have to function consistantly in incredibly stressful situations. We
are faced with death & sorrow daily & have a strange way of coping.
The other night, I was working with snooty childrens hospital as they
were picking up a 1 month old from our ER. The baby was extremely
sick, intubated with a post intubation gas of 7.01.
The transport team wanted a capillary gas before they left, so I poked
the heel, filled up the glass capillary tube & headed off to the
department.
As I'm putting the cap tube in the analyzer...
SNAP!!!
The tube snapped in half, cutting my fingers & spilling blood
everywhere. Mine & my patients' blood.
CRAP!!!
I spent the next 2 hrs in the ER getting blood drawn, filling out boat
loads of paperwork all while trying to convince the doc that I was
allergic to Tylenol, motrin & toradol and needed something for my
10/10 pain. No luck. I tried to get off work for 6 weeks. No luck
there either :)
My lead therapist, however took pity on me & let me go home early.
"Thanks, cool rt, for letting me go home early. I'll see you tonight
as long as I don't die of hepatitis or aids."
Without even batting an eye, he comes back with...
"Dont worry, we will keep you alive forever on a vent."
Sent from my iPhone
6 comments:
Oh man. Scary. I hope that the baby was clean, and I am sure that he was. Very scary though. I hope everything turns out ok.
HA! Awesome comeback.
But seriously. I hope you're okay. Needlesticks are always scary, be they from a baby or a grown person. I hope everything turns out ok, I really do.
I'm sure everything will turn out okay. We've all had scares like this.
I've told my family not to "love" me enough to keep me on a vent.
knowing all the ins and outs, you'd probably make a difficult vent patient.
"Dont worry, we will keep you alive forever on a vent."
Time to update the advance directives.
Nice article, thanks for the information.
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