And I'm an idiot.
Jul. 24th, 2004 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
porphyrinBecause Mrissa's party is tomorrow-not-today, and because the 7-layer salad has bacon in it, which means Pam can't eat it (Argh, argh, double argh, and we shall stop and buy a block of soy cheese by way of apology...).
But I'm not as MUCH of an idiot as the crazies that were out last night. I walk into a room in the ED, and there is a well-groomed woman sitting there, watching me, wearing a rabbit-fur coat and flowers in her hair.
I stop short, and blink. "I'm sorry," I say. "This is room X4, isn't it? I'm looking for Jane Doe."
She nods, once. Regally. "I'm having a drug reaction," she announces.
Really, I think. I try to imagine to what-- mushrooms, maybe? "Which drug did you take?"
"Tylenol #3." She seems perfectly composed.
I can't quite manage to not look puzzled. "And... what sort of reaction are you having?"
"ALL OF THEM," she shouts at me, losing her aplomb.
The one that, however, elicited the least sympathy from me last night was the 17 year old male who has a 2 year old daughter by one woman and another child on the way by another woman, who got involved in an altercation with the father of... well, I think it was one of those women. HIS mother came to the ED with him. She was 39, almost 40.
Anyway, he had a huge through-and-through lip laceration, but he freaked out at the sight of the needle with marcaine in it and wouldn't let me numb it up. After spending 30 minutes I didn't have trying to get him to lie down and let me numb up the laceration-- and fending off irate nurses and staff physicians who kept letting me know that ALL THE ROOMS WERE FULL OF PATIENTS AND WHERE WAS I?-- I finally told him I couldn't spend any more time trying to persuade him, and he *couldn't* stall any more, and if he didn't want treated, I would bring him the papers to sign and he could leave, but if this didn't get stitched up, he would have a terrible scar for the rest of his life.
To make a long story short, he had me do the suturing with NO anesthesia rather than face that terrible 25 gauge needle.
I don't understand people sometimes.
But I'm not as MUCH of an idiot as the crazies that were out last night. I walk into a room in the ED, and there is a well-groomed woman sitting there, watching me, wearing a rabbit-fur coat and flowers in her hair.
I stop short, and blink. "I'm sorry," I say. "This is room X4, isn't it? I'm looking for Jane Doe."
She nods, once. Regally. "I'm having a drug reaction," she announces.
Really, I think. I try to imagine to what-- mushrooms, maybe? "Which drug did you take?"
"Tylenol #3." She seems perfectly composed.
I can't quite manage to not look puzzled. "And... what sort of reaction are you having?"
"ALL OF THEM," she shouts at me, losing her aplomb.
The one that, however, elicited the least sympathy from me last night was the 17 year old male who has a 2 year old daughter by one woman and another child on the way by another woman, who got involved in an altercation with the father of... well, I think it was one of those women. HIS mother came to the ED with him. She was 39, almost 40.
Anyway, he had a huge through-and-through lip laceration, but he freaked out at the sight of the needle with marcaine in it and wouldn't let me numb it up. After spending 30 minutes I didn't have trying to get him to lie down and let me numb up the laceration-- and fending off irate nurses and staff physicians who kept letting me know that ALL THE ROOMS WERE FULL OF PATIENTS AND WHERE WAS I?-- I finally told him I couldn't spend any more time trying to persuade him, and he *couldn't* stall any more, and if he didn't want treated, I would bring him the papers to sign and he could leave, but if this didn't get stitched up, he would have a terrible scar for the rest of his life.
To make a long story short, he had me do the suturing with NO anesthesia rather than face that terrible 25 gauge needle.
I don't understand people sometimes.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-25 12:59 am (UTC)Hope the needle-fearer didn't steal all the peace left from your vacation.
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Date: 2004-07-25 02:15 pm (UTC)My saddest story of needle fear: A child, perhaps 7-10 years old, and some other children had been train-surfing a moving freight train, jumping from the top of one car to another. This boy slipped, somehow, and fell onto the tracks, or been crushed between the cars. His legs had been mostly severed at low/mid-thigh. They were bent back double, in an unnatural joint, so that his feet flopped around at the level of his waist. It was a grotesque and shocking sight.
He was brought in by the medics as a trauma, of course, and immediately nurses and MD's jumped on him to start the classic two 18 ga.'s. When the boy saw the first nurse approaching with the IV needle, he became terrified, and started to yell, "No! No needle, please!", and tried to fight off the nurses.