I mean CLINICALLY freaky. I was reading about the pt with Sheehan's syndrome (never heard of it) and it got me thinking of the ones that have really stumped everyone over the years. If you're like me, I forget what goes on at work when I punch out, but we did have a postpartum pt a few weeks ago who had some of the s&s of worsening toxemia except her blood pressures were normal. Liver enzymes hit sky-high numbers, her labs were all whacked, she became disoriented most of the time. She had every kind of consult we have available, a zillion tests, and no one could figure out what was wrong with her. We finally shipped her (we are a level one) and kept tabs on her -after a few days we were told she may need a liver transplant but probably wouldn't live to get one. BUT she finally started to improve and FINALLY they found the culprit - herpes that she didn't know she had. She had never ever had an outbreak. Isn't that weird? I have never seen the herpes virus attack that way.
The story had a happy ending eventually and she went home good as new.
The other one I thought of was years ago -- a pt on her 3rd pregnancy, became a "frequent flyer" in L&D with her c/o abdominal pain that we could never find a reason for. I am ashamed to say that we all started to blow her off as a fruitcake. Well, after her delivery she became very ill- I don't remember now what all of her symptoms were, but I do remember persistent fevers, and they treated her for unknown infection. She got worse and worse with no one able to figure out why, and finally was transferred to a large medical center where she was diagnosed with some rare form of cancer that originated in the placenta. She died without ever going home, leaving 2 small children, a brand new baby and a husband behind. I learned a valuable lesson from that case.
