limb-o

Saturday night, and I am geared up for a big night. I want a big night. I need a big night. No tough jobs to sink my teeth in to means no experience for me. Throw it at me, give me the big stuff while I'm keen and enthusiastic.  Please.

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.

First Day, Second Roster

So, on Saturday I finished my first 8 weeks on the job with my fist "On Road Tutor", an experienced Paramedic who is supposed to show us newbies the tricks of the trade.

Well, in a massive stroke of luck I got teamed up with probably the keenest medic on the job. Which suits me fine, as I strive to be the keenest student on the job :-)

To sum it a in a silly little rhyme:

The 8 weeks flew

my confidence grew

And now I'm with someone new.

Gotta get used to working with my new crewmate, the first shift seemed OK, I'm sure we'll get used to each others working ways.

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Things I picked up:

• Went to a broken tib/fib, sporting injury. Never really done one before, and I openly admit I've always felt that I am rubbish at bandaging, and the calls that come with having to bandage people limbs. Must remember to expose the limb (in this case, cut his socks off).
• Broken bones (legs, in this case) can interfere with peripheral (in this case foot) circulation. I was damn proud of myself to remember to check for a cap refill less than 2 seconds, also checking for warmth and neurological deficits (with I damn well forgot to write down on my form). What I did forget was to check for a pedal pulse. If you want to find a pedal pulse for yourself, check this out (from http://meded.ucsd.edu/clinicalmed/extremities.htm).
• Whilst on the subject of exposing - remember to expose bilaterally. It was only en route that my paramedic reminded me to take the other shoe of, to be able to compare colour etc with the healthy foot.

The other two jobs were nothing special - a chest pain (getting good at these, but still not quite there yet) and a transfer from airport to hospital with a grumpy doc accompanying us.

Nightshift tonight...I wonder what awaits us?