Sad (warning gross medical stuff)

[batgirl]

Sad.

Sometimes you just have to feel it. I'm not supposed to get attached to patients, but when I see them so often it's hard not to. It's hard to accept their inevitable deaths when you've met their families, spouses, children and friends. Even when you walk into the most roach infested hell-hole, I feel a twinge of sadness for the person lying there, this is their home.

It's been an uneventful day so far, only 1 job and it was a backup for a basic crew. The patient got dizzy in church and fainted, and the EMTs thought it could have been cardiac related. Turned out the woman was wearing her winter coat and standing near the heater, so she just got woozy from the heat. For the better part of the day we sit, them snoozing and me taking a small nap and then reading. A couple of hours before their shift ends (and my 2nd half of the 16 hour double shift I'm working) we get a call for an unconscious patient, not breathing.

We pull up with the basic crew and grab all of our gear, rushing into the nursing home. As we wait for the elevator to reach 6, we stop at 2 and a nurse tries to argue her way onto the elevator. "Well, I'm going to the same floor with this oxygen measuring machine for him."

"Um...stop wasting our time, and take the stairs, we need to close the door." She still squeezes on, making our cramped quarters even smaller. "How are you going to measure his breathing if he's not breathing?"

"...Oh."

We all, all 5 of us, roll our eyes in unison. Getting to the floor we rush into the room. He is blue, like a smurf. No one knows how long he's been down, no one knows why. I go to tube him, almost second nature now. I have a terrible view. I'm crouching like a baseball catcher behind the bed. There;s gunk in his mouth that smells like meat, bad meat. I try to slide the tube in and I meet resistance. I ask for the forceps and pull out some brown material but it's still obstructed. I ask the medic to take over, and I go to prepare drugs, since he is clearly in cardiac arrest. They get an IV in his jugular vein and the medic goes into his throat with the forceps. I'm drawing up the meds and getting the syringe ready, and suddenly I hear "well here's lunch." I look over to see the medic dropping the forceps with a chunk of unchewed roast beef the size of a baseball on the bed. The tube slides in easily.

We get the drugs going and keep CPR up. I have a good feeling about this one. I push my third epinephrine and my hope starts fading. I get a glance at the history and see meningitis and brain cancer, and my hope is gone. I knew we weren't going to bring him back. If we did, there wouldn't be much left with a viable quality of life. I push my last drug as we start taking him to the truck. I push more in the truck and do compressions and ventilations. At the ER, we pass him off to the docs and nurses, but it looks bleak. We've been working him up for 40mins and who knows how long he was down before that. We pulled up at 1230 and lunch for them was at 1130, so he could have been down for the better part of an hour, no one noticing him chocking.

A man's life hangs by a thread, and then gets violently cut by stupidity.

Sad.

[Specterbane]

That does suck, I'm sorry to hear you had a sad day batgirl. I can't say I really have anything to add, but I hope tomorrow's better for you.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Poor man. I'm sorry to hear how things went for you and the rest of your team. At least you did as best as you could under the circumstances.

[akaSM]

There may be some bad days in your job but, I'm sure the good days more than make up for the bad days

[Amake]

Thank you for sharing. I think what you do makes the world a little more bright and, I don't know, being part of the community with you makes us feel like we have some small part in that. Even if it's only listening to the tales of your heroic efforts.

[Bells]

weird enough, as i was reading the thread there was an Episode of Scrubs going on my TV, and at the very moment i came here it was one of those Dr Cox speeches where he says something like

"You got to face facts that all we do here in the Hospital is Stall. In the end, we're just trying to keep the ball rolling". I thought it was an interesting coincidence after all.

Thing is, reading from what you told... i think it's actually great that you take it this personal when it happens. I'm pretty sure quite a few of us can relate to being neglected or badly treated by a Doctor, Nurse or some such at one point or another. So be able to still "feel it" is actually a good thing because it means you give a damn.

That said... you can sigh and feel bad, but you still can be proud of your work. You gave him the best chance he could've got. You said it yourself when you were having problem with an specific part you gave space to the doctor while you went to take care of another way to help this guy make it. I mean, if this is not being focused or "getting your head in the game" i don't know what it is... thing is, you went against all tides on this one, sometimes it's hard to get through that.

But still, you did your job, and you gave 100% at it.

[Doc ock rokc]

Bat in the same situation I wouldn't be able to function. Your a much better person then I could ever be and you will probably do more to change the world then the majority of people that exist. YOU SAVE PEOPLE. You witness pain and death in such quantities that would drive others off the deep end. Yet also you keep people away from death. You re leave them of their pain. You strive to save the world while others blind themselves in false realitys. Bat NEVER question the path you took, for its a far better thing then what even the greatest of mankind will ever do.

[batgirl]

You know, I read all of what you said and I legit cried a bit. It means a lot to me that I have a support system from non medical people. Sure I can talk aboutthis with my medical friends but it's hard to since we're all so desensitized. We care of course but we're so used to not showing our emotions. I find that writing helps get all this shit away from me. Taking the weight off my soul, if you will. I didn't pick this career because it was easy, no one can ever say that. I picked it because (not to be egotystical) I'm damn good at it and I love it.

Thanks for the warm fuzzies.

[akaSM]

This is one of the things I like from NPF, not only are we good at shooting each other games and stuff but, it's an overall nice community . And I'm sure every NPFer is proud to have you as one of us one of us part of this community.

[Bells]

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