Monday Deja Vu

There something about Mondays in an Emergency Department.  I don't know what it is, but Monday was the one day of the week we all dreaded.  Especially at Buffalo General.  My first blog post at The Central Line was about Mondays.  It's just an evil day.

I moved to a place where I was supposed to just see grannies with urinary tract infections.  I wasn't supposed to come in, on a half day shift no less, and see a full board, with a full waiting room and deal with:

 - had big log fall on me - patient works with a lumber company and had a huge log fall on leg and trap it until they were able to saw it away.  He had a knee strain but I was worried about damage and swelling in the muscles of his leg.  Luckily, everything turned out ok.

 - vomiting blood - patient with liver disease who came in bleeding from both ends.  A tube in their nose put out over a liter (1/3 of a gallon) of bloody stuff within the first 5 minutes it was in.  Not to mention they had a broken nose because a "friend" assaulted them when they were drunk.  They got a central line and transferred to the city hospital.

 - heart attack - patient who came in complaining their lungs felt heavy who I initially dismissed but then decided to get labs and an EKG on.  They were getting tired of waiting, and I was able to convince them to stay by feeding them.  They were going to be admitted to the city hospital.

 - stroke - patient had been goofy all day and family finally decided to bring them in that evening.  They were going to be transferred when I left.

 - bleeding into leg - 90+ who'd recently had surgery and was now anemic from probable blood loss into their leg.  They were white as a ghost.  He came in complaining of an upset stomach.

 - and a whole mess of other small things I ran in and evaluated quickly in between these patients.... wow.  I saw almost as many patients in my six hour shift as I usually see in a twelve hour shift.  Just some jam-packed Monday fun...