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I'm at the bank today, and one of the tellers whispers to me that one of the other tellers is having cp and numbness and tingling L arm. teller is about 40 y/o/w/f,smoker. So we talk, and after she explains her sx's and other meds she takes, I advise her to see her doc, she's not interested, ok, call your doc then, tell him your sx's. This is not stuff to play around with. I lost two co worker's 1 nurse, 1 cna, because of "oh it's nothing" attitudes.
also had a 40 y/o/w/m literally jog into the e/r one morning c/o SOB and increased anxiety while doing his morning run, he was having a MI. It's freaky when it happens, but then again at that time I was an adrenalin addict, and coutdn't wait for the next one to arrive.
Well, went up to CICU to talk to the pt the other night...
He coded 4 more times in the cath lab, after going into pulseless VT. Got tubed as a result. Was extubated 8 hours later. No neuro damage...but...
Had a 100% occluded RCA, at the extreme proximal end, so there was a lot of heart muscle below it that got deprived. They ballooned and stented it. He also had a 50% circumflex, which they left alone.
Ejection fraction in the cath lab was (gulp) only 25%. (50-60 being normal, CHF starting around 40). They're hoping that it will increase some, and that it's so low from his heart muscle being "stunned" from all the trauma.
He was still on an Amiodarone gtt, and still on his Heparin and Integrilin. His O2 was weaned down to 2L n/c, with spo2 of 94%. He said he was feeling pretty good.
He was scheduled to go back to the cath lab today for AICD placement.
They told him he'll be off work for at least a few months, and it's pretty up in the air if he'll ever be able to go back to EMS. He was planning on going to paramedic school this winter/spring.
This guy had done a treadmill and some other tests that he wasn't sure of at another hospital about a week ago, and they were all normal.
Scary...
ERNurse752, RN
1,323 Posts
40-something y/o/w/m w/ hx HTN comes in to the ER via ambulance for H/A. Took a couple Darvocets at home without relief.
Doc sees pt...is still in room when pt proceeds to seize...
Discover pt is pulseless...v-fib...one thump, 4 shocks, and a round of drugs later, we get a rhythm back...with tombstones.
He's having an inferior MI...never had ANY chest pain, sob, n/v...NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Luckily, this happened after 0600, so the cardiologist and cath lab team were in-house and got him down to the lab really fast.
He also woke up, was a/o, and breathing on his own...
Talk about being taken off guard...I'm back tonight, so I'm going to follow-up on him to see how he's doing now and what they found in the cath lab.