4th day on the floor and.....

[KaksRN]

....NEEDLESTICK!

[KaksRN]

i got stuck with a big fat needle thoughtfully concealed in sterile towels by the resident who had just used it to do a liver biopsy on the yellowest man i had ever seen. that was thirty-five years ago. i did, of course, report it right away and got a butt-full of what was billed at the time as immune serum, given by a new paramedic student who thought he was gonna die when he had to give two ims in the butt to an icu nurse. he sagged to the floor and got pale and faint afterwards; i hiked up my scrubs and said, "thanks, bud," as i went back upstairs.

learning later that sometimes it takes 35-40 years to show up with liver cancer after hep c infection made me put it in my denial file until now, and now i know that if i don't have hep c by now i'm probably fine :) subq needle? pah. risks are miniscule. you'll forget all about it soon.

(and wait til all us old timers start ragging you newbies about when there was no such thing at all as a needle less system! you wanna talk about needle sticks?)

yikes!