What a Weekend!!!!!

A happy patient

This man was in a while back and returned last week.  He has what looks to me to be a broken collar bone.  Well, when he came in last week, he was smiling from ear to ear.  Before he had been in intense pain and no wonder since his break hadn´t been set so it could heal properly.  This time his pain was gone, and he had good range of motion.  I can´t say that the bone looked like it was back in place, but he was sure praising God and feeling a lot better!  

 Now to the weekend. . .  

First of all for some reason I didn’t sleep well Friday night, but that didn’t change the fact that I was on call Saturday.  The first call came in at 7:30 am or so.  It was a lady in labor so I headed down to check her out.  

She was having good labor but not progressed real far yet.  I sent off the lady and baby who Rhoda and Katie had delivered Friday, and got a bed ready for the new lady.  Then I set to work treating some  other patients, etc.  Eventually I brought my computer down to the clinic and worked on my med list while I monitored the lady.  I wrapped up my other jobs, and baby was born around 6:30 pm.  My thought was, “Great, I can go home, clean up, and get a good night of sleep.”  I was pretty tired since I really was going on only a couple of hours of sleep.  

That wasn’t to be.  Before I could get my shower we had two more patients come in.  The other nurses graciously stepped in and went to check out the new patients.  Neither of them were serious, but I needed to go check in on the one patient after supper.  I was still hopeful about getting a good night.  

Supper was over and. . . the next call came.  It was another lady in labor!!!  (Now the 3rd in less than 36 hours.)  So we nurses hurried for our scrub tops and down to the clinic.  This lady was a first-time mom almost ready to deliver.  My first checks raised some red flags–only 7 months along, unhealthy looking amniotic fluid, and abnormal findings upon checking her.  I was suspicious of a stillbirth, but also wanted to be prepared in case we needed to do CPR on a preemie.  

It wasn’t long and she delivered a little stillborn baby boy.  The mother and father were very sad.  Many times I don’t see them grieve a lot, at least not opening, over a newborn baby who dies, but this couple was very sad at the lose.  Now knowing that this mother had been carrying a dead baby for how many days, I turned my attention to her.  She wasn’t more worn out than normal, and I suspected a fair amount of blood lose previous to arrival.  Till everything was finished up and we headed home, it was around 12:30.  

The young mother who delivered the stillborn baby

Below is an abscess that I opened and drained today.  The mask with a little pain cream to help cover the odor really helped!  🙂  Don’t forget to take care of your teeth.  I think this started from a bad tooth!