Foul, smelly and otherwise crazy: update

I'm still finding words for what I saw and smelled recently.

We have a patient who's had an abdominal surgical procedure not once, not twice, but three times at the Hotel with us. He went to Washington, and I think every resident on that service must have worked on him/her. You'd think they'd get it right. Normally, this procedure is a slam dunk. It hasn't been lately for this patient.

Today, being a day after a holiday, is always a little weird. Things are done out of order since we have people still on vacation, meetings and bigwigs coming to visit. The unit goes from quiet one minute to absolute pandemonium all at once when you have 1) lunch trays showing up, 2) people moving around everywhere and 3) every motorized floor cleaner in our building rolling down the halls of the Hotel. It was not a pretty sight. I am so thankful I escaped with my feet unscathed.

The abdominal patient, seeing it was busy, and he/she didn't feel like moseying around early, decided to clean up after lunch. When I came back to pick up his/her stuff and dump a pan of water, I noticed the dressing and the towel he/she used was covered with tan drainage that seemed to ooze more fervently each time he/she pushed on the abdomen near the incision. By the time I ran to call the docs, he/she had an ABD pad soaking and a towel that was covered with lots of tan spots. MD and the trusty wound nurse were happy I called, because the stapled area of the incision did not seem to leak while they were in the room earlier.

For that dramatic, oozing display, said patient was whisked away to an emergency consult, where he/she was evaluated and then the specialists said, "Keep up the dressing changes. Bring him/her back next week and we'll re-evaluate it then."

The smelly: one of my patients with a newer colostomy can beat the nearest herd of cattle for methane production. If we could harness that gas, we could probably power the electric used in his/her TV everyday.

Finally, we just need a little crazy welcome back from a long holiday weekend...my brother's meds still aren't right. He's not happy, so he wins a trip to the unit where his psych actually is working now that he/she is not on vacation. I'm crossing my fingers that his regular doc can settle the issues once and for all.

And if that wasn't crazy enough, traveling partner and I are still dealing with the boss on various travel issues. Next time, I'll volunteer someone else to go to a conference with him instead.

More to come...stay tuned.

Foul and smelly

Those two words pretty much sum up my day.

More later...stay tuned.