Also a title of a CD by Michael Tomlinson - he's from Greater Seattle by way of West Texas. I've been a fan of his for quite a long time, and we exchange e-mail now and again, mostly on his schedule, not mine. Nice, nice guy and quite a musician as well. Check out his website if you get a chance. Lots of commentary, a sampling of his music, and links to other places. Worth looking at, if you get a minute.
Now about that storm..... It was actually pretty nice yesterday, but this gnarly Nor'easter decided to blow in. As I write I'm watching it snow. The current temperature (at 3:00PM) is just over 35 degrees F, and they say we're going to get flooding, high winds, and all other manner of crappy stuff heading this way. I can hardly wait to see what's going to happen as the next 24 hours or so goes by.
When I go to work a little later, it will be the third night in a row that I haven't slept in my own bed; Friday I worked my regular transfer shift out of Brentwood (and what a shift it was as well), last night I worked 12 hours overnight in Goffstown, and tonight I'm working my regular reverse-24 in Manchester. Tomorrow night I'm working in Goffstown from 6 until 11. After that I will finally get to sleep in my own bed, but I have to go t class on Tuesday from 8:30 until 2:00. I was counting on being able to sleep in. However, I guess it's not going to happen. Probably not until Friday, at this rate.
When I worked Friday night, I had no idea that I was going to be out from the time we got in until the end of the shift and then some. When the truck returned after being sent to Manchester, we immediately were dispatched to Exeter Hospital's ICU to transport a patient to the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. When we were done with that call we were returning and at the merge of I-95 and US Route 1 we were called to go back to the ICU to take a patient to the Massachusetts General Hospital. Both of these were rather sick patients; the first had respiratory issues and some unknown problem with her pancreas, and the second had an exacerbation of myasthenia gravis, which even when it is under control can be pretty nasty. So we made it back to quarters at just after 1:00AM. At 2:30 we got paged out to go the ED and transport a Psychiatric patient to the Androscoggin Valley Hospital in Berlin, an approximately 130 mile trip. We got back to Brentwood at 9:30 yesterday morning, and I went home and slept for about 4 hours before I had to get up and go again.
I am looking forward to tomorrow night at just about 11:00 - I will actually get to sleep in my own bed. Unfortunately, I have the same schedule next weekend as well. I will not make that mistake again.....
2 comments:
Can you tell me more about the MG patient's exacerbation? The symptoms? I've had MG for 20 years and fortunately never gone into crisis although I am familiar with what can happen. This weekend I'm off to Arlington, VA for the annual MG Foundation of America conference so I'm wondering if there's any news I can pass along. Thanks!
From what I could see and what other information I gathered, the major symptoms are severe weakness and the inability to control one's airway secretions. My patient had both of those going on when we transported her. She was also bradycardic and quite weak, and I had suction available for her to be able to clear her airway. Even in her weakened state she was able to do this.
Apparently the patient has had crises like this in the past - even so, while she was stable enough for transport she was still in tough shape.
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