Shift Report: Exhausted
Sunday, November 14th, 2004 at 4:28 am
The cat made it through her vet appointment ok… even with all the dogs there :-/ Turns out that the green thing hanging off her neck (that looked like a gall-bladder to me) was really just an engorged tick. Never seen one like that on a human. Oh well. The second swelling was and still is an undetermined skin lesion — they just told me to watch it to make sure it doesn't get bigger. Good thing it was only $9 for something I could have done myself 
I don't fell too bad about my first mis-diagnosis… I am studying humans and not cats 
So I just got done with a nice 16-hour shift at the ER, since there was a "miscommunication" among the night techs about shift coverage (i.e. someone didn't want to come in…) So I had a fun night complete with a guy almost physically assaulting me, since the hospital's commercials created too high expectations, and I wasn't running to help his son. Run? In an ER? What is this, a TV show? Anyways, the son was a 24-year-old male complaining of chest pain and his father was screaming that he was having a heart attack and was going to die any second. So I get him back to a room, and attempt to do an electrocardiogram on him. Problem is, he is breathing 24 times a minute, having muscle spasms, and complaining of numbness/tingling in all extremities (including his penis, he decided to share…) Yup, you guessed it… simple hyperventilation, no doubt made worse by the father's constant screaming. Once the anxiety was resolved pharmaceutically, I obtained an EKG to find: Suprise! Absolutely nothing wrong. I don't think the doctor even bothered sending blood specimens to the lab, since the EKG was so unimpressive.
The rest of the shift was pretty uneventful, except for the 500lb patient brought in by ambulance for low blood sugar. Her house was such a mess that the ambulance crew had to use the chemical decon showers to clean themselves off… :-/ Well, after moving that patient, my back is killing me, so I am going to sleep, so that I can get up and do it all again in 6 hours….
Oh and by the way, you know you have a screwed up work schedule when the night cashier at the grocery store knows you by name, since 3 am is seemingly the only time you can go shopping…
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was the green thing on her neck the same thing that has been there for a long time that papa claimed was a cyst? if so, let me just say that I thought it was a tick but nobody listens to me! (and if not, ignore the bratty prior comment:-P) Is she ok though? What other skin lesion? Where is it and how could she have gotten it? Did she get it at Madison´s or at home? Take care of my kitty! Sounds like work is fun and yeah good point about grocery shopping - they also know you´re an American over here when you try to go to gas stations for regular grocery shopping since you forgot that the stores close:-P At least you´re managing to eat though - that´s a plus!