How many firemen...?

My very first patient of the day was someone who had severely lacerated his thumb with a knife and needed sutures. He was extraordinarily nice chatting with me about how he had once been an EMT. He tells me that I should work at Children's Hospital because I have the "demeanor" for it, and that I would be well received with patients and staff. I took this as a compliment until he followed through with that I would probably not be able to deal well with adult patients who yell at me or are rude to me. Ha. If only he knew how wonderfully some people treat me!

As this Internship progresses, I am finding myself not stunned, shocked, or phased by much anymore, except for a few things. Can you guess what they may be?! I do however, keep waiting for my first dead patient....it has not yet occurred but I really thought that it would today. We had an elderly woman who had passed out for seemingly no apparent reason and upon presentation to the ER her heart rate was about 34 beats per minute. As I adjusted her monitoring system thinking that there was no possible way her pulse could be that low, her heart was going into all sorts of wacked out rhythms yet she continued to speak to the staff as if this were an ordinary doctor visit, even while staff is wheeling in the crash kit and an AED (Automated External Defibrillator--bad news for you and your heart if you need to be shocked).

She passed out again at the hospital while using the restroom and apparently her heart stopped momentarily, but spontaneously restarted. Last I saw of her she was meeting with a cardiologist and being wheeled to the Cath Lab.

My favorite patient of the day was a woman who had fractured a vertebrae in her back and was in severe pain. Since mostly men were working today, guess who was in charge of following her around when she got up to use the restroom...? She just kept repeatedly saying "Shoot. Ow. Give me a minute. Shoot. Ow" Over and over again. And she'd make this weird grunting sound--difficult to reproduce but we generated odd looks as we transported her around.

Second best was an almost 700 pound man who was whiny and nasal and generally.....difficult. Unfortunately he needed to be transported to another hospital, but it is extremely difficult, (if not impossible) to move this heavy of a patient from one bed to another without collapsing or further damaging the patient. So, we called in the Firemen. Not one, or two, or even three. We called in ELEVEN of them, and also had staff members assisting his transition. Now you can start the joke:

How many firemen does it take to move an almost seven hundred pound man?

As he's being moved from one bed to another, he's complaining about how his oxygen is getting cut off, he can't breathe, they're hurting him....the works. Staff told me that he's become so accustomed to not doing anything anymore he relies on everyone else for....everything. I'll never forget the sight of seeing him transported away. He had no shirt on, and was literally pouring over the sides of the bed, every which way. In fact, this man weighed so much they couldn't even lift up the cot to put him in a more comfortable position.

Of course every day here is something awkward. I've been seeing a lot of old person body parts of late, something I could certainly do without. But I hear it's all part of the job, so maybe one day I really will get used to spreading a woman's legs as we place a urinary catheter, or not blush when people (men) seem to lose all their pride when walking through those ER doors and let everything hang out--whether we want it to or not. ;)

The days of this Internship are speeding by and as time progresses I am finding myself more and more at home in the ER and quite at ease with the staff--and they me. I'm quickly discovering that my time there is not enough, but I relish every moment--even with those special patients who come my way.