Mad Angio

Great grampa says

2009-04-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Greetings people. I realize that its been a really long time since I have had a story for ya. I really thought that with the winter having been soo long, I'd would have had more time to blog stories to you. That's not to say that a bunch of stuff hasn't happened at work. But one story at a time otherwise, they start to run together. You could end up with a story like, "CoWorker caught making love to a pacemaker" or "Power injector makes quick work of 'bowel prep.'" Sorry, I should stay on task.

So the other day we had to perform an angio on a 87 year old man with mild confusion. In order to get into his femoral artery we had to shave his pelvic area. Then clean it with soap and cover him with a sterile drape. I told him that I was going to start by shaving his groin area and he says to me,"Just be careful with the tall timber." Which I thought was just a bit disgusting!
Then he says to me,"You got any cold food around here?" Not knowing what he had in mind, I asked him what he meant.
"You know, cold food,"
"Like what?" I asked.
"You know food that's cold" he responded.
"Do mean like jello?" I suggested.
"No no no, COLD food!" he yelled.
"Salad or ice cream?" I asked again.
"No. I talking about really cold food." he said with just a hint of anger.
"Well, you can't have food now but when we are done with your test and you get back to your room, what would you like to eat....and please don't say cold food!" I said onto him.
"Well I would really like.....Polar bear....yeah that's what I want."

Cold food, I get it. Polar bear.

Later people.

Gonzo

Hand over that kidney, stupid!!

2008-10-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

Hello again. I welcome you back with a brand new story. I thought this one was a sweet story of how loving a family can be. Recently, I met a 55 year old woman who's kidneys had failed. Both of them. The patients name was Milly but for this story I will call her Jane. She had come to us so that we could insert a perm cath that would allow her to have dialysis and not die. Her doctor's plan was for her to stay on dialysis until they could find a kidney donor that would match. In the meantime the kidney transplant people/ team tested her whole family, looking for a match. As luck would have it, her brother was a perfect match. When I met Jane and she told me her story I was very happy for her and I told her so. I was all,"Good for you" and "How about that" and "Way to go" and of course, "Woo hoo!" But she didn't seem too thrilled. So I said onto her,"You don't seem too excited about this." Her answer was weird. Jane said to me,"Well, it IS great that my brother is a match and is willing to give me one of his kidneys but....there's a catch." She paused. "See my brother Dale (Harvey) is an alcoholic and he just found out that his liver is failing and....well....he wants to make a deal. He'll give me a kidney if I give him part of my liver." I was speechless. Yeah, me...speechless. It was weird. What do you say to that? I asked her what she was going to do. She said,"Well its not MY fault that he wrecked his liver....I think that I will just go to him and say, 'Dale, YOU broke your liver and that's YOUR fault, now give me that kidney! You jerk'. " I asked her if she thought that might work. She said onto me," Well Dale IS the stupid one in the family. He will do whatever we tell him to do!" All I could do was wish her luck.

Take care of your livers. Both of them. I mean your kidneys. Bye.

Hey when you gotta go...you gotta go!

2008-04-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing just fine. I am ok. The winter seems to be over....for now. I am cautious.

This month's story takes us to the mundane world of the routine chest x-ray. Its one of those tech things, you do it so much, that you end up doing it on "auto pilot". I estimate that in my 18 year career I have shot about 17,000 routine chest x-rays. That means that I have said,"Take in a breath and hold it.......'beep'....you may breath" about 34,000 times!!!

So one day about 10 years ago there was a male patient in his 80's, hard of hearing and in a wheelchair, who needed a chest x-ray. I brought him into the x-ray room and asked him if he could stand. He told me yes and that he had to pee. I looked down and noticed that he had a Foley catheter in and thus he didn't have to pee. The pee was being collected by a tube that lead to a big urine collection bag. I told him very loudly,"Sir, you have a catheter in place, you don't have to pee! Its the catheter making you feel like you have to pee." To which he answered,"No no, I gotta pee." So to speed things along I said,"You have a tube in place....go ahead and pee away if you want!" He then proceeded to stand up, grab the catheter with one hand, his penis with the other and YANKED THE TUBE OUT!!!! With the catheter's retention balloon STILL INFLATED!

