of life and death

[eeyore_grrl]

a few weeks ago i was in the er hooked up to ivs for a migraine and ridiculous amounts of vomiting. as ian and i sat in the little curtained area for hours as i begged for something to stop the horrid restlessness that came from the medication. my nurse lacked in the bedside manner, but the doctor was good and attentive.

we overheard a man come in with vague complaints that had been going on for a few days. he was talking to the doctor, they hadn’t even hooked him up to the usual stuff yet and his heart went wonky. i don’t know the proper terminology. but we overheard (ian may have been able to see it from his angle) the doctor calmly call for help (“hey guys i need you over here now.”) when the guy went bad. and we heard the subsequent dialogue for the Three times they had to shock him. the doctor was always calm and to the point when he spoke and when he dealt with the situation that occurred.

he was alive when we left. but there is something strange and disturbing to witness someone almost dying several times.

Comments

[ef2p.livejournal.com]

the doctor was always calm and to the point when he spoke and when he dealt with the situation that occurred.

It kind of amazing the way that happens and it's all about training. You practice that stuff so many times that when it happens, you just do, you don't really think. It become automatic. It's kind of like an out of body experience. The nerves hit after your done.

[urox.livejournal.com]

Am I odd for not being disturbed? btw, I was pre-med at one point.

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

it's not that you're odd... it's that death is so... *death*. death is intimate. death is intimate in a way that i can't describe. death is intimate in a way that that ian and i, who were there because i was puking and had a headache, shouldn't be able to see it.

and the doctor kept asking if he had family. if he had loved ones. and he kept saying "no."
no? no one to call when you have just died 3 times? i wanted to go hug the guy..

i get that it is science and i get that if you are "in the moment" emotion does/should flow away but from where i was... wow. i heard a man be resurrected 3 times in 10 minutes.

and, though the nurse sucked for me and the bedside manner, she was part of that and seems to have done ok.

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

that's not entirely true. sometimes it's in the PERSON. i know people who have training upon training but when a "situation" occurs they flip out.

[hnybny.livejournal.com]

Do you know what they gave you for nausea? I'm guessing it was Reglan. That stuff makes me want to pull out my bones through my flesh and is now on the (bad reaction) drug list on my records.

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

reglan was the one i tried first. fengran (spelling) was the one this time. . .

but yeah your definition makes sense.

[hnybny.livejournal.com]

Yup, Phenergan can cause restless legs, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promethazine

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

i was glad to stop puking after 12 hours of constantly doing so... but UGH! that sucks.... and it's so hard to explain to people that feeling.

[hnybny.livejournal.com]

When I told the nurses about my reaction to Reglan they just looked at me like I was crazy. I can't tell you how many times it had to happen before I was sure it was the drug and not me. Once I was convinced, you better bet I convinced them too.

[ptor.livejournal.com]

Zofran is the shit.

But nobody wants to prescribe it probably because it costs a bunch.

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

i now have a bottle of them. they seem to help, but not as much as i thought they would...

[ptor.livejournal.com]

I've been on the other side...

I was working as a surgical orderly in the mid-80's.

A patient came into an emergency surgery with a ruptured aorta. Bad thing to have. The doctors were bickering with the anesthesiologists, telling them that they needed to keep the blood pressure up. The main anesthesiologist levelly replied that if the surgeons slowed the bleeding, they would be able to keep the pressure higher. It was a frantic but orderly scene. Crazy busy calm.

Then suddenly they decided to give up. I don't know who. Main surgeon? Maybe it had been too long for the patient to possibly live through the lack of oxygen? Everyone just stopped, said "Okay, that's it!" and left the room. Off to the break room for coffee.

I was left in there with a dead guy. Blood all over the place.

[densaer.livejournal.com]

An aortic dissection is *bad news* - most people exanguate in a matter of minutes. Bleh!

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

the giving up thing sounds *VERY* disturbing

[densaer.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting story, to say the least. I think I'd have a hard time witnessing the scene without being able to do anything about it (even knowing that the right help was there and better prepared than I).

When I flew with LifeFlight last year, I talked to the flight nurse who treated the Olympic cyclist that was killed by the Sheriff's Deputy in Cupertino a few weeks earlier. She said that when the patient is there, she could focus on her job, but reading about this athlete in the newspaper was what humanized her. I think a certain amount of distance is required to deal with the harshness of that work, but everyone's human.

Still, I want MY doctors to be cool, calm and collected when *I* get into trouble.

[eeyore-grrl.livejournal.com]

part of being a good "helper" is knowing when you are outranked!

you help when it is needed. when you should... it isn't always...

one time when i was in the ER there was a deaf woman. there was no translator, or the interpreter didn't show, i knew enough to sei-translate.

i got off of my self hurting bed and did so. she cursed me out! helping isn't always the thing!

[densaer.livejournal.com]

No. And sometimes the people feel they don't need it.

So you wind up feeling like an Indian giver.

Or, rather, you do. I'm always an Indian giver ;-)