Quickie Acute Care Stories

It's hard to remember the stories from my job now since I pass in and out of peoples' lives much quicker and can zombie zone-out trying to make it through a ridiculously scheduled day. Like yesterday morning, when I found myself staring at 11 potential evals with no one to share. In the zone. Anyhow, here are some memorable moments...

3 Primary Runners for "Patient of the Day!!"

- Mr. X is 1 month s/p CVA that was not treated well at his hospital and received no rehab, now presents w/ visual deficits. He talks about his eyes dilating in and out, changes in light and dark, and not being able to see well. Finally he says, "I can only see half your face." Trying to figure out if this is a hemianopsia or other field cut, I ask which side. And his reply is, "the one with the big pimple."

- Mrs. Y is s/p fall and starting to have some memory problems, but is well tended to by her family. She says, "my daughter diagnoses me very accurately. She knew I had kidney failure while my doctor was still running blood tests." The PT asks, "is your daughter a doctor?" and she replies, "no, she uses the internet."

- Mr. Z is admitted for COPD, but apparently has no functional deficits and the shortness of breath isn't kicking in very quickly during activity. Unable to evaluate him during the morning as he had eloped out of the hospital, off the campus, and down to the gas station for a coffee and a newspaper. (independent community mobility- check!)

I just don't think you can write fiction to accurately display the craziness of the real world.

I was happy about Mr. X though because I happened to be sitting in on rounds and the PA was saying what a good vision workup OT had done with him, which made me feel good as vision is not my specialty. (Thank you Gutman and Schonfeld, I never would have remembered it without you). Later in the week, I was attending a different set of rounds and they were discussing a pt. w/ eyesight that had deteriorated due to cancer and suggested a low vision consult, and it was a good opportunity to educate the case manager, social worker, and doctor, as none of them had any idea that OT could do so much in the field. So, a few vision victories there.

Touching on the original point again, it is hard to blog after work now. The acute care life can be quite stressful and there's such pt turnover that I do mind-dump a lot. That and the use of the laptop all day makes it difficult to work on it in the evening as well. Really trying to avoid repetitive strain injuries, and it is becoming quite difficult. I do have a lot of good jotted down ideas that will get typed up eventually, but I've been restricting my blog access until I get a (for now) secret project accomplished. I am also in the midst of 7 straight weeks of full weekends- either I travel or someone traveling to me- and that leaves less time for other stuff too. Like my exercise goal, which is now back somewhere in the precontemplation phase... GIANT sigh.

Until next time- enjoy the crazy things life brings you today!