Now THAT'S a lab result

[emtb2rn]

INR >100. Alive.

Skip details, just lab & living or dead.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

Troponin >200. Did not survive.

[Simonesays, BSN, RN]

These are in Canadian lab values

Lactate >20, Hgb 55- sent to ICU- pt lived

Na 99, K 2.2- seized, cardiac arrest, couldn't revive- pt died

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

I worked in primary care. Saw that all the time. In fact i didn't even blink at 11. Highest I saw was around 16 I believe. Maybe 18.

HS kid with a HgbA1c 15.6...lived...pretty non compliant with his diet and insulin

[Swellz]

Hgb 3.2, alive at that for awhile walking/talking, but ultimately passed on comfort care. Very unique situation. Leukemic, too many antibodies so his PRBCs came from a donor in South Africa via ARC.

Platelets of 1,000, alive. Her family kept turning off the bed alarm without telling us.

[Orca, ADN, ASN, RN]

Blood alcohol content 0.44, walking around the unit with blood all over her shirt, yelling in a slurred voice, "How are y'all doin'?"

[Cohiba]

H/H: 0.98/3.9 (alive but looking like death)

BAL: 0.8xx (alive--Indian off the reservation and he probably lives at 0.5xx)

[essT]

Adults:

Magnesium

ICP in 90s (alive but not for long) (okay I know it's not a lab, but come ON, that's crazy)

Neonates:

pH 6.66, hemoglobin 3 (alive)

CRP >200 (alive)

Platelets 3 (alive)

Platelets 1,800 -- as in 1,800,000 (alive)

BG 1 on BMP (alive)

Positive blood cultures (GBS) grown within 4 hours (dead)

[ICUSkeenRN]

HgB 1.5. ALIVE and lived

platelets 1300. Alive

k 10.5. Alive

[Sarah Bellum]

A1C 14.8 - lived, drank gin and juice like it was going out of style

Trop >200 - lived but became a frequent flyer to the CHF inpt unit

INR 14 - lived, fell chest first against a bathtub, got a hematoma the size of half a basketball over the left anterior chest, was fun watching the tech try and do an echo around that thing.

[emagine]

Without transfusion, that's interesting!

[heron, ASN, RN]

Tangent alert!

I once knew a woman who went to nursing school after spending years as a lay healthworker. We worked together during the late seventies in a politically radical health center.

After the health center ended and she graduated nursing school, she worked at a world-class acute hospital in Boston. After working there a very short time, she told me she was stunned at how very bad things can get for a patient before they actually turn lethal.

[Jersiey]

Hgb- 2.6, felt 'a bit dizzy' when she sat up, got 2 units in the ER and said she felt so much better.

Blood alcohol- 632, in a hallway bed snoring, got moved to a room with a monitor, transferred to detox awhile later.

BS- 1005, walked in, said he felt 'not so great', one of the nicest pt's I've ever hard.

We have a regular non-compliant IDDM pt who often has BS in the 1200s, is one of the worst humans I've ever dealt with, somehow is still alive.