Pretty Please?
Nothing too exciting again, but I can tick the burns bit off the 'to do' list. Our jobs were as following:
- Hip pain. Pretty bad hip pain actually, this was genuine 9 out of 10 pain on movement, zero on lying still. In went the drugs, and out went the patient...still in a considerate amount of pain, but coping. As soon as we had him on our stretcher, the only remnant of the pain was a dull ache, and that stopped soon after, namely when he fell asleep en route. Drugs worked a treat.
- Abdominal Pain, together with Nausea and Diarrhoea. Got the patient talking and comfortable, and had a smooth trip to hospital.
- Legs. We should have an additional set in the van for patients. We have a lot of patients with buggered legs. Why don't we carry replacement legs? Our next patient, for example, could have done with another set, together with another heart I s'pose. Patients legs were just absolutely, most definitely, quite over the top full of fluid (right sided heart failure, or congestive heart/cardiac failure aka CHF/CCF). The legs had ulcers on them too. So, what does big pressure, big water and big sores mean? Leaky Legs, correct! There were water droplets, like sweat, all over the legs. Mild SOB to go with it, but the legs were impressive (close to this prize shot I found on the web). A short explanation scribbled by somebody on her notes gave us a good chuckle: "Patients legs have swallowed today". Ah, no wonder they were so big, they had swallowed a 1.5 litre coke bottle *smirk smirk*.
- More Legs, this time the elements were in role reversal...from water to fire. A Stove had made unpleasant contact with the back of our next patients leg, burning it deeply. In correct drunken manner, a friend had applied betadine - an antiseptic cream. And hadn't cooled the burn. Ouch. Problem is, cream will trap the heat, and worsen the burn. So off we flushed it with Saline, cooled it with wet bandages, and then applied tea tree oil compresses - Burn Aid dressings (messy, but smell lovely!). Our patient stated he was in 10 out of 10 pain...so I considered, and even drew up our strongest pain relief medication. Only to see our patient had fallen asleep. So much for intense pain :-) I continued with our other pain relief instead, and made sure the burn was kept covered and cool.
- Last but not least to finish our limb-o: RFDS transfer for a patient who had taken a tumble and broken his wrist. It was 3am, so patient caught up on some sleep, while I filled out the paperwork and enjoyed the views outside.
