Lucky he was constipated, or he'd be dead

[adventure_rn]

After lurking on this site for years I just joined last week, and I have to say, you guys tell the best stories!!!

So, I'm wondering: Has anybody had patients who probably would have died if they didn't happen to be in the hospital for a completely unrelated complaint?

Had an elderly patient years ago in the ED to rule out small bowel obstruction. Came from a nursing home, had a 'touch' of pneumonia (whatever that means) for which he was already taking antibiotics. X-rays showed that his 'bowel obstruction' was simply constipation and gas. About to get discharged, waiting for transportation back to the facility, hanging out eating a ham sandwich, and BAM, he codes.

After twenty minutes of resuscitation, he's up to the ICU. Apparently he had a systemic inflammatory response related to his pneumonia. The poor resident nearly wet himself, and kept saying over and over, "I don't know how I missed it!" Not sure if the patient ever made it home, but I'm certain that he wouldn't have survived if he hadn't coincidentally been in the ED with bad gas! Blows my mind to this day.

[nursel56]

Did that cystic acne end up actually being leukemia cutis?

Sorry, didn't see this until now. I know he was referred to St. Jude, a facility outside our purview as a mostly outpatient-centered company, so I wouldn't see his chart unless he came back to dermatology. I remember him, and I recall his skin lesions had a more purple cast than we usually see, and the distribution on his face was different, too. I suspect it was leukemia cutis.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Sorry, didn't see this until now. I know he was referred to St. Jude, a facility outside our purview as a mostly outpatient-centered company, so I wouldn't see his chart unless he came back to dermatology. I remember him, and I recall his skin lesions had a more purple cast than we usually see, and the distribution on his face was different, too. I suspect it was leukemia cutis.

When I worked with leukemia patients a few of their diagnosis stories started with,"I thought I had really bad acne..."

[Rexie]

Had a patient who was about 50 years old. He was admitted with pneumonia and was also detoxing off ETOH. The bed alarm went off and we found him on the floor, propped up against the wall so he got a head CT. We were shocked to find that he had a likely multiple myeloma. We transferred him to an onc floor and I never heard how he did.

[serenej]

So it was actually me that experienced this - twice. Maybe not quite dead but still a lucky catch both times.

The first time I was 17 and going through the medical checks to join the army. Had been feeling a bit off for a few days but didn't think anything of it. The time came to pee in a cup - I was spilling glucose and ketones. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

The second time was around the time I was supposed to graduate. I'd been bitten by a redback spider on my scapula and it was infected. Went to hospital with what I thought was sepsis... I was septic alright, but I was also having a severe bout of thyroid storm with TSH 0.0 and T3/T4 unreadably high. They diagnosed graves disease. Turns out I'd been thyrotoxic for months but my GP had just thought I was tired from being on full time prac and working part time plus kids and homework. I'd failed that prac. It was 3 years before I was well enough to go back and finish my degree.

[hannenurse2015]

Had a patient on my floor who had come in for knee pain. Patient ended up being admitted for hyponatremia- his sodium was 112. I only took care of him for one night, which was several days after his admission, and his only problem that night was confusion r/t the hyponatremia.

Our unit has 36 beds, divided into 2 sides. One night about a week later I'm working and called to the other side by another RN. She needs help positioning a patient in bed for a portable chest xray. I walk in and it's the hyponatremia patient. At this point he was on a nonrebreather, wasn't saturating well, and could no longer handle his own secretions so they were suctioning him as well. He was shaking all over and couldn't follow directions.

I heard a few days later that the man had died while I was off, but I'm not sure what events transpired for him to require a nonbreather or what the cause of death was ruled as.

Not exactly the same as OP, but I always thought how sad it was that man came in for knee pain and then never left the hospital.