Monday, November 26, 2007

The Hospital (2nd Post)

Today they removed maggots from a wound in a woman's foot. I walked into the mini OR after lunch and looked at this wound. It was already covered with Iodine, so it was all brown, so it just looked like all the other injuries. Then the doctor says, "There are maggots in the wound." I didn't stand really close to that one, but I watched as he pulled more than 15 maggots out of this cut. In the end her nail was removed and there was a pretty big hole in her toe. But no maggots. I went out and bought more alcohol for my leg after seeing that.

Some guy cut the tip of his finger mostly off on a table saw and was just standing there waiting to be seen with nothing on it. I was hoping someone would put pressure on that, but no. Another guy had a huge slash across his palm and just had to wait in line to get it stitched. Do they not understand what an ER is for? Apparently not because today a woman came in bleeding all over her stretcher. She was in a car accident and one leg had compound fractures in both her bottom leg bones. Just to make that clear, her tibia and fibula were sticking out of her skin and bleeding on the gurney. She was just sent to the ward, no need to bother the ER.

I'll be in the Carido-Thoracic Unit tomorrow. This may be the best place yet, and for no medical reasons. I'll be part of CTU tomorrow. Best. Day. Ever. They do open heart surgeries, so that should be fun. We'll see how well I cope.

They removed a sea urchin barb from the foot on a monk. That could only happen in this country.

The doctor had to change his shoes today because blood got all over them.

The doctor also doesn't wear gloves to give injections, just when he's actually cutting. The orderlies don't wear gloves when they're dressing some wounds too. I think I should mention how some diseases are spread.

3 comments:

Lisa-sis said...

CTU!!! That's awesome! Do they have shirts? j/k

So it is 34 degrees here and I am freezing my ass off. What. the. hell. We don't get this cold weather until after Christmas usually. I'm disgruntled now!

Plus there is cold air coming out of the vents. :|

Craig said...

CTU. Fuck. Ing. Awesome. Everytime you inject someone you should tell them they'll only be able to take the sodium penathol for so long before every nerve ending in their body is on fire. Also, at the begining of every hour, you should stop what you're doing and announce, "The following takes place between 11:00 AM and 12:00 PM." Lastly, you need to constantly make references to CTU being compromised by a leak. Ask each doctor if he's the leak and tell him his workstation's been shut down until further notice.

The follwing is a letter I've been working on for a while:

Your titles read like a C.S. Lewis novel. “The Lion, the witch, and Mafia for Seven hours on the drunk bus.” We’re telling Lisa’s parents this weekend about the baby. Just like when Lisa and I told our parents, we’re doing it in front of extended family. I really hope Lisa’s grandma doesn’t have a heart attack. I’m serious. She’s 95 and every time we see her she says things like, “Well, looks like this’ll be my last Thanksgiving,” or “I don’t think I’ll ever see you guys again, so take care.” The news could conceivably put her over the edge. I told Lisa that I think she wants to die and we’re doing her a huge favor. Lisa didn’t concur.

Other lost relics from the wedding weekend. We were going to order a shot of Goldschlager for everyone. People start telling Goldschlager stories and talking about how good it is. Then Aunt Janet comes in off the top ropes and says, “The best part about Goldschlager is that you can tell you had it the next day.” Ewwwwww. That completely broke up the conversation and sent everyone scurrying for cover. I may never be able to consume Goldschlager again without thinking about that comment. As it turned out, the bar didn’t even have Goldschlager (which would ordinarily be grounds for a complaint but since it was an open bar, pardons all around). Anyway, we were trying to order something on the lighter side (I suggested Wild Turkey but everyone knew what it was and vetoed the idea. I lost suggestion privileges at that point). Chris got up there and asked the bartender if she had any suggestions. The bartender was in her late 30’s with short hair and she was pretty butch all around. When the bartender suggested a pink colored drink, Chris said something to the effect of, “I don’t want to be gay or anything!” The bartender was not amused. Chris came over to me with that “uh oh” look on his face and explained what he said. From that point on, every drink we requested was accompanied by the look of death.

Lisa, Johnson, some of Johnson’s friends, and I went to the UW vs. North Dakota hockey game. Our goalie had a stellar game and racked up 43 saves (25 in the 3rd period). UW won 4-0, so it was a good night to be a badger. The best chants I heard were “Racist mascot,” “Sioux is a girl’s name,” and at the end of the game when victory was imminent, “Let’s get drunk! Let’s get drunk! Let’s get drunk!”

Speaking of racism, I’ve got a good cop story. Lisa and I were on our way to school. Lisa was driving pretty fast down 113. Probably fifteen over in a 35mph zone (that’s 50 mph, for those of you without a calculator handy). Anyway, a cop pulls us over. The second he looks in the car and sees the two of us sitting there with a golden retriever he appears disappointed. He tells us that he thought we were going 63 mph (if you can imagine what that would look like on 113). Then, in the most dejected voice I’ve ever heard a cop use, he asks who owns the vehicle. Confused, Lisa replies that it’s ours. Almost as soon as she answers, he says that we should try to drive slower, storms back to his car, and drives off. All Lisa and I could figure is that he got a hot tip that the car was stolen and he must’ve thought he was going to make this huge arrest and get his name in the paper; then he sees two white people and a golden retriever. He didn’t even ask to see the registration or see Lisa’s driver’s license. He just took Lisa’s word for it when she said it was her car. “Well, they’re white, so they must not be car thieves.” It was the most racist thing Lisa and I had ever seen in person. And yes; the cop had the mandatory moustache.

Aside from that, I’ve been spending every waking moment in the library. It’ll be nice when this semester ends.

Unknown said...

Working for CTU will be awesome. Every phone in the Unit needs to have the same CTU ring. Also if you think a patient is not being truthful use the wiring from a near by light, spilt it open, and electricute him and ask "Who are you working for!" Please do that, please. Or find cocaine addict and make him get over it in 24 hours like Bauer did. Also I agree with Craigs idea of announcing the time everything takes place.