Dem Bones, Dem Bones...

So, I continue on the night ortho service. It was quite a week back following my wonderful time in New Orleans. I can't even begin to list all of the injuries I have seen so far, but suffice it to say that I have told my husband he's not allowed to pick up any powertools, chainsaws, table saws or use a lawnmower. He's not allowed to ride on a bike, in a car, or on a motorcycle. He's definitely not allowed on a horse. And, he can't go up or down any stairs, any ladders, and under no circumstances is he allowed up on the roof. Seriously, the world doesn't seem very dangerous until you're up all night tending to people's injuries.

Of course, I haven't even begun to list injuries caused by other people... gunshots and stabbings, assaults with hammers, baseball bats, and other metal objects.

I have had a lot of fun, for some odd reason, with amputations. I took off someone's finger this evening and then sewed their hand back together after an encounter they had with a table saw. I had another gentleman on Friday who caught his hand between a chain and the tailgate of a dump truck. It took me almost 2 hours to make his finger look like a finger again. Maybe it's the surgeon in me that keeps popping up. I get a lot of satisfaction in seeing something put back together and knowing that they are going to have a good result.

I have one more week left on this service then I start my elective. For anyone actually reading this, I am going to leave it as a surprise. Let's just say I will probably be doing some cutting... off to go do morning rounds... maybe if I figure out how to post from my iphone I will send tidbits during the next several shifts. It's hard to post because most nights I am too busy, and I spend 7 out of my 10 hours off between shifts sleeping. We'll see if the experiment works. Until then!

Bambi Meets The Motorcyle

I don't know why I started thinking of the famous short film, "Bambi Meets Godzilla" while on-call last night. I was just finishing up a couple of other consults in the Emergency Department when I was told by one of my colleagues that Mercy Flight was bringing in "deer vs motorcycle."

It's usually not a good thing for either party involved. And the same held true for this unfortunate patient. He had a broken arm and a nearly amputated leg. The arm is fixable; the leg, not so much. He had to go straight to the OR last night for a completion amputation.

We get a lot of motorcycle vs. deer accidents. When I was in Minnesota I had a week on trauma call where it seemed we were seeing one to two a day. I was convinced there was a rampant herd of deer jumping out on unsuspecting motorcyclists at every turn. You know, kinda getting even for the hunting season.

Last night, though, as I held what was left of this gentleman's leg hoping against all practical hope that there was anything left to salvage of his lower leg, for some reason the short film came to mind. Maybe because of the humor behind the utter senselessness of how Bambi meets Godzilla. Maybe I needed that to help myself continue to help my patient as he went through a series of raw emotions after being told that he would be losing his leg. I don't know...

He was doing fine this morning. He went for his arm surgery today to try to put it back together again. I will find out tomorrow morning how he's doing. I guess I can say they do great things with prostheses these days. He'll actually do better functionally in the long run. I don't know if he'll ever ride a motorcycle again, but at least he's alive to ride again.

Here's the film... there was a subsequent, "Bambi's Revenge." Doesn't quite have the impact of the original, but still kinda funny.... I'm back in the hospital tonight. We'll see what tonight brings!

Accidents Do Happen

So, I have been working on the orthopedic service, and I am seeing a lot of trauma. Today was a day of accidents of one sort or another:

20-something who drank and drove his his car right into the back of a semi. He had a nasty scalp laceration which was fixed by one of the E.D. medical students. I was there because of his broken hand. We casted it and sent him on his merry, albeit under arrest for DUI, way.

40-something who likes to get high and is already on disability for a prior back injury (that's you and me paying for him to stay home and toke up, but I digress), who was fixing a golf cart on a lift. Said cart was in gear when he started it up and it fell off the lift and fell on his leg breaking it. You might remember the backward foot from one of my earlier posts. His leg looked like this but because the lower part of his leg was broken in half. We splinted it, and he was on his way to surgery when I left.

60-something female who was making a shelf. She was using a circular saw to cut some wood. She says she "looked away for just a second." You can guess what happened. Although she properly wrapped and iced her cut fingers, there would be no reattachment for her. The fingers would not survive. We cleaned what remained of her first 2 fingers on her hand and oversewed the exposed bone. She had a great attitude and was already asking when she would be able to go back to work. I'll see if I can follow up with her next week in clinic to see how she's healing, and doing.

That was today... Tuesday we had a patient who crossed the median and ran head on into another car. They're still alive in the ICU but have a broken knee and ankle on one side and a broken leg on the other side; plus, a broken pelvis, broken insides, etc. We'll see how they do.

Back to work tomorrow, and I am on 24 hour hospital call over the weekend. With nice weather headed our way, it's definitely going to be the start of the trauma season... eek!

p.s. click on the picture to see the animation