Interesting Saturday at work. Voluntary, paid by an alternate revenue stream. The reps for the various companies demonstrating their products. Using real anatomy specimens, for real surgeons, assisted by real nurses and techs. Late start, (Surgeons? Not on time? Really!?) which gave people time for coffee. Reps were pleasant, as they often are.
One of the four in my room was rather quiet(call him Q). Just before the scheduled start time, one of Q's colleagues (M) asks for some tylenol, that Q is not in good shape, very unlike him, because he climbed in the mountains the day before, and has back pain. I get her some, Q has tried to stretch out on the OR bed (this is fine, not being used for anything else) then up saying it hadn't helped. This does not look like back pain to me, at least not of the muscular variety. He's also looking grey and ill, nauseated. Another colleague mentions that Q had peed blood.
Ah.
I get the most organized of our nurses in on this, and ask about what their insurance will cover. We are very near a real ER, after all. I get a wheelchair, which Q refuses, until he takes a couple of steps, then accepts as probably a pretty good idea. M gets Q up to the main hospital, with one of our techs for directions. She gave me a huge hug first, just for doing what I do. This happens just as the first docs start arriving. Of course it does.
The whole lab process involved various surgeons floating through, and practicing with the new anchors and hardware. Some ancient surgeons ignored me, bothered me not at all. Most, though, were very friendly, looked for my ID, which kept flipping backward. I flipped it back and introduced myself, genuine ambassador for my rather nice facility. They liked our OR lights, and the size of the rooms, and were very appreciative of the chance to experience this in a real OR, with everything available that they would have for the actual surgeries. All the sterile supplies were saved from extra unused softgoods this week.
As we are cleaning up, making sure feet get back, marked properly, identified in their bags and returned to our lab downstairs, we get news. As I figured, kidney stones. They gave him fluids and drugs, he caught an early flight home to Ohio. Found a little info that altitude can precipitate kidney stones*, although he was probably already forming them, and a bit of dehydration and elevation exacerbated them. Poor guy.
Got a box lunch, but a very nice one from a pricy local restaurant, sandwich, potato salad and cookie. Roasted veggies on the sandwich, potato salad with olives and roasted red peppers, perfectly spiced, and coconut cookie - not oversweet. So, all in all, five hours doing a slack version of my job, at a premium. Cool.
*Chronic high altitude, at least. Not sure if it could happen acutely. Altitude sickness can do some crazy shit, though.
3 comments:
Never heard of this with altitude sickness but he must have been pretty stoical putting up with kidney stones and saying it was back pain.
All very fortuitous, though.
Kidney stones can present as back pain, it's just not skeletal muscle spasms. He really didn't know what was going on, and the pain was in his back. The onset can be sudden, some people pass stones, not realizing what is happening.
Of the women I've known who have had a baby and kidney stones, all say they'd rather go through labor rather than have another kidney stone. Hands down, no question.
And I suppose you don't bond with a kidney stone and have lots of friends and relations coming round to admire it when it comes out either.
You are a bit of a star, you know. Don't be offended, I know it's what you do but I'd be glad to think you were around if I were in such straits. Checking about the insurance seems very cool-headed.
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