ICU

Well, i did mean to post yesterday, but it turned out to be a busier day than i thought. I ended up coming home at 2, and sleeping till 7 again. yeah... i have a problem with that... then i woke up and went to a friends house and sat in the hot tub.. then we got some ben n jerrys ice cream and a pizza! I got home at 1:30 and i was exhaused and i went to bed...

Here is the recap of my patents i saw in the ICU

Patient #1
Head Trauma following a fall off of a ladder than smashed on the head with a pole. He was a middle aged man. First of all, we checked his monitor and his blood pressure, pulse, Cerebrospinal fluid levels and Pulse oximetery stats were level and normal. Next, on to the many tubes attached to his body.. he had at least four monitors checking his heart. He had a ventilation unit that was completely breathing for him. He was also in a chemical induced coma. He had on foot pumps which were on his feet (obviously) which kept the cirulation moving. He also had a suction tube sucking out things from his stomach, just in case of an emergency surgery. He had many IV's to make sure he wasnt dehydrated. Finally, now this is the most interesting part. They had stuck a port into his brain in his third ventricle to suction off the Cerebrospinal fluid. now, this fluid was RED! it should be clear, red means blood in the brain, which is BAAAAAD... because of all of these tubes, the man was in arm restraints so he cant move. If he were to move, the tube in his brain could shift and suck up his grey mater instead of fluid... brain down the tubes... ouuu... pretty crazy

Patient #2
Severe Burn victim in her middle age. She was a black woman but due to the extensive burns her skin was pink (cause it had all burnt off) She was completely wrapped in gauze to protect the skin, and blood was soaking through the gauze so it was brown. (she was burnt from head to toe) She was also recieving a blood transfusion to make up for the loss of blood. Her outer ears had been burnt off as well as most of her lips. She also had a trach in her throat because the burns had been so severe. She was infected with some sort of disease because of the burns, and so she had yellowish white covering what exposed skin we could see. Because of this infection we were gowned and gloved to not receive this infection ourselves. Her heart rate was abnormal because the electododes were misplaced. She had been there for over two weeks, and so a feeding tube was thread down her nose into her stomach. The scariest part of all of this: she wasnt in a coma, she was awake!!! poor woman, if you were to look in her eyes you could see the fear and pain. She was given jsut enough morphine to take the edge off... she could still feel what was happening.

well.. that trip was intense, my legs were kinda shaky at first, but i got used to it. Workin in an ICU would be really intense, and i dont think i could do it for a long time, but it is really interesting, and you can make incredible advances to someones life, if they dont die on you first. I dont think i could easily work with patients who die, that would be hard, especially if i did something wrong to cause damage to them. AH...