OUCH! This the kind of ouch that comes with making love to a cheese grater!!! Yikes! I couldn't believe what I had just seen. What followed was just as bad. After he pulled the catheter out, he PEE'D on the door frame to my x-ray room. I yelled at him,"What are you doing!!??" He says,"You said pee away." Technically he was right.
Take it easy people....I gotta go pee.

Gonzo

I'd love to, but I gotta go to work.

2008-04-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

This is aweful! For about a year now my hospital has been designated a "stroke center" which means that if someone has a stroke, we can attempt to treat them. That is, IF they are brought to us within a 8 hour period.

About two weeks ago we were asked to perform a cerebral angio on a guy who had a stroke the night before. They brought him to us on a stretcher. He was about 50 years old, pale and really weak on his right side. He had slurred speach and an obvious facial droop. Poor guy. We did the angio and sure enough we found that he had a block artery in his brain. Unfortunately we could not treat him. Too much time had passed.

While getting him off the table, I asked him when the symptoms started. He told me the night before. I asked him why he didn't come to the hospital at that time. His answer floored me.

"Well, my girlfriend WAS gonna bring me but she had to git ta werk"

I was stunned! So I said,"What about calling 911?" He answered, "Nahh, SHE figured that she could just take me in the mornin' after she gits off werk."

I set him in the hall while waiting for his transporter show and take him back to his room. The transporter arrived with the patient's girlfriend. She was 27!! She was missing a couple O' teeth!!! I believe that she was really familiar with cigarettes. Oh and of course she was blonde. From a bottle no doubt. I never found out where she worked. I hope she makes lots of money. For his sake. I felt bad for everyone.

She seems nice...maybe I'll ask her to dinner.

2007-12-14T18:33:00.000-08:00

Hello all and welcome back. I was trying to remember a good story for you all and I couldn't think of any. But then I remember this one!

Years and years ago, I was covering the ER X-ray dept during the dinner hour. Things were a little slow that night. One chest x-ray here, an ankle x-ray there and so on.
Then I received a request for an abdomen x-ray of a young woman in her 20's. Business being slow as it was, I volunteered to go get her from her little curtained room. I walked up to the curtained area, pulled back the curtained and there sat a lovely blond haired, green eyed beauty. With legs that went on forever. In a patient gown that did her no justice at all! She was cute! I tell no lie. So I wheeled her over in the stretcher. As we made our way to the X-ray room I struck up a conversation about the day and traffic and how long her wait was....blah blah blah. She was well spoken and seemed very bright. Animated. Talked with her hands a little bit. But still very nice. Truly not our typical patient.
I get her on the X-ray table for her abdomen X-ray, I ask her if she's preg-os, she says no, I take the film. Simple. Cut and dry right? Then I developed the film to find that.....girlfriend had some weird eating habits. In her stomach I saw what looked like coins, a small spoon and a 9 volt battery. She had Pica. That's a condition where you eat things that have no nutritional value at all. For instance: Coins, spoons, salt shaker tops, paper clips, batteries....etc. Its really strange.
I asked her what happened and she said,"That's just something I do from time to time." I asked her what she meant. She told me that as long as she could remember, she just gets the urge to eat something made of metal. Knowing full well that it's bad for her. That she could choke and that it could poison her system. Aside from her weird eating habits she seemed really normal. And cute!!!
Having finished her X-ray I put her back in the stretcher and took her back to the ER area. As we turned the corner, I maneuvered near an admin desk and there on the edge of the counter were a bunch of paper clips. Guess what happened next. Go ahead take a guess. If you guessed she grabbed the paper clips tossed them back like peanut....You guessed right! She reached out with her left hand, grabbed that fistful of clips and tossed her head back like you and me taking our multi-vitamins in the morning. Those paper clips were GONE. I had never seen anything like it!! Except for maybe the occasional Fear Factor episode. She made it look easy. I put her in her room and went to the ER Doctor to rat her out. The Dr. says,"Heather's here? Oh she's one of my favorites. Which curtain? Did we call Endoscopy yet?" Apparently "Heather" (not her real name....her real name was Tracy)was a regular customer. After all that, one of the other techs came down from dinner and says,"Hey do you wanna go eat? Oh Heather was here? Ah she's nice. Hey go eat." As I went to eat I saw Heather going down the hall with one of the Endoscopy nurses. They were chatting like old friends...I ate a salad that night.

