Sunday, June 22, 2003
In a flash, it's turned into an eventful on call.
Thankfully, the alcohol wasn't producing any lingering effects aside from a moderate dehydration. Another sluggish, sleepy day. My bleep went off, answered it, and suddenly all hell's breaking loose. Dashing through the double doors, suddenly back in the hot seat of a cardiac arrest... or is it? Not quite. But this man is definitely peri arrest. Rusty algorithms begin to click back into place, but there's an anaesthetist there within seconds, the crash team arrives, so you step back and let them take over.
A strange clinical picture, and typically, once he comes around he's joking with the crash team. They often do, before they die, I think. I mention to someone else that it looks like a case I'd seen before. Hb comes back 5.7, down from 12.0 some time later, and the nail is in the coffin. Unfortunately, before we can send him to theatre, he arrests again in CT.
A panicky exploration in theatre, with no fewer than four anaesthetists running blood in from four lines to little effect. Blood in the abdomen.
The consultant calls it after a while.
And the man falls away from the brink of life, into the void of death, without moving a muscle.
And that is pretty much the case I saw, the last time around.
cest la vie.
Thankfully, the alcohol wasn't producing any lingering effects aside from a moderate dehydration. Another sluggish, sleepy day. My bleep went off, answered it, and suddenly all hell's breaking loose. Dashing through the double doors, suddenly back in the hot seat of a cardiac arrest... or is it? Not quite. But this man is definitely peri arrest. Rusty algorithms begin to click back into place, but there's an anaesthetist there within seconds, the crash team arrives, so you step back and let them take over.
A strange clinical picture, and typically, once he comes around he's joking with the crash team. They often do, before they die, I think. I mention to someone else that it looks like a case I'd seen before. Hb comes back 5.7, down from 12.0 some time later, and the nail is in the coffin. Unfortunately, before we can send him to theatre, he arrests again in CT.
A panicky exploration in theatre, with no fewer than four anaesthetists running blood in from four lines to little effect. Blood in the abdomen.
The consultant calls it after a while.
And the man falls away from the brink of life, into the void of death, without moving a muscle.
And that is pretty much the case I saw, the last time around.
cest la vie.
