#7: A Tale of Two Patients
I know all four of you loyal readers were disappointed yesterday to learn that I didn't post about my last call night, but you'll be glad to see this entry. I'm feeling sort of overworked right now so today's installment will be brief. I'm continuing to get into the swing of things and the last call was pretty easy. However, this upcoming Friday's call (I'm q3, which means "every 3 days", this week) promises to be hard, as there are a bunch of patients coming out of the operating room on Friday and the other teams leave early, which translates into me doing some of their work. For today's installment, I present to you two interesting patients:
1) A gentleman, and I use the term loosely, who is a prisoner who felt that life was so bad in prison that he swallowed two razor blades "in order to go the hospital so I could get a decent meal." Unfortunately, we worked him up for about 4 days trying to find one of the razor blades. One exploratory laparotomy (we cut open his abdomen and tried to find the razor blade but failed) and two colonoscopies later and we finally got the razor blade. His prize: 3 days full of a liquid diet and one regular dinner and breakfast. Prison must really be terrible.
2) A blue collar guy who landed in the hospital with a rare gastrointestinal tumor and therefore had a part of his pancreas and gastrointestinal tract removed. He's had a rough post-operative recovery and he's on his third nasogastric tube (a tube placed down his nose and into his stomach, the process for which to place seems extremely unpleasant.) He's a former P.O.W. in Vietman, and we've been joking that now he is a P.O.H. (Prisoner Of Hospital.) I hope he gets out soon.
Until next time...
Patients covered last call night: 41
Amount of sleep:: 2 hours (in one hour increments - I had something figured out!)
Currently reading: Greenfield's chapter on Abdominal Wall Hernias
Currently watching: We saw Sketches of Gehry. I thought it would be better as a one-hour PBS program.
Next call night: Friday, July 28, 2006.
1) A gentleman, and I use the term loosely, who is a prisoner who felt that life was so bad in prison that he swallowed two razor blades "in order to go the hospital so I could get a decent meal." Unfortunately, we worked him up for about 4 days trying to find one of the razor blades. One exploratory laparotomy (we cut open his abdomen and tried to find the razor blade but failed) and two colonoscopies later and we finally got the razor blade. His prize: 3 days full of a liquid diet and one regular dinner and breakfast. Prison must really be terrible.
2) A blue collar guy who landed in the hospital with a rare gastrointestinal tumor and therefore had a part of his pancreas and gastrointestinal tract removed. He's had a rough post-operative recovery and he's on his third nasogastric tube (a tube placed down his nose and into his stomach, the process for which to place seems extremely unpleasant.) He's a former P.O.W. in Vietman, and we've been joking that now he is a P.O.H. (Prisoner Of Hospital.) I hope he gets out soon.
Until next time...
Patients covered last call night: 41
Amount of sleep:: 2 hours (in one hour increments - I had something figured out!)
Currently reading: Greenfield's chapter on Abdominal Wall Hernias
Currently watching: We saw Sketches of Gehry. I thought it would be better as a one-hour PBS program.
Next call night: Friday, July 28, 2006.
posted by Stephen Maturin @ 7/27/2006 06:47:00 PM
1 Comments:
At Fri Jul 28, 08:29:00 PM 2006,
Anonymous said…
alot of the time the prisoners will tape the sharp edge of the razor blade so it gets them out of prison but carries no risk...BOARD QUESTION!!! where do foreign bodies get hung up?
1. cricopharyngeus
2. ge junction
3. pylorus
4. ligament of treitz
5. ileocecal valve
6. rectosigmoid at peritoneal reflection.
7. anus
8. any acquired site of narrowing
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