Why Kan’t Doc Zoe Write?

That pretty much summarizes my hopes in the last 48 hours.

I went on duty starting on a Black Saturday and began with E.R. duty.

The next couple of hours was pretty much standard E.R. drama for me – 3 consecutive VA (vehicular accident) patients, a couple of UTI patients, a dog bite, a cat bite, a couple of vertigo patients, a probable dengue patient, and, to cap off my E.R. duty, a gun shot injury. That was it.
By 12 midnight, my partner took over E.R. duty and started Easter morning with a DOA.

Let’s retract a bit.

This, being a beach town, has seen a lot of drown victims, mostly out-of-towners on vacation on a holy week. In fact, just before I assumed my E.R. duty, the outgoing doctor has seen 3 consecutive drown victims.

There really is something interesting here. Notice that events have been happening in 3’s so far.

So we pretty much didn’t want to have 3 mortalities in our 48 hours of duty.

The man who was brought in (DOA) was another out-of-towner who allegedly died in his sleep. It was unfortunate that he died on early Easter morning while on vacation with his family… and we later found out, with his whole barangay. This truck…

…was filled with families who were on a vacation. I was told that these families had to pool all their resources so that they can rent this truck, go to this beach town and spend the night here. What was supposed to be a happy happy weekend for them ended abruptly and morosely.

That was taken at 1 or 2 in the morning. The staff and I were hanging out at the french fries/fishball stand right across the hospital capping off our night and welcoming Easter. And that was how Easter started for us – with coffee and death.

Come morning, my partner again received another DOA/drown victim, this time a 6 year-old girl.

(Still praying it doesn’t come in 3’s.)

By lunchtime, I assumed E.R. duty once more. Again, it rained with the unusual cases… just the way I like it. (I hate seeing another pedia patient with cough or another hypertensive oldie).

Then, my first interesting case of the night came – another VA patient. This time, a case of drunk driving and needing to have a CT Scan for a possible head injury and a possible eye injury. This hospital has nada. So I advised to have him transferred to another institution. They left willingly.

A few moments later, the nurse came in saying that a 3 year-old has just been brought in because he went curious and put in a battery in his nose. He was reportedly brought in 3 other institutions before he was brought to us. (Why would they even think we’re capable?) Apparently, the other 2 institutions lack the appropriate instruments for it and do not have an ENT on duty. Unfortunately, we have neither as well. In fact, our ENT resides in Manila, some 2 hours away.

Oh well, I guess the handy dandy paperclip MUST work this time.

After minutes of struggling with a very irritable 3-year-old, I was successful with extracting this…

….out of this kid:

He was understandably pooped after that.

I was prepared to have a quiet evening afterwards. However, while seeing a potential missed abortion patient some minutes after battery kid left, the drunk driving guy came back. This time, he was awake and lashing out at us, accusing us of lying about not having a CT Scan. He even accused me of being prejudiced. I asked security to take care of him. You can’t talk sense into a drunk dude. The last we saw of him, he drove off in a motorcycle leaving us with words of wisdom: “Makakarma kayo!”

But wait – didn’t all of this start with him driving that motorcyle? Sheesh. Good luck.

Then, almost at the same time, I was informed that my partner was having a difficult time with a patient’s father at the wards. Apparently, daddy couldn’t accept the fact that his son was for surgery whereas it was clearly explained to his family the possibilty of being operated, hence, his son’s admission.

Thank God for a quiet morning after that. We were able to sleep and not care about what was happening outside. What was noticeable was the lack of “fishball time” to cap off the evening. We just wanted to forget the lashing out at us last night.

However, we did have our 3rd mortality this morning. Once more, it was my partner who had to pronounce it at the ICU.

3 drown patients. 3 VA’s. 3 mortalities.

If I were superstitious, I would wonder what criminal act have I committed before I went on duty to set this off. But I’m not superstitious. What I am is well-compensated camper for this toxic weekend. 😛

And that is what I left behind for the meantime. Now I look forward to a week of TV duty. Tee-hee!

This post is tagged battery, DOA, Easter duty, foreign body extraction