Saturday, January 30, 2010

The DIRE emergency.

It was my second on-call in greener pastures.... The first one had gone off without a hitch, but yet a mixture of anxiety, fear and excitement was twirling around inside me. What would the day bring my way, and would I cope? Not only was my comfort zone very far away, it was quite frankly, totally shot to hell! Nevertheless I acted as though all was well and butter wouldn't melt in my mouth....

As expected, the inevitable call came. A DIRE emergency!!! Theatre stat!!! Shit!!!

All I could get out of the receptionist (due in part to a language deficiency on my side, and an information deficiency on her side) was... MVA (motor vehicle accident), emergency, get here immediately.

Well that was enough to unleash the formula 1 driver in me. Man it was so cool!! I put on my hazards and made a twenty five minute journey in about eight minutes. They didn't call me Villeneuve back in varsity for nothing!! All the while mentally reciting adrenalin dosages, c-spine considerations, the protocol for low tidal volume ventilation blah, blah, blah.
I screeched to a halt, as only a woman driver can do, and dashed into the hospital, making a beeline for said receptionist...

"So where is he? Still in the ER or in ICU?"

"Oh he is waiting for you up in the ward doctor."

"No not that one, the one you called me about, you know...the DIRE emergency!!! Where is that one?"

"I just told you, he is up in the ward waiting to see you."

Ok I was not getting anywhere with this poppie, and besides she was looking at me like I was half mad and I had just wasted about five minutes! The pixie dust in the golden hour-glass was seriously running out...

I ran up to the ward only to be told that the particular patient was in room 226. Nobody seemed very stressed by the situation and I was getting more and more worried. What the hell was going on here? Surely I was missing some vital part in the equation??

Revved-up and ready for whatever was awaiting me, I entered room 226.

Imagine my surprise when I found an old man, grinning from ear to ear, and hardly able to contain himself as he excitedly relayed the events of a few hours ago leading to his badly fractured humerus. Oh and he reckoned that he was absolutely starving and yes his whole body was sore, and were we going to sort him out now?

Well, I felt myself deflating faster than a pair of silicone boobs on a concorde! For a few blinding seconds the disappointment threatened to overwhelm me... Then I smiled, did the old toppie's premed and continued with the dire emergency, saving my little giggle for later.

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