Go easy people and Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Gonzo

Hey, you gonna eat that?

2007-11-15T12:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome back and sorry for the delay! Here we go.
About three years ago I was working overtime on the evening shift for some extra cash. The evening shift functions with at a more casual pace than the day shift because typically you have fewer techs. You end up working alone more often than not. This is especially true if you are the technologist who is doing the portable exams. One night I was asked to go to Bariatric, the over-weight wing, and take a regular old, run of the mill chest x-ray of a woman who was every bit of 600 lbs. THAT'S 600 LBS. PEOPLE! Think of the largest person you know, and make 2 or maybe 2 1/2 of them! This was going to require using all my little tricks of the trade if I was to get an "ok" film. Which means you'd have to see the lungs. After much struggle, the film just ok. The lungs were visiable but everything else was under penetrated. In one of the lungs you could see this weird "metallic-like" webbing on the edge of the lung.....really foreign and definately abnormal. Soooooooo the Doctor asked to repeat the film and insturcted me to physically look at the area to make sure that there wasn't anything laying on the body that would give off this appearance. I trucked my annoyed little self back up to the floor and explained to the woman why we needed to perform the chest x-ray again. So I placed my x-ray cassette behind her. Again. This time, before I shot, I asked her to raise her arm up so I could see that area. To my delight, there was nothing there. I told her she could lower her arm. As she did, I heard a muffled crunch. I said to the patient,"That must have hurt." She said that she didn't feel anything. So I asked her to lift and lower her arm again. She raised her arm. I heard nothing. She lowered it and I heard the crunch again. I asked her,"You didn't feel that?" She didn't feel a thing. So I did what any nosy tech would do. I asked her to lift up her arm and I told her I was going to look under her tent, I mean her gown. Against my better judgment, I took a look and I saw something kinda blue and chromey stuck between a couple of folds. Thank God almighty, I was wearing gloves because what I did next I DO NOT RECOMMEND! I spread the two-three folds with one hand and gently pulled on the chromey object with the other. She didn't seem to have any pain so I kept pulling until......I removed a half eaten bad of Doritos and not one of those little snack packs either. I'm talking about the Grand-Daddy size bags that you buy for the Superbowl party at your house!!!!! She says to me,"Dat's where dat went....I been wonderin' bout dem for bout a week."
I shot the film and left as quickly as I could but as I left, I heard the distinct sound of someone eating chips! Ewwwwwwwhhhhhhh!!! As a result of that I can't always eat chips. If anyone needs me.....I'll be doing sit-ups.

Chao

Butt Sarge.....nevermind.

2007-08-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, I was in the Army. I had the great fortune of being stationed in the gem that is Schofield barracks, Hawaii. Good times. The weather's always perfect. Even when it rains its great. Oh and the work was cake!!! A couple of chest x-rays in the morning, a couple of ankle films, then the occassional neck x-ray of someone who fell off their surfboard. During the regular work week we'd average about 20 patients per day. During the weekend however, it was totally different. In a 12 hour shift on a Saturday or Sunday we'd do about 4-5 patients. Borrrrrrring. Thank God we had cable!
One particular abdomen x-ray stands out in my mind when I think back on those days.
I was nodding off at the front desk when the front door opened and in walked a soldier who looked like he had fallen out of the recruitment poster. A perfect soldier. He was about 6 ft tall with his uniform perfectly pressed, boots highly shined, haircut was perfect, his muscles were busting through his shirt. Simply impressive! So he handed me a requestion from his doctor for an abdomen film. One shot, one film. E-Z! I made him put on a gown, took him into the x-ray room, layed him down on the table, shot the film, told him to go ahead and get dressed.(I never miss by the way) I took the film into the darkroom. Processed it. Pulled the x-ray out of the processor and bang there it was...........

