Yes, today, folks, we'll finally see it...if the storms blowing through don't cloud the sky this evening.
On our unit, we've known it was coming for days, since all of the patients start acting up in a variety of ways. The full moon will do that to some folks, I guess...
I've been encountering a lot of interesting stuff lately. I took care of a patient who had this listed on his diagnosis chart: Hypermetropia. Since I must have been snoozing during that part of the opthamology section in pathophysiology, I decided to look it up, and alas, it's simply farsightedness. I did find a really cool page on WebMD called How to read your eyeglass prescription which tells you why it's written the way it is. Very interesting...even if I don't need anything for my eyes just yet! I'll be ready for a family prescription to come my way.
One thing I was getting confused on was an SGPT result. Turns out it's just the same as an ALT, which I was looking at somewhere else.
Next, I ran into a diagnosis for mitral valve insufficiency and aortic valve stenosis. While it's not heavily clinical, I found a great set of heart articles on this very subject from the Texas Heart Institute in Houston. If you have to explain this diagnosis to a patient, go check them out. Note: they also have a special section for professionals, as well.
We had an interesting situation recently. One patient with generalized swelling was a difficult stick for a blood draw. When you missed the vein, you got fluid. Anasarca is a very challenging condition to deal with, especially when doing blood pressures or any other procedure that may put pressure on the skin. Just putting a stethescope on to do a blood pressure left a mark on this patient.
Finally, be careful how you use OTC medications. This information about ibuprofen is very good from www.rxlist.com. Remember, there's a reason why they say, "All things in moderation."
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