Eighteen

The holiday season is in full swing and in my view folks are unfortunately dropping like flies. It's been a harrowing week at the old inner city trauma hospital. At one point we were holding over 10 ICU patients and another 10-15+ other patients cause the floors although fully staffed simply did not have the room. Every bed in the hospital was full.

The recent cold snap and holiday binges has made the dialysis patients miss their appointments, pancreatic flare ups from folks with pancreatitis and of course everyone else who is cooped up and catches something a retaliative gave them. Then of course comes the holiday robberies, DUI's, suicidal and depressed patients and the general meanness that the holidays tends to bring out in folks this time of year.

It can make for a rough day or actually week in the ER.

It was a mass of humanity we were dealing with. At one point we had the ER manager on the phone with various EMS agencies begging them NOT to send us patients for a few hours so we could get up outta this hole.

Tragedy of the night. 80's + year old patient comes in with massive MI. Although Pt has some CHF and lung issues she's alright for a 80+ y.o.f. Her son comes by the house and checks on her he knocks on the door she answers it and says hello to the son and drops dead. I dunno about anyone else but it makes me NOT want to visit my elderly parents ever again for fear of them dropping dead when I swing by for a visit. I saw the son for a minute after we called her. He was crushed, he has a tough burden to bear eventhough he had little to nothing to do with her death, shit happens.

Earlier in the week I was personally upset by us working a patient for a few hours. He'd die we'd give him epi and he'd come back this happened several times,  we pressed him and did everything imaginable up and down the protocols. I was upset because the guy was 2 years younger than me. I am no spring chicken but a bit middle aged. The attending figured he died of a GI bleed. History supported it because for the week before he was "vomiting blood" Turns out this patient was waiting on the bus with his girlfriend and keeled over.

Back and forth for a few hours with this patient. He'd code over and over again, I lost count how many times I did chest compressions on him. The room got trashed we went through 2 crash carts and at one point had a ICU bed waiting on him but we could never leave the room with him cause he'd code again and again. 
He ended up dying after a bit. The attending left it up to the third year and he decided to throw in the towel. This patient was not coming back.

The nurse starts on the death paperwork and the tech is left dealing with the body of the dead patient. I kind of pride myself on getting a patient looking presentable to family when  pts die of medical causes. Of course we have to leave all interventions in but at least not zip em up in a body bag with their eyes open. I try to have some class. Sometimes I leave hands out for family to pat or touch. I usually tuck the body bag under the patient zipped up to mid sternum and tuck the sheet around them just so that way when the M.E., Corner or whoever picks them up it's not a huge hassle.

It was two shifts in a row in dealing with dead patients. Death is never easy to deal with you just get use to it, but I HATE it when patients die during the holiday season. Because deep down in my tiny black crusty heart I feel for families who loose a loved one during the holidays it will forever mar a supposedly happy time of year forever for these family members who live on.

When I have to deal with it on the holidays I just wanna curl up with copious amounts of beer and find some woman to get horizontal with and reaffirm life.Yeah, I know it's a way of NOT dealing with it but you gotta do what you gotta do to make it to the next shift. It also does not help if you develop a crush on an attractive resident that same shift. This ain't a TV show and this lovely resident will not notice me during some dramatic moment. We won't dash off into the ambulance bay together hand in hand and make out in the back of an ambulance (EWWWW Ambulances are disgusting), just goddamn she reminds me of an old girlfriend. It's a cold hard reality and I know my position and that I am not exactly attractive. I deal with it by drinking a beer or two going home and watching silly comedy on the T.V.

Times like these makes me realize that I'm not cut out for anything else really and I'm in this field for a long while to come. Although I do have problems with my job and career choice from time to time, I do LOVE my job. Some nights you help save the lives and some nights you sit in the car and force yourself to drive home, it's never easy. You just gotta keep going.

Now if you don't mind I think I'm going to flush my head in my toilet. I'm feeling a bit dumb tonight with a forecast of weird on the horizon.

Well that concludes me dumping my emotional purse out for the day. This is part of being an ER Tech.