The killer was......it was STILL ON!!!!! The x-ray showed motion. Normally if an x-ray has any motion we repeat the x-ray but I wasn't about to. Not this time. You know with this type of soldier, I was very surprised!!!! I didn't think an Army soldier could ever afford the Ass-Crammer 2000 XL Delux on his salary!! Goes to show. You never can tell! Peace.

Might as well JUMP!!!

2007-07-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

About six years ago I was called into the trauma room to take x-rays of a man who had
attempted suicide by jumping off a building. Feet first. From three stories up. Well needless to say he didn't die. He shattered both ankles though. When I walked into the trauma room he was laying unconscious, strapped to a back board holding perfectly still. First, I took a chest x-ray, then a neck x-ray and I started on some lower leg films. I carefully slide my x-ray film under his leg and he woke up. PISSED! I wasn't sure if he was mad because I hurt him by lifting his leg which was twisted the wrong way or because he wasn't dead. Anyway he start yelling over and over,"Let me up, I'm outta here. Let me the F*** up!! I gotta get out of here!!!" and when I say over and over I mean like 15 SOLID minutes of this. Continuously!!! Those of you who know me might know that I really dislike needless repetition. So I start getting irritated. I tried talking to him but it was no use Sooooo..... I started messing with him. I finished all my x-rays then I unbuckled his back board straps and said," You wanna go? You wanna leave....go. Get the hell up and go. If you make it to the door, I will GIVE you a ride home!!!" He sat up, looked down at his legs, saw that his feet were pointing in all the wrong directions and promptly passed the hell out. I put this safety straps back on a went about my business. As I was leaving I high-fived the Orthopedic resident because he had the evil job of realigning the guy's legs. Can I just tell you, that's a new kind of pain. The kind of pain that might one wish they were dead. I felt bad for the guy but not REAL bad.

Bye guys.

Gonzo

If you want blood.....you got it!!!!!

2007-06-03T19:30:00.001-07:00

Welcome to this week's installment of Goofy medical stories.
I heard this story from one of the surgeons that works with us.
He trained in NYC or in Lubuck, Texas, I can't ever keep the two
straight. Anyway he tells this story of a recurring patient who had really bad veins. I guess when it was time to draw his blood for tests and stuff it was always a huge ordeal. The "hot-shot" nurse who try; and fail. Then the ICU nurse would try, and fail. Then the resident would try, and would fail. Then the chief resident and so on and so on.....
One day this new resident from the Middle East arrived. I will call him Sheik Aleed Omar von Gonzen-trooper Al Eta Momar Syed Gonzenheimer. He had come to train in NYC/TX. While there he overheard members of the staff complaining about how hard it was to draw blood from this particular patient. He, Sheik Aleed Omar von Gonzen-trooper Al Eta Momar Syed Gonzenheimer, volunteered to give it a try. Everyone else had tried and failed so they figured why not. Besides, what's a few needle pokes among friends.
The resident walked into the patient's room, pulled the curtain for some privacy, explained to the patient what he was going to do....and low and behold moments later emerged most triumphant with vials of blood for everyone!!! And the staff cheered him and layed palms in the hospital hallway that his feet would never feel the cold hospital floor underfoot, while others praised him loudly to friend and foe alike.
This scenario played out a bunch of times over the next couple of weeks. It seemed that everyone would try and fail except for "The Anointed one". He would walk in, and moments later he'd come out with blood samples. It just came easy to him. So one day a junior resident asked him how it was that he was the ONLY person who could get blood from this patient. His answer was as follows:
"It is wery eezy I tek needal dat is ten centimeters long (about 5 inches) and go in under sturr-num at about fortee five de-grees and git blud. Verks eh-vry tyme."

