June 18, 2011

• Shrooms, Skunks and Straps

  THINGS I HAVE NEVER DONE

  1. I’ve never done mushrooms.

  However, when a nice young daughter is brought in by her mother after admitting to “doing a whole lot” of shrooms, I got quite the interesting surprise.  For your fun and joy you should know that shrooms don’t normally pop up on the standard ER urine drug screen, so we have to take people at their word.  I truly believe this nice young gal did them.

  She was 16ish, angry (not really at anything, just angry at everything).  She breathed about 40 times per minute, had a racing heart, and was spouting gibberish.

  It sort of went-a something-a like-a this…

  “Youdidingflaaaaargorbitbooooorgoorbowhen iDIDN’T DO THAT garble-barlaragarg!”

  An IV line, some fluid, time and ativan made things much better.  She went home later, calm, apologetic, with a good life lesson about not doing drugs (or at least about not doing too many drugs (or doing the right drugs (or maybe just doing them before mom gets home (or possibly when mom might catch you)))).

   

  2. I have never been bit by a possum (nor skunk, or any small woodland mammal).

  For a while I lived on the East side of Michigan, and occasionally we would take care of people from the “thumb” of Michigan.  I will try not to be judgmental, but sometimes people really make it hard.

  This young man, lets call him Cletus (or Dweezle, or any hick-related yokel name).  Now lets add some alcohol to Cletus.  If you ever read my blog before, there is a time tested proven formula for calculating your IQ and how it relates to alcohol.  Quick reminder, its the NADA (not a dumbass) formula, which goes like this.

  Your IQ with beer = (normal IQ) – (7 x number of beers drank)

  Cletus was not smart to begin with, so lets give him an IQ of 70.  Now add 14 beers.  A quick calculation will indicate that Cletus has just rendered himself a negative IQ.  Many of you might say this is impossible, but you have never worked an overnight shift on a weekend in the ER.  We see people with negative IQ’s ALL THE TIME!!

  So now Cletus is outside at roughly 3:30 in the morning in distant hick-county in Thumb-where Michigan.  Not much to do until, “IS’M THAT’S A POSSUM!” he exclaims!

  Logic would dictate that when you see an angry-looking, sharp-toothed giant rodent-like creature at 4am, one might want to just stay away.  Cletus (of course) came to a different conclusion.

  Cletus embraced his inner Daniel Boon and via some luck and horrible fate, managed to trap said possum in a crate.

  Now what would you do?

  Right!  You have to kill it!  Oh it gets better.  Did you think for a minute that Cletus didn’t have a gun?  Well, I suppose it could have ended much worse if he had used said gun, but you think he’d shoot it in the crate, or drown it, or put it behind the car or something!  No, he didn’t use his gun.  He didn’t use a knife, or bow and arrow or any type of weapon.  He decided to open the crate…

  …Open it and try to step on it (barefooted, of course) to hold it down while you jab it with a sharpened stick.

  One bloody messed-up foot later, Cletus hobbles into the ER, proud of himself for killing the possum, and desiring a tetanus and rabies vaccines.  This is my life.

  Though, I did find a youtube video of some random girl getting bit by a possum as well, so stupidity has no gender boundaries (but its almost ALWAYS a dumb guy, you know that right?)

  forward to 1:20 for the event, really not quite that big of a deal…

   

  3. I have never been in 4 point restraints 

  We restrain people with relative frequency in the ER.  Again the majority of the time it is alcohol related.  For some, the alcohol make them think they are invincible warriors to be reckoned with, thus they must prove their invincibility against 6 VERY STRONG security guards.  They always lose.  I am yet to see our security not be able to handle a patient.  Mad props to all of you security worker world wide, you don’t get the credit due to you for having to deal with all these drunk jerks.

  The other reason is the drunk who perpetually thinks he is sober enough to leave.  He gets up, pees on the wall (or in the sink (or in his pants (or on the floor (or in the hall (or (rarely) in the actual bathroom))))), and thinks he’s ready to go.  Then he takes one to two steps, and falls flat on his face often creating a large laceration that I now have to sew closed.  These fine gentlemen (and not too rarely ladies) get restrained to protect them from themselves (until they sober up).

  Yes we have restrained the homicidal or suicidal or psychotic from time to time, but this is actually the exception, not the rule.

   

  4. I do drink beer

  
  

  Yeah, beer caused pretty much all of these problems, but hey, beer is delicious, just drink responsibly.

   

  Do you have any alcohol related mishaps?

   

  
  

  • 12:03 am
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