I hate working the holidays. Not because I have to take time away from my family, which is not the worst part, it's that every time I work the holidays there's always a tragic story.
I haven't worked a Thanksgiving in over 4 years. This year I've worked the whole weekend: Wednesday thru today. All the cases I saw were pretty benign... But, today was the day...
I had a patient come in not breathing or responsive. Seems they had gotten up at their usual time and were going through their usual routine. Then they complained to their spouse that their arm felt weird. Soon they were having a full blown seizure. EMS was called and they gave the patient some medication to stop the seizure, but it also slowed their breathing so I had to put in a breathing tube.
I talked to their spouse and, like I've asked multiple times, I asked if they had a plan in case their heart stopped. They did! The spouse even carried a card with their wishes on it. We rushed the patient to the CT scanner where I wanted to make sure that they didn't have a brain bleed. They didn't, but what they did have surprised everyone: they had a brain tumor.
I now had to go and tell their spouse that their loved one had a brain tumor. Most often, the tumor is not a primary and it's a metastases; so that meant there might be a cancer somewhere else that caused this one. I could see the pain in their eyes. I could see the sudden weight of an unknown diagnosis. I could see the love they had for their spouse. And, I hated that I had to be the one to cause them such grief... during a holiday... one they will probably never forget...
I hate working the holidays...
#NaBloPoMo18
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