EVERYBODY WAS DRUNKEN BOXING
This month I’m doing the night shifts in the hospital. Basically, I get paged by an ER doctor whenever a new patient needs to be admitted to the hospital. Then I go into the ER and try to find the patient and their chart amidst the total chaos of modern emergency room staffing – which is actually the hardest part.
GRANNY’S LITTLE HELPER
First patient of the night was a 60-year old lady who was withdrawing from a 20-year Xanax addiction. She wasn’t seizing or anything, she just looked really really anxious.
While the husband tried to blame her primary doctor for “making her an addict,” the patient lied to me about the prescriptions she was written in the past and tried to manipulate me into writing double her usual candy dose.
NOT SO SPEEDY GONZALEZ
My next patient was an old-looking young man who resembled one of those scarred-up bad guys in some violent Mexican movie.
“Sorry,” the hulking ER doc said as he pushed a fat syringe needle deep under the man’s clavicle and into one of the only decent veins left in this skin-popper. Even though he used heroin earlier today (the skin-popper, not the ER doc), it didn’t look like it made the procedure any less painful.
At least judging from the way his legs thrashed on the stretcher.
“Whew. Got it in. You can keep this line for a while. Didn’t have to slam it,” he told me.
“Thanks a lot. Slam it?” I asked, unfamiliar with this particular colorful ER expression.
“I mean it wasn’t a quickie like in a CODE or anything,” he smiled. “It’s actually clean this time.”
“Thanks.”
It’s always good to know that the thick ass needle jammed into the subclavian vein entering your aorta is actually clean this time.
ER docs crack me up.
EVEN BAD GUYS HAVE BAD DAYS
Same skin-popping Hepatitis C-infected El Mariachi assassin from the section above.
“Agghhgh! This isn’t like my usual w-w-withdrawals. I think I have an infection in m-m-my heart like last time.”
“Yeah, we’re worried about that too. We’ve already started the antibiotics.”
“Man, why do I have to be withdrawing f-f-from heroin, booze, and have a heart infection all at the s-s-same time? Unghgh! This sucks.”
"Yes. It. Does. By the way, have you been checked for HIV?"
LAST ROUND
“I think I know you,” the old man on the stretcher said.
I wasn’t sure if I’d seen him before or not. If you’ve seen a dozen 90-year old men with a heart rate in the forties and frequent passing out episodes you’ve seen them all.
“So, are you going to let them put a pacemaker in you this time?”
“Yes, I think I’ve had enough of this passing out business.”
“Okay then. Let’s get you admitted.”
“Oh, now I remember. I think you treated my wife before.”
You work at a hospital long enough and pretty soon everyone knows your name. Just like Cheers.
YOU DROP THE BOMB ON ME
“Why am I strapped down to this thing?” the old psychotic lady asks me, less psychotic now after the ER docs bombed her with a B-52. A B-52 is another colorful ER expression which means 5 mg Haldol and 2 mg of Ativan.
“Well, (I read from the chart) you were biting, spitting, swearing, swinging at and hitting the nurses. You scared them. So they restrained you.”
“She’s lying. I missed.”
CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES, COME ON!
“So, I hear you had a seizure at work,” I start.
“Yeah. Haven’t been eating for two weeks either,” the 25-year old answers.
“Two weeks? Why haven’t you been eating?”
“I was pretty much just drinking the whole time.”
“Drinking … alcohol, you mean?”
(I had to specify. Drinking gallons of water a day can lead to a coma and seizures too. Not to mention antifreeze, which tastes sweet according to ER doctors and … pediatricians I am sorry to say.)
“Yep. A few pints a day. But I quit a week ago.”
He probably quit like everyone else did, on January 1st as he was purging his soul in the sweet purifying porcelain of a shit bowl. Another alcoholic withdrawal seizure.
Apparently it was theme night in the ER. Post-Christmas To New Year’s Party Substance Abuse Withdrawal Night. Bottoms up and put your face in the bowl.
BARTENDER, GIMME ANOTHER
ER DOC: “Well, I was going to admit this USAROMI to Cards (cardiology) but then he has a two-minute seizure in the ER. And then his wife tells us he’s a raging alcoholic. So I think he’d be better admitted to Medicine (as in me).”
Once again tonight I learned that when it comes to seizing alcoholics there is no “US” in “medicine,” only “ME.”
USAROMI, actually pronounced like it looks, means UnStable Angina Rule Out Myocardial Infarction. It will make a nice name for a medical supervillain and drawing some day.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO HOME,
BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE
“It was nice to meet you Dr. Scott. And compliment your wife on your clothes. They are so nicely pressed.”
Said by an older black lady who had cancer in her ovaries, lungs, and liver with enough fluid in her abdomen to push her diaphragm and lungs up making it more difficult to breathe.
But her heart was still in the right place.
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MEDEASIN NOW IN TECHNICOLOR!
I have to thank the awesome artist ERIC SMITH (no link yet) for this wonderful colorization of one of my drawings a while back. The colors are great but I really love the shading. It brings a three-dimensional texture to the flesh tones and especially the femininja's leg musculature which I have a secret fetish for. I am flattered by Eric's skillful and generous contribution to my personal fantasy milieu. (Larger version here.)
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