Blog 62 More Work Stories, but not with Happy Endings

(What can one  Person Do)

          One day, I was working a Fort Worth Hospital in the Nuclear Medicine Department. We were called to perform an emergency Lung Scan on an ICU patient. We were looking for possible blood clots in his lungs. When he was brought to us, he looked very sick and he was not fully conscious.

         The first part of a lung scan requires having the patient breathe in radioactive air into their lungs and capture how much of the lung is getting air supply. Any mistakes, then Radioactive aerosol will be put out in the air for all to inhale. We used a tight fitting air mask so that only the patient breathes in the material.

          The patient could not follow our directions, so we had to force the aerosol into his lungs and for two minutes watch where the radiation goes and how well he empties the mist  back into a machine that captures the radiation.  After we started, my co-worker and I stepped back so we would not get exposed. But, things went downhill.

          I was watching the patient and noticed that he was turning grayish blue in the face, then his eyes turned glassy. I tapped the co-worker, who was also the chief technologist, and we went back to the patient and realized that he was not breathing. He told me to call a code blue and get the crash cart from radiology. I was not fully adapted to the department layout, so I went room to room saying, “Call a code blue and where is the crash cart?

          I finally found the crash cart and went running with it back down the hall. My co-worker had already started CPR write on the table while the procedure was still running. (the camera was under the table so we did not have to move it. I grabbed the breath pump and we kept doing two-man CPR until the code blue team arrived. We stepped back and let the team take over. They revived him and he was breathing again.

          By keeping the scan going while we did CPR, we actually finished the scan and had pictures. His doctor insisted we finish the scan with the part that we inject radiation into his blood,  which goes to the lung through the veins and allowed us to looked at the lungs blood supply. We had a beautiful scan and they took the patient back upstairs.

          About three hours later, we heard a code blue to his room, and this time the patient did not survive. It was the only time in thirty years that I had to participate in CPR, and the patient died anyway. We went from heroes to a useless scan in a matter of hours.

(My worst ultrasound scan)

          In Gainsville, Texas, I had an emergency pregnant patient having bloody discharges and I had to scan her for a possible miscarriage.  My scan did show the patient was loosing a lot of blood, but the baby was alive. While I went to turn in my scan, the patient asked to go to the bathroom and empty her full bladder and I walked her to the bathroom.

          The doctor wanted to take a personal look to assure our results, so I went to the bathroom to get the patient. After a minute or so, she stepped out, almost passing out. I yelled for the doctor, and the patient told me it was too late. When I implied why,she said, ” I just lost the baby in the toilet.” 

          I went to the restroom, and there it was in the toilet. I secured the bathroom and called for the proper people to retrieve the remains for study. The woman was rushed back to the emergency room and they saved her. But, the fetus was thrown out.

( A Drunken Husband’s sorry Mistake)

          I was in Fort Worth at my favorite place to work. I had made many great friends, and we had an awesome Nuclear medicine team. The Technologists were my best work-related friends. We did a study that could determine if someone was brain dead and should be removed from artificial life sustaining support.

          This day I had to do one of these tests on a pregnant woman to try and save her 6 month fetal baby. The story we were told was that the father(husband) had gotten drunk at a party and still decided to drive home. His pregnant wife laid in the back seat asleep and unbelted. He had a horrible crash that hurt the wife tragically, and yet the man walked away from it unscathed. When his wife was put on life support, they arrested the man for attempted murder. 

          The lady was virtually dead, but was kept alive to for the sake of the child. The doctors needed to know if they should take the baby while she was alive. If she died, the man would then be considered a murderer. And, if the child also died, it would be considered a double homicide. we did the test, and the wife was considered brain dead, but the baby was alive. They rushed her to operating room and the child, though  premature, made it through. It was such a sad situation. The baby would grow up with his mother dead and his father in prison for life.

(The Day that was suppose to be a happy situation for a patient.)

          I was in College Station doing Ultrasound and this day we were running very behind. I had an elderly woman that had to keep a full bladder for my study. She was in a beautiful dress and was in a hurry. I asked her why she was so dressed up and she told me that her husband was upstairs in the hospital and this was their Seventy year anniversary. She wanted to look good when she got up there to be with him.

          I did the study as fast as I could and left her to show my work to the doctor for approval. The doctor decided he needed to look at her himself, but he did not come right away. By the time he was through, and I developed her films, I found her crying very hard. I asked how I could assist and was told that she could not hold her bladder anymore and she wet herself and ruined her dress. Her grand daughter rushed home to get her another dressed and I tried to help clean her up while we waited. By the time we had her re-dressed, they went upstairs and learned that her husband had died.

(Blog 63  My Three most Memorable Stories that I would Never Forget)

• 2nd May 2020
• mylife
• 2 Comments
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