Ever had a patient who had such a crazy medical history, insanely criticallabs, scary vital signs etc. that made you go, "How are you evenalive and talking to me?!"
Last night we had several such patients.
Every time I entered my patient's vital signs, the computer kept giving mea warning message saying that the numbers were outside the criticalrange and do I really, really want to record that. His MAP wasbasically incompatible with life. Equipment was validated many times.And yet the patient was totally asymptomatic and highly annoyed thatwe keep bothering him.
The phone was ringing and ringing when AM labs were up because we had somany critical values. Crazy electrolytes... and yet patients werestill in sinus rhythm.
A friend was hospitalized and his heart went into the 20s when heslept. No blocks, no cardiac disease, no symptoms... nada. He's justa fit guy, a genetic freak and a thorn in the side of the telemetry techs hehe.
The human body is amazing sometimes. Sometimes it finds a way to keep going despite the numbers.
So tell us about your patients who have made you go, "How are you even alive?!"
I haven't had a patient yet that has done that but I most definitely have had a friend. I don't mind talking about it here because, again, she wasn't my patient and also because she talks about it all the time. She truly is a miracle.
She has suffered from pancreatitis for YEARS and is only in her 20's (she has a strong family history). Last Spring she had an episode where her father couldn't wake her so they took her to the ER. The people there thought she had overdosed on her pain medication (which she hadn't). They treated her as such and it wasn't until the next day when she expressed to the ICU nurse that she couldn't raise her arm that it was realized that she was having strokes. They believe she had a total of 6 strokes and somehow she has walked away from them all with minimal therapy. She has not had a flare of her pancreatitis since that time.
Even though she was doing better the physicians left her PICC in place. Last week they removed her PICC due to a developing infection and then she was diagnosed with septicemia due to Burkholderia cepacia. Amazingly after a round of IV antibiotics and multiple blood transfusions she has again been able to go home from the hospital doing 100% better.
She is most definitely the kind of patient that her doctors and nurses all look at her and wonder how in the world she is walking around just fine today.
Specializes in Wilderness Medicine, ICU, Adult Ed..
I haven't had a patient yet that has done that but I most definitely have had a friend. I don't mind talking about it here because, again, she wasn't my patient and also because she talks about it all the time. She truly is a miracle.
She has suffered from pancreatitis for YEARS and is only in her 20's (she has a strong family history). Last Spring she had an episode where her father couldn't wake her so they took her to the ER. The people there thought she had overdosed on her pain medication (which she hadn't). They treated her as such and it wasn't until the next day when she expressed to the ICU nurse that she couldn't raise her arm that it was realized that she was having strokes. They believe she had a total of 6 strokes and somehow she has walked away from them all with minimal therapy. She has not had a flare of her pancreatitis since that time.
Even though she was doing better the physicians left her PICC in place. Last week they removed her PICC due to a developing infection and then she was diagnosed with septicemia due to Burkholderia cepacia. Amazingly after a round of IV antibiotics and multiple blood transfusions she has again been able to go home from the hospital doing 100% better.
She is most definitely the kind of patient that her doctors and nurses all look at her and wonder how in the world she is walking around just fine today.
Sometimes the sound of hoves outside your window are caused by zebras.
BAC of .40, walking and talking with only moderate impairment. LONG history of ETOH abuse. They ended up leaving AMA in a few hours because we would not give the librium d/t the BAC still being too high (it was down to .23; we wait until it's below .15 to start).
I once had an ALF resident who could be alert and talking with a BS reading of 16. He was the most brittle diabetic I've ever seen.......he also could be in the 600s and you'd never know it until you checked it. His FSBS were scheduled six times per day, but we usually had to do it at least 10 times per day to make sure he wasn't either in the dumper or about to go into DKA.
I must have had a close relation to your resient as my resident b/c I too had a very brittle diabetic who would be alert and talking with a BS in the teens. She'd also be completly fine with her BS in the 600's! Without checking it the ONLY way I could tell her BS was very low or high was if it were high she'd do this grumbling type thing under her breath in between chit chatting with me. If she were in a nasty mood I knew it was very low.
