What's you highest...?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

So yesterday I was looking after this guy with rhabdo, who came in with a CK of 243,100 and I was wondering - what's the highest value you've seen? Not necessarily CK, any value.

An example, for example - I had a woman who had a glucose of 120.8mmol/L. I don't know how to translate that into the US scale, but the normal range is around 4 - 9 in a well-controlled diabetic.

Same patient, different admission - triglycerides 8.1 (0.0 - 2.0), cholesterol 22 (?

Highest K+? 7.6mmol/L (renal patient)

Urea - 48.6, creatinine 1.18!!! (same patient, normal levels in June this year)

Highest BP 310/145 (stroke patient)

Do we have any other contenders?

Specializes in ER (My favorite), NICU, Hospice.

Had a code the other night with a HGB 1.7.....of course she died. Family said "she had a little blood in the toliet this morning". All I could think of was the rest was in her gut waiting to come out.

Had a 18 mth old with a HBG 5.4 and the peds doc did NOT give blood. For ones who know more about that than me, why no blood? Child was d/c in 24 hours and HGB had not changed. Of course that was from the follow up note we recieved from referring doc.

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H/H of 1 and 4. Young post-hysterectomy patient bled out at home and in ED. Pt went to surgery but stroked out. Withdrew care on my shift. :crying2:
that is rough, I feel for you
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Specializes in HIV/AIDS, Dementia, Psych.

I got a blood sugar of 8....yes 8! On an elderly diabetic woman. She was sent to the ER and did just fine.

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The other night an elderly nursing home pt who was rescusitated in the ED and sent up to the ICU had a wbc of 94. Too unstable for surgery for ? perf. No one to make decisions for them except very elderly family who had no clue. The rest of their labs were completely out of whack including being completely acidotic, ruling in via enzymes among other things. Very sad person who had a tremendous amount of resources spent on them with no chance of recovery. It disturbs me when docs dont try to proactively assist family and others to see the big picture.

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if you have a patient on a heparin drip and PSS with 20K@100cc/hr going into the left forearm, you can't really trust your lab values if the blood is drawn from the left AC.

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Trauma patient with a splenic artery bleed had an I-stat H/H that read 0/0 on our machine. According to lab, H/H was something like 2/8. He walked up to the ICU to see us the other day...looked great!

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Specializes in Medical.

Temp of 43.0 C (109.4) on a drowning patient who didn't survive (brain damage secondary to prolonged hypoxia)

That blood sugar of 120.8 converts to a US value of 2174!

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This is secondhand, not a nurse so I don't really have any other stories to chuck out.

My first team manager, great boss and still a good friend, once said she had an Accu-chek done during a training session (we work MR/DD group homes and assisted living) on diabetes, everyone checked each other's BG.......hers was 22! The nurse fairly RAN to the kitchen to get the OJ......musta been pretty funny! She's NOT diabetic either. I am, and so have a lot more Accucheck result experience.......I would imagine the strip was more than likely contaminated (they can be notoriously unreliable if there's too much moisture, humidity, even bad air, you name it) somehow and therefore off. Lowest I ever got on myself was 52 and I was shaking like a baby's rattle trying to get a scoop of ice cream in. Was that guy who showed his BG of 19 still A&O or what? Do another check?

There's liars, damned liars, and then there are BG meters.....

Tom

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Had a temp of 107.7 on a young female, post-op day 2 or 3. Couldn't believe my eyes! Recheck with both oral and tympanic thermometers confirmed it wasn't faulty equipment. I am NOT a critical care nurse; couldn't get her to ICU fast enough! Turned out to be an abscess; after I&D and new antibx, she did FINE. Scared the heck out of me, though!

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K+ 8.4 (7y.o. w/ tumor lysis syndrome)

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Hgb 2.2...notice the color of the conjuctiva...0 color

k+ 9.0 usually chronic renals..kayexalate PR always fun!!!

84F rectal (last week) always fun :bear hugger, Irrigating NG and foley with level 1 warmer!!! 2 hours later before transfering her to ICU she was up to 87

k+ 1.3 does a wonder on your ability to move lower extremities!

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This isn't a lab value, but I was amazed...

We were detoxing a young man from alcohol... giving him continuous

IV Ativan and IV Haldol was given every 2 hours. The dose of Haldol was 5mg at a pop.

The dose of Ativan was 40mg. PER HOUR.

Groggy, but still awake, pulling at restraints.

We triplequadruple checked the dosage... sure enough, 40mg/hr.

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