This crazy wacko was drawing blood from either the HEART itself or the Superior Vena Cava, also known as the giant f-ing vein in your chest! People, if you can help it, don't let anything sharp EVER go into your chest without X-ray guidance. Really.

Peace out PeePoe!!
Gonzo

Tough Cop can't take the PAIN!

2007-05-15T17:35:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome back. Sorry it has been so long. Anyway on to the story.
We help run a pain management clinic in the morning at my hospital, yeah its mine.
We provide x-ray visualization for certain types of nerve blocks. Which is when a steroid or a numbing medicine are injected directly into a joint space that is causing a person pain. On any given day we do about 5 per morning. They take about 15 mins and they are an OUTPATIENT procedure.

These blocks are done in this sequence:

Numb the skin
Insert needle
Take x-ray to guide the needle placement
Reach the joint
Inject medicine
Pull everything out
Wave at patient as they leave.

So a couple of days ago we brought in this thick necked, barrel chested tough guy.
He was about 6'4" 240 lbs, he had a buzzed haircut and tatoos on both forearms. One was a skull and the other was lightning coming out of a dark cloud. Mean looking.
The patient strutted in like Vinny Baberino as if he was sizing up everyone in the room. Turns out, he was a cop, or as HE put it,"Yeah I'm on da force."
His main complaint was lower back pain, like most of our patients. We were just going to inject one level of his spine. Normally we do at least two.
We got him on the x-ray table, cleaned off his back with some betadine, took and x-ray to see where he hurt, took the smallest needle we have, injected a tiny bit of lidocaine (the stuff a dentist uses to numb your mouth) into his back.......and he jumps off the table. LITERALLY! Jumped off and said in a high pitched squeal,"F-this man!!! My back don't hurt bad enough to put up with this crap....." and stormed out of the exam room. Never to be seen again. The room was silent with four stunned Drs. and one giggling tech. I have NEVER seen anyone not be able to "handle" the lidocaine. To give you an idea of how much this cop over-reacted the ninety lbs. eighty year old lady that went after him handled her THREE levels without so much as a whimper.

Next time I get stopped by a cop, and I WILL be pulled over again, I am going to be chuckling to myself just a little bit.

G-Lo

These are funny.....not mine but still funny

2007-04-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

A man comes into the ER and yells, "My wife's going to have her baby in the cab!" I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady's dress, and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs -- I was in the wrong one.
Dr. Mark MacDonald, San Antonio, TX

At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and
slightly deaf female patient's anterior chest wall. "Big breaths," I instructed. "Yes, they used to be," remorsed the patient.
Dr. Richard Byrnes, Seattle, WA

One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her
husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five
minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had
died of a "massive internal fart."
Dr. Susan Steinberg, Manitoba, Canada

I was performing a complete physical, including the visual acuity test I
placed the patient twenty feet from the chart and began, "Cover your right eye with your hand." He read the 20/20 line perfectly. "Now your left" Again, a flawless read. "Now both," I requested. There was silence. He couldn't even read the large E on the top line. I turned and discovered that he had done exactly what I had asked; he was standing there with both his eyes covered. I was laughing too hard to finish the exam.
Dr. Matthew Theodropolous, Worcester, MA

During a patient's two week follow-up appointment with his cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor, that he was having trouble with one of his
medications. "Which one?" I asked. "The patch. The nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I'm running out of places to put it!" I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn't see... Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! Now, the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying a new one.
Dr. Rebecca St. Clair, Norfolk, VA

While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked, "How long
have you been bedridden?" After a look of complete confusion she answered..."Why, not for about twenty years-when my husband was alive."
Dr. Steven Swanson, Corvallis, OR