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
This might sound like I'm exaggerating, but I'm telling the truth. It's about me. I entered the ER back in 2002, just got hooked up to the monitor when my vitals began to go all haywire. I was septic, and had to be intubated and had a central line inserted. A year earlier, I survived a PE that gave me an out-of-body experience, accompanied by steroid induced myopathy that gave me footdrop.
I have COPD, & have had pneumonia x 10. That's enough.
My dad drove himself when his BP was 220/120. He said he was having a bad headache and he kept slurring his words so he thought he would be a good idea to go to the ER. The nurses couldn't believe he drive himself and was ok.When I was still a nursing assistant, I had a pt who's blood sugar was 713 and then actually asked if he could have some graham crackers and juice cuz he was "feeling faint".Also when I was nursing assistant, I had a pt who's temp was 107 who lived through it and a pt who temp was 88.3 and lived for another day after that.
I had two patients like that two nights in a row...
The first was a 500lb+ COPD patient who had severe undiagnosed sleep apnea. He would doze off and his SAT would drop to 27%. I would wake him up and it would come right back to the nineties and all he wanted to know was why I kept waking him up. He also had a CO2 of greater than 80 on his ABG....
The next night I had a sweet LOL who was in her 80s. I had to give her PO contrast for an ABD/Pelvis CT. Every time I gave her a sip of contrast she would go into full on VTACH. Not just a little bit but 26 or 30 beats at a time. It was insane. She was just sitting there cute as could be talking to me. I started freaking and she's like "oh no sweetie, I'm fine. Are you okay (lol)?" Anyway, I told the doc. He thought the VT was a coincidence and the fact that I was having her drink made her vagal down and break. Coincidentally, she was the first patient I ever had who enjoyed the contrast. She may have but I sure didn't :uhoh21:.
Had a patient that was on our telemetry floor for something completely not heart related. It was either me or one of my fellow nurse assistants that happened to leave the pulse ox on her finger after vitals, and she wasn't on tele. They were talking about sending her home when the telemetry tech noticed that her pulse was reading 200. Opened it up and it was a good waveform so the charge and the RN run in there to see what is going on and she is watching the morning news, felt totally fine. Then it went back down to a normal range. She then got up to the bedside commode, pulse 196. We then made sure she sat still to rest and it would still shoot back up to >180. Mind you each time it shoots up it is taking way longer to go down to normal.
The resident did not give orders to transfer her to ICU, instead told the nurse to slam adenosine (?) and stop her heart. THAT'S when she said she felt terrible. When they gave orders to do it a 3rd time is when they demanded she go to ICU.
He was the most brittle diabetic I've ever seen.......he also could be in the 600s and you'd never know it until you checked it. His FSBS were scheduled six times per day, but we usually had to do it at least 10 times per day to make sure he wasn't either in the dumper or about to go into DKA.
BloomNurseRN, ASN, BSN, RN
1 Article; 722 Posts
I haven't had a patient yet that has done that but I most definitely have had a friend. I don't mind talking about it here because, again, she wasn't my patient and also because she talks about it all the time. She truly is a miracle.
She has suffered from pancreatitis for YEARS and is only in her 20's (she has a strong family history). Last Spring she had an episode where her father couldn't wake her so they took her to the ER. The people there thought she had overdosed on her pain medication (which she hadn't). They treated her as such and it wasn't until the next day when she expressed to the ICU nurse that she couldn't raise her arm that it was realized that she was having strokes. They believe she had a total of 6 strokes and somehow she has walked away from them all with minimal therapy. She has not had a flare of her pancreatitis since that time.
Even though she was doing better the physicians left her PICC in place. Last week they removed her PICC due to a developing infection and then she was diagnosed with septicemia due to Burkholderia cepacia. Amazingly after a round of IV antibiotics and multiple blood transfusions she has again been able to go home from the hospital doing 100% better.
She is most definitely the kind of patient that her doctors and nurses all look at her and wonder how in the world she is walking around just fine today.