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Tuesday . August 12 . 2003 . 2:05pm finally, an update I've decided that I'm going to update this page every day, even if I only have very little to say. I think that the problem is that I always feel as though I have to have some coherent essay or story to tell, with a beginning, middle, and end, and that keeps me from updating when I don't have the time to write a whole big thing (to put it eloquently). * * * Trust me, if you ever see a chart in the ER with the heading, "16 year-old girl complaining of abdominal pain," run away in the other direction as fast as you possibly can. You will be stuck there for hours doing the kitchen sink workup on this patient, fearing ectopic pregnancy, torsed ovaries or exploding appendix, only to send her home with a Motrin prescription for menstrual cramps, or an enema for constipation. Or maybe you'll send her home with nothing at all, because you can't figure out what the hell was wrong with her in the first place. I fear the teenage girls in the ER. With the number of pelvics I've done in the past week, I should just switch to OB/Gyn. And you know, I would seriously consider being an OB/Gyn, except for one thing: I'm sane. The funny thing in the ER is that the people who work there love talking about how chaotic the ER is. "We're getting slammed!" is their favorite phrase in the whole wide world. Variants include, "We're going to get slammed!" and "We got slammed earlier today!" They mean it to imply that they were insanely busy, patients in gurneys up and down the halls, kids seizing on the floor, psychiatric patients screaming bloody murder around the corner. But sometimes what it just means is, "I'm doing a lot more work that I would like to be doing at this moment, and I wish that you were around to do some of it for me." I've been on my way out the door, shift over fifteen minutes ago, and people have given me a hard time about leaving because "we're getting slammed." I look over and see one lone non-acute chart (a mom dragging in her 8 year-old son with the chief complaint of, "he coughed once this morning.") waiting to be seen. Cue the sound of crickets. Despite my constant complaints, I'm coming to enjoy the ER in my own way. As stressful as it sometimes is (walking out from one exam room to have someone throw a pile of charts in my general direction screaming, "WHEEZY CROUPER! ASTHMA ROOM! GO!") and as long as the days feel (I'm convinced that the ER is located in a parallel universe, where each hour lasts twice as long as an hour up on the floors), I'm enjoying it. Most of the time. OK, some of the time. Occasionally. Friday wasn't that bad. Of course, I only worked a half-shift that day, since I had afternoon clinic uptown. * * * I'm keeping a running tally of my "Best of ER" stories. Here are some highlights. Worst reason seen for coming into the ER: "My husband is in the adult ER, so since we were here, we decided to drop by for a checkup. Also, I have an appointment with my regular pediatrician tomorrow morning." Goriest injury seen in the ER: A kid who punctured all the way through his lip with his own tooth. I'm sure there are worse things, like limbs being blown off an such, but we're not a big trauma center. It was gross, OK? Winner of the "who's the parent, anyway?" award: A 4 year-old kid who was brought into the ER with stomachache and vomiting. Upon further questioning, it is revealed that the kid has had nothing to eat for the past two days but candy from a birthday party. MICHELLE Why didn't he eat anything else? Like any normal meals? PARENT I don't know. He just wanna eat candy. MICHELLE But why didn't you give him something else to eat? Like dinner? Or breakfast? PARENT He don't want it. He just want candy. So we gave him candy. MICHELLE'S INNER MONOLOGUE Yes, but he is four, and you are a grown-ass man. Judgement, please! MICHELLE Hmm. We should talk about setting some rules and your child's eating habits. KID La la la la la! (Bouncing off walls) * * * I'm working the 5pm-2am shift this week. It puts me just off enough from Joe's schedule that I never actually get to see him, except for that 2 hour overlap after I go to bed and before he has to wake up. Super. Well, at least the dog is getting a lot of attention. xo Michelle |
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