I was caring for a woman from Kentucky and asked, "So how's your breakfast this morning?" "It's very good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can't seem to get used to the taste," the patient replied. I then asked to see the jelly and the woman produced a foil packet labeled "KY Jelly."
Dr. Leonard Kransdorf, Detroit, MI

A Nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room, when a young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that read, "Keep off the grass." Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient's dressing, which said "Sorry, had to mow the lawn"

A new, young, MD doing his residency in OB was quite embarrassed performing female pelvic exams. To cover his embarrassment he had unconsciously formed a habit of whistling softly. The middle-aged lady upon whom he was performing this exam suddenly burst out laughing and further embarrassed him. He looked up from his work and sheepishly said, "I'm sorry. Was I tickling you?" She replied, "No doctor, but the song you were whistling is 'I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Wiener'." The doctor would not admit his name but I bet its Dr. Dick.

Ok here's one of mine.....I had to prep a very openly gay patient for an angiogram. I was preping his groin/hip area and he pretty nervous so I started telling him jokes and just making small talk to put him at ease. I gained his trust pretty quickly. So then I asked,"Where do you come from?" He says,"Right next to where you are prepping! Heyyyyy"
I turned really red with embarrassment and walked out. Later we went out for drinks. Just kidding. I would never date a guy (with a renal steno sis) ever.

Go easy people.
Gonzo

If thy limb offends thee....

2007-04-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

Hey welcome back. I hope that your winter is over. Mine ain't. Enough is enough.
I have been cold for too long. Speaking of cold......
On to our story:

We received a phone call today asking if we could see a patient with a "cold foot".
We were all like,"yeah...". Cold foot refers to interrupted blood flow from the heart to the foot or feet. Its bad. You could lose your foot within a two days or so if left untreated. The skin will swell like a sausage casing and takes on a purple-ish look. Gross as hell.
Back to cold foot man. He started having foot pain on a Sunday. He had some surgery about ten years ago by one of our Drs. The patient lives in Vermont. I work in NY. This man was willing to drive from Vermont to NY just to see this particular Dr. That's about a five hour drive and he drove it alone. Just so that he could used the same Dr. from ten years ago. Helpful hint: If you EVER have a cold foot. GET TO THE NEAREST ER!!! Do not go on a road trip for the sake of loyalty. So we get him on the angio table. Our Doc gets into his femoral artery. Takes some pictures. Ready here it comes.........Clot clot and more clot. From his mid-thigh to his foot. All the way down. Nicely organized clot by the way...which is almost impossible to remove, break up or dissolve. We hooked him up to a special catheter that will drip "clot buster" into the artery over night. The plan was to check him again in the morning. Hoping for some progress. Imagine a drainage pipe with a really long hair plug in it. What do you do? Drain-o right?
Same thing here. Only this clot has had time to solidify. The hopes of saving his foot were not very high. Had he not waited two days to get treatment he would have increased his chances of keeping his foot dramatically. So sure enough by Thursday the surgeons were using a pull start chainsaw to lop off his leg just below the knee.

I asked him why he didn't just go to the ER in Vermont on Sunday instead of coming to NY. He gave me some lame ass excuse but he and I knew that he didn't have a leg to stand on.

Put your health first. Or it will kill you.

I love you all well, most of you.
Gonzo

Dumb techs do dumb things

2007-03-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

About a hundred years ago I worked with this really dumb tech. We called him
Gump. He was Duh-um! One day Gump was down in the ER taking X-rays, when a young girl came in on a stretcher. She had been in a bad car accident. Hit from behind.
She was in a neckbrace and on a backboard all strapped in. So Gump slid her onto the table and began taking her X-rays. The ER docs thought that she might have broken her neck. Normally we take about 5-7 films in a case like this. About halfway through the neck series she told Gump that she had to pee. Usually we put people on a bedpan. What did Gump do?? He sat her up, got her off the table, WALKED HER down the hall, about 50 feet, to the bathroom and left her there so she could pee. He told her to go back to X-ray when she was done so he could finish her films. Risking possible paralysis.
Just then the Tech supervisor stopped by to see what was going on, when who should limp thought the door?? You guessed it....the patient!!!
I can still hear it," I got fired Lieutenant Dan!"
No patients were harmed in the making of this story. Thank God!!
Laters

