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The weekend sucked.....
Dec. 19th, 2011 03:48 pmThere was so much I wanted, no, needed to get done. BUT, I was on call and the call gods were not kind.
Sunday, the first call came at 3:45 am. The ER was letting me know that a nice lady, patient of one of my call partners had fallen and could not get up. A fractured and dislocated ankle will do that to you every time. The phrase, "I was stumbling off to the bathroom, half asleep...," will never be quite the same to me, ever again. I left them with some holding orders and promised to be in after sun-up.
At 9:30 I was in to see her and was pleasantly surprised to see her become indignant when I mentioned I had been called in the middle of the night. "Those barbarians!" she exclaimed, "What on earth did they expect you to do at that hour?" I could have hugged her. Here she is, in a bed, splinted, unable to walk and not going to have surgery until the following day and she was angry that they had awakened me in the middle of the night. From now on this lady will get the shirt off of my back if she ever needs it.
From there it was off to Sebastopol for a presentation a friend was making. After that, I planned to head for home. I stopped at the green grocers to pick up some Cara Cara oranges, now that they're in season and I was just pulling into to Forestville on my way home from there, when the ER called. There were two people in the ER needing admission. This time one of them was actually one of my patients. Both were elderly women with multiple medical problems and both were septic from bladder infections. The pair of admissions took me 2 1/2 hours to finish and then it was off to home.
I stopped to fuel the car, and while there returned another call. Right after I had gotten to the ER, the answering service had texted me about another patient. Though I returned that call within moments of when the person called, I got the person's voicemail. I left a fairly terse message that I was in the ER admitting a couple of patients and that I would call them back when I was done. While at the gas station, I called again and this time spoke with the caller, who informed me that they had gone to the ER with the patient and that the patient had already been admitted to the hospital. I scratched my head and figured as I had heard nothing and had just left the ER, there was nothing for me to do.
I continued up the road, and for the second time, got as far as Forestville when the ER called. They needed me back to admit the patient that had "just been admitted". I turned around and dutifully went back to do my fourth admit of the day, once again a medically complicated medicare patient who had decompensated in the face of an infected bladder.
I finally got to head for home at 8:45.
As I headed for the ER for the final admission, Rose called me, wanting to know if I could come pick her up. She was down the hill from the house at the golf course. When I gave her a negative, she called LJ, who drove down, had dinner with her there and brought her home. I had told him I was not certain when I'd be home, just before Rose called and he took that as a reasonable excuse to head out to eat. This left me with no one to have supper with but myself, which did not do wonders for my less than wonderful mood.
This morning I headed out without my phone; not a great move on my part. Once I realized that, I felt naked, and worse, since I have no pager any longer and it's my cell everyone uses to get a hold of me in an emergency (the ER, the OR, L&D, LJ, Rose, the answering service...) not having it is not cool. Very much not cool. LJ decided to come into town for lunch and I feel clothed again. Amazing how dependent I've become on this device. As long as I have my phone and my wedding band I feel clothed. Not having either of them is very disconcerting indeed.
Sunday, the first call came at 3:45 am. The ER was letting me know that a nice lady, patient of one of my call partners had fallen and could not get up. A fractured and dislocated ankle will do that to you every time. The phrase, "I was stumbling off to the bathroom, half asleep...," will never be quite the same to me, ever again. I left them with some holding orders and promised to be in after sun-up.
At 9:30 I was in to see her and was pleasantly surprised to see her become indignant when I mentioned I had been called in the middle of the night. "Those barbarians!" she exclaimed, "What on earth did they expect you to do at that hour?" I could have hugged her. Here she is, in a bed, splinted, unable to walk and not going to have surgery until the following day and she was angry that they had awakened me in the middle of the night. From now on this lady will get the shirt off of my back if she ever needs it.
From there it was off to Sebastopol for a presentation a friend was making. After that, I planned to head for home. I stopped at the green grocers to pick up some Cara Cara oranges, now that they're in season and I was just pulling into to Forestville on my way home from there, when the ER called. There were two people in the ER needing admission. This time one of them was actually one of my patients. Both were elderly women with multiple medical problems and both were septic from bladder infections. The pair of admissions took me 2 1/2 hours to finish and then it was off to home.
I stopped to fuel the car, and while there returned another call. Right after I had gotten to the ER, the answering service had texted me about another patient. Though I returned that call within moments of when the person called, I got the person's voicemail. I left a fairly terse message that I was in the ER admitting a couple of patients and that I would call them back when I was done. While at the gas station, I called again and this time spoke with the caller, who informed me that they had gone to the ER with the patient and that the patient had already been admitted to the hospital. I scratched my head and figured as I had heard nothing and had just left the ER, there was nothing for me to do.
I continued up the road, and for the second time, got as far as Forestville when the ER called. They needed me back to admit the patient that had "just been admitted". I turned around and dutifully went back to do my fourth admit of the day, once again a medically complicated medicare patient who had decompensated in the face of an infected bladder.
I finally got to head for home at 8:45.
As I headed for the ER for the final admission, Rose called me, wanting to know if I could come pick her up. She was down the hill from the house at the golf course. When I gave her a negative, she called LJ, who drove down, had dinner with her there and brought her home. I had told him I was not certain when I'd be home, just before Rose called and he took that as a reasonable excuse to head out to eat. This left me with no one to have supper with but myself, which did not do wonders for my less than wonderful mood.
This morning I headed out without my phone; not a great move on my part. Once I realized that, I felt naked, and worse, since I have no pager any longer and it's my cell everyone uses to get a hold of me in an emergency (the ER, the OR, L&D, LJ, Rose, the answering service...) not having it is not cool. Very much not cool. LJ decided to come into town for lunch and I feel clothed again. Amazing how dependent I've become on this device. As long as I have my phone and my wedding band I feel clothed. Not having either of them is very disconcerting indeed.
