dopplar...nada....time of death 1812.
Next call...3 y/o M, took unknown quantity of 200 mg Caffiene pill. Activated Charcole (and a few other top secret nurse stuff) and VIOLA!!! He is better.
Next call...2 month old Male....Cardiac Arrest. Mom found in in the "crack of the bed" (whatever that means) with blood around his nose and mouth. Medics grab and go, leaving mom at the scene with PD. This baby boy gets worked for a while. Of course all the stops are pulled, with every Pediatrician and Pedi Intern in the friggin hospital in the resusitation room. Tube in place, they have bilat breath sounds AND bowel sounds. Dr pulls the Medics tube and tries for one of his own. He cannot see the cords, so Resp does their special suctioning and one of the interns tries. She is in. Again with the bilat breath sounds and bowel sounds. So they pull that tube. Dr gets the dopplar, and nothing. So its called...time of death 1941. Yep, my first Pediatric. I could not bring myself to leave the room he was in. Not a SINGLE family member was there. I can understand the mom, as she was being held up by PD's questioning. But NOBODY!!!! Not an Aunt, Uncle, Grandparent....NOBODY!!!! came to the hospital to be with this baby. Pastoral care and I were the only ones in there with him (the family from the other Code told him to go in with me as that baby needs to have someone there! Imagine, they just lost their loved one, and they were thinking about this poor baby that apparantly nobody else thought about!!) So it was just him and I in there after the nurse disconnected everything and swaddled him. He looked just like a little baby doll. I just couldn't leave him alone in there. Even when the Pastor had to step out, I was just talking to him. When XRay came to get their films, I unwrapped him and layed him on their boards and helped to get him positioned just so. And I kept talking to him like he could hear me, telling him what they were going to do and how it wasn't going to hurt. And when they were done, I wrapped him up and just rubbed his head and talked to him some more. Then when the Crime Scene detective showed up, same thing. She was so gentle with him and even she talked to him. Told him she wouldn't hurt him and she was so sorry she had to meet him like that. Finnaly, the X-Rays showed no signs of abuse. Thank GOD!!! But still no mom. Turns out she had laid him down for a nap and left the house. Looks like he died from Positional Asphyxia, by rolling into the space between her matress and the wall. It wasn't until the CSI lady said she was going to have to close off the Pedi Resusitation room that I left him. And only because she said everyone had to get out. It was almost 3 hours before ANY member of his family got there. They had all decided to go to the house where the mom was. Not a single one of them thought maybe they should be there with him. :angry:
A few of the standard coughs, colds, non-cardiac chest pains, low back pains, ect. Then the last call.
19 month old M....status epilepticus. The Pedi Nurse knows this kid, thats all she would say after she said he goes into the Pedi Resusitation Room. Sure enough, not 2 minutes after EMS put him on the bed in the hospital the boy coded. So feverish work ensues, no tube this time, and hes back. And back in seizure. The nurse is telling someone to grab the RSI kid and he codes again. And the work ensues again, this time they get the tube, and a pulse. The ER Dr says to get him to Pedi ICU so off we go. The kid goes into full arrest 2 more times between the ER and the ICU. The ICU staff is familiar (to say the least.....they have his picture on the wall) with this boy. Turns out he has Cerebral Palsey, is blind and deaf, has COPD, and is in a constant state of seizure. He is a ward court and lives with a caretaker, however Mom still has medical decision making authority, and here is a SHOCKER....she gets a check from the state anda disability check for him. So as long as he is alive she gets paid. So she refuses to make the boy a No Code...he is a Full Code and apparantly they do this routine once...sometimes twice....a month.
So I am off to shower, and go to work. I have been up since 5 am yesterday morning....and I guess if I don't drive off a cliff in the next week or so I will be fine...in the mean time its a good thing there are no cliffs here and I work in an ER, so I will be able to chat with some of the more expierenced "Grandmotherlylike" nurses today.