Bad day

January 11, 2006 at 7:33 pm | Posted in neurosurgery | Leave a comment

Today’s fortune cookie: Among the lucky, you are the chosen one.

Does anyone ever get a bad fortune in one of these things? I doubt it.

In any event, today was one of those days when nothing seemed to go well. I pulled someone’s femoral line, held pressure, made sure the bleeding stopped, bandaged it up reasonable well, and then an hour later the 3rd year resident tells me the patient is now bleeding profusely from the site. Apparently she got up to go to the bathroom and it started bleeding while she was on the toilet. I’m guessing it was #2, and she valsava’d and it blew out the clot. And then of course, the nurse says to me she’s only seen a femoral line bleed like that once in the 20 years she’s been a nurse. Hey, thanks, that makes me feel SOOOO much better…

And then there’s the fact that I can’t seem to tie a skin closure tight enough, and no one can figure out what I’m doing wrong. I look like I’m doing everything right, but there must be some little thing that people don’t realize they’re doing, that I’m not. It also freaks people out that I tie left-handed when I’m actually right-handed. Also, people flip out when I put my finger near any kind of sharp, especially sutures. They don’t understand that I sew, and that I know exactly where the needle is and where it’s going, and it’s not going to stick me. And while I can understand to some extent their nervousness when it’s my finger and their needle, it irritates me when people yell at me for doing it when I’m holding the needle. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a great bunch of guys. But no one teaches their little boys to sew, and most girls are taught basic mending of clothing at a relatively young age.