Yippeee! It's snowing and blowing like crazy out here. Yippee? Yes indeed, 'cos I don't have to go out in it tomorrow. Unlike my unexpected trip to the dentist this morning... a crown fell off. Not just an ordinary fall, but the cement build-up inside broke off, so now I have to do the roto-rooter thing again. bleh. What a pain, but not literally - apparently most of the nerves are deader than a doornail in there, so that's cool.
Before I forget, if you need some fonts (don't we always??), Chank has an amazing sale right now... some for only 99ยข - woohoo.
You know, I mentioned that I had a little story from my saving lives weekend, yes? I was kind of like a character in a movie, where a cop/psychiatrist/random stranger comes across someone ready to jump off of a 50 floor rooftop to end it all.
I was working in my fav ICU, giving a treatment to a patient. At the time, I was kind of leaning against the doorway to his room, with my back to the patient and talking across the floor to Karen who was sitting at the monitors. She interrupted our conversation and asked me if I was watching the patient.
"Sure - I know his pulse ox (which basically measures the oxygen percentage in your blood) sucks, but it's coming up..." and I casually turned around to look at him again, and he was GONE!
Now, this guy had been quite lethargic all day... not saying much and very short of breath. He was sick. And he was not in his bed!
"Holy Shit! Karen, help!" I yelled as I saw him, in the back of the room, and wedged between the window and the large panel that houses all of the mechanical elements for the room. I ran back to where he stood, all 320lbs of him, wires and IV lines stretched to the max (the ones that were still attached to him) and tried to find out what the hell he was thinking.
"Earnest, what are you doing? Come back here, c'mon, let's get you back to bed..."
"I gotta stop them. The bomb... what's out there? We gotta move this thing" and he was trying to push the panel/wall in a different direction with his shoe in one hand and his cane in the other.
I had one hand on his arm and used my other hand to grip the head of the bed. I wanted to support myself in case he did a nosedive through the window, or to the floor, depending on which direction he crumpled to first. The doc was next to me, although he couldn't really reach the patient 'cos it was a very small space for all of us to occupy.
So there I was, playing the rescuer and speaking in a calming and casual voice (while everyone else was yelling - "Earnest, get back in your bed!"), trying to convince him that he was in the hospital and that he really needed to come with me and get back to bed because I was afraid he was going to hurt himself.
Eventually, everyone else in the room quieted down (and called Security to come to the unit stat), while they watched the drama in the corner continue between Earnest and me.
Well, to cut to the conclusion of the story, the patient finally followed me out, although he kept yelling to everyone (including me) to "Step away! Get back. Get away from me!" and we got him to sit on the side of his bed.
In a nutshell, he was hypoxic (very low oxygen levels to his brain) as well as hyperglycemic (he was a diabetic), both of which can alter your mental status quite severely. So once we got him a tad closer to *normal* and talked him down, he apologized for giving us such a scare.
Whew. It was quite the adrenaline rush, and truthfully, made my evening pass by a little quicker... (Earnest was ok), and that's the end of my little story! Wasn't that fun?
Now I think I'm going to nuke some popcorn and browse around a little, k?
Happy SnowDay everyone!
Come down off your throne and leave your body alone.