Do Not Resuscitate unless you know how to 180

2007-03-05T18:45:00.000-08:00

Where I work we have some really interesting patients from ALL walks of life.
Recently I met a man who had a new slant on an old standby. The DNR. For those of you who may not know what that is: It is a Do Not Resuscitate order. If you are having a surgical procedure they should mention it. If not you may want to look into it. It states that in the event of your procedure going awry you wish or do not wish to have heroic measures implemented on your behalf.

OK back to our patient, he was going to have a "big" procedure called a TIPS. Which is: A transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt, is an artificial channel in the liver from the portal vein to a hepatic vein (for blood). It is created endovascularly (via the blood vessels) by physicians via the jugular vein.
It is used to treat portal hypertension (which often is due to scarring of the liver (liver cirrhosis)) which frequently leads to bleeding esophageal varices.
Its a big deal!

We asked him if he had a DNR. He said no. Then he said," I don't want any heroics....
if my body can't handle this procedure then so be it. I don't want to end up on a breathing machine with a bunch of tubes sticking out of me.....just let me die!!
Unless!.... there's the slightest chance that I will be OK, you know, like I am now."
I thought to myself,"But your liver is failing...."

I hope to be as decisive someday.

Peace out.

I hope your Valentine's day was sweet

2007-02-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome back folks.
Here's a neat story for ya,
On Valentine's day we recieved the cutest little old lady. She was about 1000 years old, yes that's 3 zeros, and she was all worked up because we were going to embolize a tumor in her liver. She was nervous as hell. I tried really hard to chill her out so that means I started telling jokes and doing impressions, she liked my Reagan by the way, just to get her mind off of the procedure. But she kept saying that she was scared. So finally I tried empathy. Not my usual appoach but what the hell. I told her that I am afraid of clowns. She snapped her head back my way and said,"I don't know how you can be afraid of clowns, YOU ARE ONE!" Picture Betty White or Estelle Getty. Picture me getting slammed by one of the Golden girls.

Laters,

Geezo

You have got to be kidding

2007-01-20T18:45:00.000-08:00

This past week, we had a young girl, 18'ish, come in for a kidney tube removal. She was all better. She asked us if we could hurry it up because she needed to get back to her 4 kids! We asked her how she managed 4 kids before she's even 20 years of age.
She said,"Well, my boyfriend won't wear a condom."
"Why won't he?" We asked.
"It cuts off his circulation." She replied.
Then without missing a beat, one of our nurses asked "What's HIS name?"
Everyone had a good laugh. Then we removed her tube without a problem.

Later.

Funny things I've heard.....

2007-01-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
MY HOPE FOR YOU ALL IS THAT THIS YEAR IS THE BEST EVER!

These are short and fun.

An 80 year old lady with a broken hip came in for a PICC line. I asked her,"So how
did you break your hip?" She says,"I dumped my motorcycle at Bike week in Daytona! Its a shame too that was a sweet ride!" She's 80!!!

A little old man, about 75 years old, came in for a routine chole tube check. As I
was getting him ready I asked if he had any allergies an he said,"Just to cocaine...
it makes me crazy." I didn't follow that up.

I was taking a chest x-ray of a man with a horrible cough. I asked him how long he'd
had it. He said that it came and went often. So I asked if he smoked. He said he'd been smoking for about 40 years. Then he said,"I think I got a touch of that Emphysema that's goin' round."

