Work:
Cinco de Cuatro (Arrested Dev reference) and Cinco de Mayo meant it was a busy week... and had a few memorable calls. I had a new intern that started this week so it definitely changes the dynamic a bit. 2 days in he came down with the Norovirus.
Sidenote: Never google vomiting and shitting at same time photos... i am tired and thought i was going to find something like funny pics of people hugging the toilet. Wasnt prepared for that.
I remember when I first started you get sick alot: your immune system builds as you are exposed to sick people constantly.
WARNING: I love telling these stories as long as they remain HIPPA Compliant. I have combed over them to make sure you cannot identify anyone through the story and my employer will remain nameless. All photos are taken from bing search engine... none of them are from the scene nor are any of the people my actual patients. So to the best of my knowledge i am adhering to the rules... but if you see something that i do not - please... inform me in the comments below and i will fix or remove the issue IMMEDIATELY.
Bad Parenting Part 2:
A man who was tazed by authorities because he came at them with weapons. Well not exactly weapons - it was whatever he could find in his reach which ended up being scissors and a paint bucket.
Started as a disturbance of peace and the man was hopped up on some stimulants and tried to teach someone a lesson but wound up tazed. So next time you see one of those videos where the police shoot someone... its not like that everywhere because this man is very lucky he did not get shot.
Standard procedure to take anyone who is tazed to the hospital due to the electrical current potential to cause and arrhythmia.
Obviously in custody... half way to the hospital he asks what to do about his young daughter who was playing nearby at the park unattended.
High Fever:
Went on a call where someone's mother had been very weak and unresponsive to the point she was unable to talk. Find her in really warm layers of clothing. Recently diagnosed with pneumonia but taking antibiotics for it. Took Tylenol this morning about 7 hours ago. She has a heart rate of 144 and a temp of 106.8F. I personally have never seen a temp read that high before. We removed all warm clothing; gave her ice packs stuffed in her armpits and behind her neck. Cranked the air conditioning to full blast. Established an IV and gave a liter of cold fluid. She woke up pretty happy and started talking to me about how she feels much better and could understand everything I was saying to her but could not communicate to me. Lowered the temp to 104.7F which is still dangerously high but the difference in her appearance was night/day.
Febrile Seizures:
I actually went on a few calls that were almost the exact same call: Children between the ages of 1-3 that are sick and have a fever. Parents seem to want to put on warm clothing when someone complains they are cold. Sweating is the bodies cooling mechanism for anyone over the age of 6. Until then; they do not have the capability to cool off naturally. So the temperature can spike fast; within minutes it can go from a regular temp to a high fever. Tylenol is a antipyrogen and will cut down a fever but it must be used intermittently with motrin every six hours because Tylenol is very harsh on the liver.
Anyway... the brain knows something is wrong with the system and tries to reboot which causes a seizure. All neurons in the brain fire off simultaneously. It is important to protect the head from hitting anything nearby. Common side effects are turning blue around the eye lids and mouth; incontinence (peeing); biting their lip or tongue.
All of this leads to a period of unresponsiveness. Still alive but not awake. Or be awake but completely out of it - as in very lethargic and not even acknowledging you are there. This is the postictal state. Oxygen with a high flow rate usually helps the person kick out of this state and recover much faster.
One kid recovered pretty fast and was crying his lungs out the entire way to the hospital while another remained quiet and not aware of her surroundings the entire trip.
I just went from telling a story to full on education mode on seizures.
So anyway seizures can be caused by other reasons other than fever. Blood sugar problems, traumatic brain injuries, withdraw due to substance abuse. Those with TBI and/or substance abuse usually suffer from having seizures regularly for the rest of their lives and know how to deal with it and recover from the seizures very quickly.
Offended
Working the front half day shift we tend to get a lot of lonely women who call us. Mostly for entertainment and/or attention. Had a few of them this week... but this one particularly stands out. African American female called for chest pain. Described her chest pain originating in the left side of her neck and radiating downward past the left side of her chest and to her upper left quadrant of her abdomen. She is very anxious! I run a 12-lead which is a picture of the heart to make sure she isn't having a heart attack... it is clean.
So I ask her: Do you have anxiety?!
She responds: "Oh please don't say that word. I hate that word!
They took away my drivers license because of my anxiety."
After running through every test I can possibly do... I cant find anything wrong.
My partner leans in and whispers "you want me to tell the hospital its anxiety?"
She looks at me and says "what did he say?!"
I quickly jabbed back "Don't worry about it; its the word you don't like"
She says: "Did he call me a N****?"
Me: "What?! no... why would we ever say that? He said anxiety"
Her: "Oh ok.... I was about to slap that motherfucker upside the head."
Me:
**All pictures that were not from my iPhone where taken from bing and google search engine
Taken from my weekly blog: View the whole blog here
https://steemit.com/blog/@medicbtom/medicbtom-weekly-blog-4