Thursday, December 23, 2010

Holidays and EMS

She is 6 yrs old and it is days before Christmas she is calling 911 for daddy. He is on the floor and won't wake up. They were working on the decorations for the Christmas party tomorrow and he just fell out. Dispatch is telling me the details of the little girls call. It has already created that sinking feeling in my stomach, she is alone with him mom died earlier in the yr and so it was just the 2 of them. We pull up to a beautifully decorated home nicely trimmed. We knock and the lil blond hair and brown eyed 6 yr old lets us in. We run to the kitchen and there is the man she could not recall his age she said " he is my dad so he is old" her tears are tearing my heart in two but I must focus her father is in need. we asked fire to stay with us to keep the lil girl away while we work to save him. Fire also looks around and finds his wallet and med's so i had something to work with. He works for a neighboring fire dept that makes him our brother. We work hard to convert his A fib it is not working drug after drug and shock after shock nothing is working. but wait there is a change he is now PEA uggh really we pack him and go the lil girl rides in the front in tears and ask my partner rich "you guys are going to make him better right?" We arrive at the hospital in record time and I hand him over to the code team. In my mind I know he does not have a chance but I hope against all odds that he pulls through. The nurse takes the lil girl and we must head out to yet another call but when we dropped off the next pt we ask and the nurse didn't have to say one thing the whole story was in her eyes. As for the little girl they were in the process of finding family since not one of them had the heart to put her in custody of the state days before Christmas. Thank goodness we found the number to her aunt in her dads cell phone. I couldn't help but shes a tear for that sweet girl.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Exam stress

I am not one to freak out, I mean heck I am a medic for goodness sakes and every here and then I have to save someone based off of my skills and I am cool with that. These exams are going to be the death of me I mean I don't understand why I feel so much anxiety about the exams! They are not hard I think more then anything I am overwelmed and that is making me think I am just going to bomb them! I never felt like this before I mean don't get me wrong I had my fair share of hard college exams before but this is just eating me alive! I can't sleep and my mind can't focus! My blood sugars are really paying the price and I am sure they are not helping me along either. I am questioning everything I study it is just my mind goes blank ( well not blank more like off to a distant land like J.D in scrubs with his day dreams ). I just want my A's I have worked too hard to get anything less. I swear tomorrow I might be in a padded room with high doses of anxiety meds you know a lil of haldol and xanax and prob. some antipsych meds too!! please for the love of God I want my A!! okay I feel slightly better back to the books.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Finals and diabetes

So as every good diabetic does I made sure I was eating well and getting sleep and not over doing it throughout the whole semester until finals week. Now let me start by saying I am a freaking studying machine the two weeks of finals and this time it got the best of me. It started with a meal skip here or there and then no sleep nights and then the less testing equals more study time which by the way is a big NO NO!! don't ever rely on the CGM for results people. always test!! Okay now I got to my fist class that morning did fine and was going to put in my CGM right after class since I was running late last Thursday. I forget to put it in because I was getting in one more hr of study time with my group and then went to class. well I am not one to feel a low BG. I got to class and finally tested for the first time after not eating breakfast and my professor is a nurse and stands there always checking out the number before I take any exam and it popped up a 31 mg/dl. I was seriously like no way and trying to deny it while my professor is like sit don't move. He comes back with juice and crackers and tells me to eat it and then proceeds to lecture me on type 1 diabetes control and uses this time as a great way to instill certain diabetes points into my classmates. ugggh really?? I mean I am fine can we just take the test already?? uhh check again 37 mg/dl so he decides it is time for an ambulance I look at him like seriously?? I am still awake and can treat myself!! Not good enough for him so her comes medics into my class stretcher and all and they decide to agree with him and talk me into going saying that I could come back for the exam if the doc okays it. So off we go to the ER where the real problem happened. I get there and I know that this is the ER where my other professor works so I might get out real quick like. No she was not there and the doc comes in says to start a line and push D50 1 amp. ohh and eat this while they work on that. okay no problem. Well 14 IV sticks later including 2 EJ's it was not happening now I am all for showing some love to the ER staff they make my life easy most of the time but I sat in the room for 14 hrs with no IV access and a BG of no higher then 40 mg/dl at any given time! This is an epic fail on the ER docs part because her has the training to start a central line and it was warranted in this situation after finding I had a hella kidney infection which for some freakish reason always causes lows in me ( so ha so not my fault on lack of sleep or skipping meals well okay maybe a little) Anyways It is like 11 at night now mind you I got to the ER at 10:30 am and all this time with no access and no rising in BG. They sent me to the floor with no IV access and what they call a critically low BG. The floor flips a lid but has to take me and calls in the surgeon and he puts in a central line and apologies for the lack of care in the ER saying he was going to ensure this never happens again. Now even worse was the pic line person that was on call was 5 hrs away yes 5 but the on call surgeon who was great was there in 5 Min's. I get amp's of D50 and and put on a D 10 drip till morning. here pops in a nurse every hr to check the sugar and ensure my safe sleeping. My doc shows up in the morning and he apologizes for everything that was an epic fail and decided based on previous admissions and history that I needed a port for the future and he scheduled it with the surgeon who put in my central line and so now I am good with access for the future. Now my numbers are getting better and off of the D 10 I go and I shoot high in the 300's for the first time in a while so I feel like crapola and the doc didn't ask me what my correction factor was he just decided that 1 dose fits all or something cause he did the BG-100/20 which equaled out to be 7 units. Way to much for me people!! if it would have been calculated by my correction factor bg-100/50 I would have been fine but No lets not listen to the diabetic who deals with her doses daily!! I fall asleep and the nurse comes in to check the sugar and finds I am at 41 and wakes me up and I am  so tired and sweaty and it was my professor she was working the floor that night and had me some juice and why I am addicted to gram crackers in the hospital with the lil peanut butter cups I have no clue but she had those too ( I have been known to grab a couple on busy days when I am dropping off a pt ) She told me about the port placement and how that was going to go and asked me if it was okay to talk to my other professors about still being here and needing an extension on my exams and said heck yeah. so I am assuming it was a slow night cause she sat in there with me for a bit till I was nice and leveled again and then she did all my checks for the rest of the night instead of the tech. I learned a lot from her though out this stay with her care towards patients and families and even other nurses she showed me compassion and Patience's she also showed me how a true nurse is the patients advocate. She stayed after he shift was over and was there when I got out of the surgery for the port ( not as bad as I thought BTW ) and she even helped me knock out some studying for exams I got out of the hospital 6 days after my admission and was spoken too by the hospital administration who I guess was worried I was going to make a big fuss over this who ER fail thing but I told them while I am really upset that it happened I just wanted to ensure that it never happened again. A lot of nurses ( my professor said they should have been questioning the doc as to why he was not treating my lows more aggressively and made sure that I was okay because A BG of 40 and below for 14 hrs is unacceptable )
I am not a sue happy person and that is usually what happens that causes the health care to go through the roof. I just don't want anyone else to ever have to deal with that. They assured me that they are reprimanding the doc and nurses and also implementing new polices so this never happens again. Would I go to this hospital again? yes I would I know that this was the failure of a few not the whole hospital and that they are in the process of fixing everything as well. hey good news for me is new port = no iv sticks or digging although that port access needle is huge!! lol