#21: Tuesday Night Fever

Tuesday night's call had a theme to it: fever. There were five patients with new fevers that I worked up. One of them was really scary: a lttle old woman who started shivering and became unresponsive before my eyes. Her pulse was around 130 beats per minute and they couldn't read her blood pressure. That's what happened the first minute I walked into the room. I wasn't quite sure what to do since she had just come back from a procedure earlier in the day AND she had her bladder catheter taken out a few hours before. It turned out that her blood pressure was normal when I checked it manually, but she still had the elevated heart rate and wasn't talking to me. We put her bladder catheter in, a bunch of urine came out, and within 2 minutes she woke up and her heart rate came back to normal. Who knows what happened, but we transferred her to a nursing unit with closer supervision. She was the first patient I've seen who deteriorated right before my eyes and it was pretty scary.

There were four other fevers to work-up that night and one admission that came at midnight and another that came at 3 AM. In the end, I didn't get much sleep and I was pretty worthless the next morning. I spilled my coffee all over the floor and fell asleep in grand rounds. Thankfully, today is an easy day and I got home at 7:30 PM and get to spend time with my wife!

Last call nights Tuesday, September 19th
Amount of sleep last call nights: 30 minutes, with my head on the desk.
Currently reading: Greenfield's Chapter on Crohn's Disease
Currently watching: The new season of Gray's Anatomy.
Next call night: Saturday, September 23rd