So here it is, almost 8 in the morning and I sit exhausted after a very busy night at work. I have been up for almost 24 hours and I can't even think of sleep at this point. It was one of those nights that I have heard about from the other overnighters. I had not, up until now, had one of these dreaded nights. It was a night of firsts (and hopefully, but doubtfully) a night of lasts.
I guess a little background is in order. I work every other weekend at a local hospital in the lab. I like it in the lab. I really don't have to see the human/emotional side of the hospital setting except when I draw blood. Now this is a task I detest. I have to do it on the floors about 2.5/5 days a week and on my overnight weekends I draw from 4am to 6am in the ER. I'm getting to the point where I don't really mind drawing on the floors as there really isn't anything too unexpected. The ER however is a completely different story. The ER really is set up into a variety of areas and I will give you a general layout so you can get a mental picture of how this all works. The 3 main areas that I visit are as follows: The stabilization rooms (stab 1, 2, 3, and 4) These are the areas that the most critical patients visit. Car accidents, motorcycle accidents, heart attacks. gun shot wounds etc. The lockdown rooms: These are for vulnerable adults, mentally unstable and pretty much anybody they want to be locked in a room. The normal ER rooms: These are for patients with the normal ailments.
Tonight we had a particular high number of traumas. We had 6 people in the stab rooms at different times. Most were car accidents, one was an unresponsive adult..... Sometimes these car accidents involve people that are doing illegal things... driving drunk for instance.
That was how an OK night went south.... really fast. The sheriff decided that this one kid involved in a motor vehicle accident had been drinking. For court purposes they cannot use a medical blood alcohol. They need what is called a legal blood alcohol. It involves a lengthy amount of paperwork and a chain of custody for the samples to ensure that they are not tampered with. Needless to say I have only seen one of these done and it was my turn to go to the stab rooms to do this. I had already seen his medical alcohol level and it was well over the .08 level that is acceptable for someone over 21 to have. I go in to draw his blood and he is a bloody mess. His eyes are glassed over and his ear is barely attached. I get the tubes of blood I need and go out back to the officer and start filling out the paperwork. Well, I had gotten through the actual taking of the blood, but I had gotten myself so worked up in the process (I do have a tendency to get lightheaded and dizzy often) that I could feel myself starting to get hot and sweaty which is usually the first sign of me passing out. I heeded the warning sign and while the sheriff was filling out some paperwork, I went and sat on a chair and put my head between my knees. I felt better and then continued filling out the paperwork with the officer. When it was all done, I again started see the black come into my periphereal vision- another sign of my impending collapse. I hurry and rush to that same chair and again, head between my knees. After I feel as though I can make it back to the lab, I do so. I do have to say the nurses in the ER are very nice as many of them asked if I was going to be OK. Upon arrival back into the lab, the shift supervisor immediately sent me on break- I must have looked as bad as I felt ( she said I looked like a ghost). So I made it through that first: A very bloody car accident that I have to do a legal blood alcohol on. Let's just hope that I don't receive a summons to go to court for this one.
Right after my break I hear 2 overhead pages one is a trauma team and the other is a heart team. I am supposed to be drawing these 2 patients as fast as I can as their life depends on lab results some times. Luckily again, the nurses are all about patient care and draw both of the patients and I take them back to the lab. I never really saw one of the patients, but the second patient was looking a bit dull in color. I needed to go back and get some orders and I hear the dreaded CPR on Stab 4. It was one of the patients......the one that I needed orders on. I go into the room and one of the doctors is up on the bed, doing chest compressions. It was like a "train wreck" and I couldn't take my eyes off of the doctor. I normally am not a gawker when it comes to car accidents and other things on the side of the road. There was something surreal about the whole situation. I left to go attend to something else but ended up back in the room just as they called the time of death. That was my next first: I saw my first death. I know I didn't know the person but something really got to me. I tried not to think about the family of the person or really anything at all. I just returned to the lab and continued my work.... it had to get done. It got me thinking..... I'm really glad that I don't see that everyday. I don't know if I would be able to take it.
It also made me really glad that I didn't take over in the ER at 3:30AM as there was another car accident, this one was much worse than the legal alcohol I drew. I know that there was a fatality at the scene and the patient that was in the hospital was not going to be keeping all of the limbs the the evening started with. This particular patient didn't have an identity for the first couple of hours in the hospital.
Even though I am not an extremely religious person at this point in my life, today I will be going to mass. I need to thank a certain someone for all the good things in my life and even the bad things that have made me appreciate the good things to a greater extent...........
These are almonds that went missing from the counter awhile back. As you can see by the indentations in the carpet, there was a piece of furniture there, a bookcase to be exact. So I am guilty of not always moving all of the furniture when vacuuming. But really who does? 
