Hospital Hangover

It's amazing how much energy the hospital can suck out of me. Even though I'm still under a strict 'no touch' order until I get properly credentialed in the hospital, I felt like I worked for my money yesterday. And woke up today, feeling the worse for the wear, struggling to open my eyes and leave my cozy bed.

I spent the day battling our terrible computer system and filling out admission paper work in triage. I think I broke the record for the longest time ever taken to fill out an h and p (history and physical) - 5 hours. Perhaps I cheated in the breaking of this record, because the computer froze and my first version was lost entirely... By the end of the day, however, I felt like I had some sort of grasp on the many quirks and minimal perks of this system. The system has the ironic name of 'Sunrise' - which it is anything but. I would more appropriately title it "Darkness."

As the evening progressed into the later hours of night - the hospital got stranger and the cases got more interesting. I saw things that I had only read about in school. (Side note: this attitude always makes me feel conflicted, as it is a direct using of someone else's misfortune. I always want to preface stories like this with the fact that even though I learned from it it would obviously be better if it had never happened in the first place. The women I will write about probably had one of the worst days of their lives yesterday and I am happy only that I could be of minimal comfort). The interesting first case to walk through the triage door was a woman at 39 weeks pregnant who had been assaulted by her husband. I had presented on domestic violence during school and what to do - but in all honesty - a case like this had never confrunted me so directly. As I was leaving last night the husband showed up, started screeming, and created a mini-Maurie Pauvich episode on the floor. It was scary and sad and eye opening.

The second moments of chaos came slightly after. A woman who was 10 days post partum after a c-section came in complaining of "I don't feel well." Then she seized. And seized. And seized. My non-touching order allowed me to take her sobbing friend out of the triage room and explain to her everything that was going on - from afar - then chat her up about her own new baby, and how good of a friend she was for taking her bestie here. After the hanging of mag, and the giving of oxygen and the overhead paging of anesthesia and more chaos on the floor - she seized again. While no longer pregnant, this woman had an obstetrical emmergency that we all fear most.

I biked home late last night, images running through my mind, thinking "Wow. it's not just stuff you read about. Shit like that really can hit the fan." My experience in this job will inevitabley teach me so much about my field. It already has. I wonder what I will learn about tomorrow...