Friday, July 25, 2008

A day in my life

My day begins with waking up at 4 am. After taking a shower and downing a cup of coffee (Starbucks Pikes Place roast), I'm off to the hospital. I'll spare you the boring details of asking patients about bowel movements and farting, and jump to the more interesting. So far today I've spent 9 hours in surgery. In one surgery, the attending nicked the femoral artery, and everyone got showered in blood. I'm talking horror movie style blood spurts. Later on tonight I was taking out a thing that is basically an iv line in the femoral artery in the same patient, just the other femoral artery. What's supposed to happen is we pull this out, and I hold pressure for 10 minutes and we're done. What actually happened is that we lost the hole in this obese lady's fat rolls, pushed in the wrong place, and 30 seconds later this lady is laying in a pool of her own blood. Seriously, a pool of her own blood. after a couple of more minutes, we finally realize that something is wrong, and get pressure on the right spot. Don't worry, she's fine now. Also, I've given a rectal exam, placed a catheter, and started an IV tonight.
There's also non-blood and guts stuff. Today the kindly old lady whom I've seen every day since I started was discharged, and I never knew, and so never got to say bye. It's a weird feeling. Also, I met a lady with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) who lost the ability to talk 2 years ago. She now communicates with her family via text messaging. We had a text message contest, and this tiny little lady destroyed me. It was glorious.
Welp, it's now 2 in the morning, and I just heard a Life Flight helicopter fly in. It's too bad, because I could use a nap. I've already been interrupted three times since i started this. Anyway, I start rounds again at 4:45, and the day starts over from there.
And that's my life right now.

4 comments:

Laura R said...

I wish a day in your life included me. Hey, I get to see you this weekend though!

Jen said...

Josh~

You have just become the coolest guy I know! Don't tell Zach, but his career isn't nearly as interesting as yours! :)

Zach said...

Josh--two things:
1. let's leave our wives and run away together, mine thinks law is boring. Ha! Law, boring?

2. Coolest story ever. I think a scrubs episode was just like that

OH, one last thing: rectal exam.

Carl Zoch said...

Zach had one of those once, I think. Right? Zach?

Josh, you're my hero.