This week seemed long, but was ultimately good. Last weekend was absolutely insane, and I was basically over in the hospital or ER all day on both Saturday and Sunday. Then the clinic was crazy on Monday and Tuesday because my preceptor was the only provider there - one was on vacation, and the other was at a conference. Anyway, we were booked more than solid for two days straight, and I ended up being there for about 11 hours both days. On Wednesday I was looking for some relief, since we normally do nursing home rounds on Wednesday mornings. Well, we never made it to the nursing home...my preceptor was on call, and four different people came into the ER throughout the morning. Nothing was too wild, but one person did get sent down to Billings and some others got admitted after an extensive workup. Plus, we had five patients in the hospital and they were all being kind of complicated that morning too! So it was an extremely busy few hours trying to get that all sorted out in time for clinic in the afternoon.
The patient that got sent down to Billings that morning was the most stressful experience I have witnessed yet on rotations...this 1.5-year-old girl was brought to the ER by her mom to have a CT done of her head, since she had happened to hit her head in the same spot three separate times and her mom had noticed she was sleepier than usual lately. Also, she had started to notice these blue spots in the corners of her eyes. So, naturally, she was worried about some kind of bleed and wanted to have it checked out. The best way to do that (that we have available at the hospital here) is a CT. But what 1.5-year-old wants to sit still long enough for a CT? We had to use conscious sedation on her to get her to stay still so the pictures would turn out well enough to interpret. So the nurse puts in the first dose of Versed....no response. The kid is still screaming and squiggling all over. So she gets the second dose...still nothing. Then she gets a dose of a different sedative...still no response. Then she gets another dose of the first sedative, and still no response. They are getting ready to give her another dose of the second sedative when all of a sudden she just drops and stops breathing right there on the CT scanner. Her oxygen saturation dropped to about 76%. Everyone rushed in and started bagging her and pushing the reversal agent. I'm not sure how long it actually took to bring her back, but it felt like an eternity! It's just so unnatural to see a little kid laying so still and unresponsive. Eventually she did come back, but she coughed up a bit and aspirated and was then coughing some more. She was still pretty strung out on the sedatives, and we decided to send her out to a bigger facility. Talk about a stressful morning!
The afternoon and the rest of the week was much more chill. Today was busy, but not bad! Hopefully tomorrow is calm so I can get some things done for school. I'll miss it here when I leave, but I definitely can't wait to have weekends to myself again, and to be near my friends! :)
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