A very attractive middle aged woman came in for a Uterine Fibroid Embolization. She seemed a little nervous so I started talking to her about her life. I found out that she was a teacher, that she was single and really that's all the excuse I needed to start my flirtations. So I said," This town is ridiculous, how does a town with this
many guys let you get away? No boyfriend, no husband, no kids? How does that happen?
I should take you out myself!" She says,"Oh I can't go out with you.....I'm a Nun!"
I looked upward and said,"Good one God, You got me!!" Everyone had a BIG laugh.
On me. Great.

Gonzo out.

Girls with kidney obstructions ROCK!!!

2006-12-27T17:05:00.000-08:00

So hey, welcome back!
Last year I had the pleasure of meeting a young, chunky, pasty, female patient.
She was a chatty girl who somehow, ended up with both kidneys being blocked.
The pressure really started to build up both her kidneys. If left untreated this can be very serious. The pain is brutal and you can die from the toxins that build up in your blood. So the immediate course of treatment, from our perspective, is to insert a small tube into the kidney and allow it to drain. These tubes enter through the back and go into the kidney. The tube is then connected to a bag that will collect the urine as it drains. The tube can remain in place as long as needed. Some of our patients have had neph tubes for years; mostly men who have had bladder cancer or are missing a bladder for some reason.
Sorry, back to the girl. Usually the tubes remain in place pretty well, but.....
this girl's tubes kept "falling out" at least once a week for about a month. Then on a weekend, I was called in urgently to reinsert both of this girl's tubes for the 5th time in a month. I was pissed. The Steelers game had just started when the call came. I was most annoyed. I get the girl into our exam room and started my "your going to get an infection from hell" speech. When it dawned on me that tubes don't usually just "fall out" once a week. So I asked her,"Why is it that you can't keep your tubes in? Everyone else that has them doesn't have this problem!" Then she got this scared look on her face and started to cry.....I felt like and asshole but I still wanted an answer. So I pressed her..."Why?!"
Her answer left me speechless! And I quote," Ummm...its my boyfriend. When he DOES ME from behind, he pulls on the tubes for leverage and they always come out."
I have never been as "not horny" as I was in that moment there. Ever!

Crack impares judment

2006-12-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

So the other day we had a guy in his 30's who's got cancer. He will need chemo therapy. So he was supposed to get a chest port inserted. So that the chemo can get delivered without trashing his veins. This procedure is truly minor surgery.
Some people require very little to no sedation. Its not that painful a procedure.
Really. So man in his 30's comes in to have this done. We explain everything to him. What he's going to feel, how long it will take, etc. He thought we were going to, "knock him out with drugs and put a tube down his throat just like on ER!" We explained again how dangerous it can be to use anesthesia for a minor procedure. Those drugs are super strong and can increase your risks for heart attack, respitory distress, you know... evil stuff.
So the man cancels the procedure on the spot unless he gets anesthesia. Getting a team of Anesthesiologists to come down on a minutes notice for an elective case is just not happening. So one of our super nice surgeons takes it upon himself to squeeze the guy in the following day with anesthesia. The coordination took up most of the surgeon's afternoon. But he set it all up.
Following day: Patient was scheduled for 10am. The surgery team is ready. The anesthesiologist's team is ready. The OR room was ready.....then the patient calls and said," I ain't coming forget it"
Wow what a collosal waste of time!!! I guess cancer wins. Turns out the man is a crack addict. I guess he won't be around much longer to make any more stupid decisions. Best of luck sir, I hope the high is worth it.

Here we go

2006-12-09T19:51:00.001-08:00

Hi, my current life is as follows:I work in a hospital, a lot. I work in the Angio dept. I work pretty hard some days. Lately the weather has been keeping the sick at home. But that only lasts so long. Right after Christmas and New years end.....the hammer falls. Hard. Some nights we don't leave until 9 or 10 pm. We start at 7:30am. Anyway this blog is intended to tell stories. Something I'm good at. I got lots of them. Some happy, some sad, some funny and some just plain weird but all are things that have really happened.