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June 3, 2010
When Mike was in residency, he did a month-long rotation up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was great! We took our whole family up and stayed with Mike’s sister who lived nearby, and did a bunch of sight-seeing while we were there.
The ER is very close to Yellowstone National Park, so they see many cases coming from the park.
One day a man in his fifties brought in his wife who had a dislocated shoulder.
She was giving her husband a really hard time, telling him he would be doing the dishes for the next 6 months.
The couple had been observing nature out in the park and had discovered a grizzly bear. They moved closer to see it until they were only about 100 feet away. They were watching intently when the bear turned their direction.
The man was so startled (understandably) he whirled around, sprinting at full speed. Unfortunately his wife was standing behind him. He ran her over.
The bear couldn’t have cared less.
The man rushed his wife to the ER. The ER staff thought the situation was hilarious, especially because she wouldn’t let him live it down. Luckily, except for the dislocated shoulder, man and wife were just fine.
Moral of the story: If you startle easily around wild animals, take care or you may be on dish detail for a while.
Photo credit: http://biology.usgs.gov/cro/ScienceInYourState/Montana/MT-brd.htm
May 7, 2010
Mike had to put staples in our son Isaac’s head the other night.
Isaac, 7 years old, was playing with his brother. They had covered some PVC pipe with a foam swim noodle. Unfortunately, when it got thrown at Isaac’s head, the foam slipped down so the sharp end of the PVC gouged him just above the forehead.
All the kids ran up screaming because Isaac had blood running down his face. When Mike did an inspection, he could see the cut went through to the skull. He decided the injury needed extra attention.
I immediately put some helichrysum essential oil on Isaac’s head to stop the bleeding and prevent inflammation.
I have to admit, when Mike said he was going to get staples, I was somewhat worried. I knew it needed to be done, but I visualized the staples going into Isaac’s skull. Fortunately that’s not how it works.
The staples go into each side of the cut, only clipping the skin together so it can heal.
Isaac said it didn’t even hurt, thank goodness.
The perfect thing to heal this speedily is Vickie’s Cuts & Bruises oil. Of course, my problem isn’t that I lack tools for healing, it’s that I forget to use them as often as I should in our busy lives.
Raquel’s Injury
The last time Mike had to supplement our home medicine with emergency room tools was a couple months ago when Raquel cut her shin open on a sharp bookshelf corner. She was doing gymnastics on our bed without me knowing. Mike super-glued the cut shut. He wanted to stitch it, but she was scared and I was worried.
Raquel still has a mark from the cut that hasn’t healed. I gave her some of Christopher’s Complete Tissue ointment and frankincense oil to put on at night, but I haven’t been following up well to make sure she’s doing it. I think I’ll make a chart right now…
Neighbor Boy’s Injury
Before I was done writing this post, I got a call from a neighbor telling me her son had just crashed his dirt bike. She was away from home, so I told her to send him over here. Mike was sleeping in preparation for his night shift. I didn’t want to wake him yet.
The kid was pretty banged up. His chin was bad enough I thought he’d need stitches. I got out my oils while we waited. I poured several drops of helichrysum essential oil on his chin and knee, which were bleeding. Then I put Cuts & Bruises on the multiple abrasions covering his body. Anything that was bleeding stopped fast.
He said his shoulder, elbow and thumb joint were hurting. He could move them all well enough, and nothing was poking out. I figured he hadn’t broken anything. Doterra’s Deep Blue essential oil blend is very effective for muscle pain & healing, so I applied it to these areas. After a few minutes, he said the pain had diminished.
Mike woke up and confirmed that stitches were needed. He went to a fellow doctor’s home to pick up a suture kit, and got back the same time as the boy’s mother. The stitching was accomplished as I ran out the door to teach a Dr Mom Class on the essential oils…with one more story to tell.
For those of you who have kids, you know life’s always an adventure!
March 25, 2010
A middle-aged man and his wife and his mother came into the ER. The wife said he came into their bedroom at 2 AM, sat on the bed and fell over. She talked to him and shook him, and although he was breathing comfortably, he wouldn’t wake up. She called an ambulance to take him to the hospital.
He was awake, but groggy when Mike saw him. Mike asked them if he had drunk any alcohol that evening. They said no. Mike asked if the guy EVER drank alcohol. His wife answered that he did not. Mike asked if he had taken any drugs. They said no.
Mike started ordering tests. He ordered blood work, a urine sample and a CT scan of the brain.
The urine had barbituates and benzodiazepines-both sedatives, and the blood contained alcohol.
Mike returned to the room and excused man’s wife and mother. He told the guy there were drugs in his urine. He said he had taken Donatol for his stomach and Ambien (a strong sleeping drug). Then he had gone in his garage to work on his motorcycles.
Okay folks. First of all, it’s wise to lie down after taking a drug like Ambien because it makes your body go to sleep. It also cause your brain to be amnestic, which means you can’t think or remember things. People do crazy things on this stuff. They don’t remember a thing. Older people sometimes take this stuff and end up behind the wheel. It can be quite dangerous.
Mike told the guy that his blood alcohol was close to the legal limit. The guy said he couldn’t remember anything.
Mike asked, “Did you drink tonight?”
“I may have.”
“Do you have alcohol in your garage?’
“Yes.” He lowered his head a little.
“Do you drink it sometimes?”
“Yes.”
So this guy had taken the sleeping drug, gone out to the garage for some tinkering, fallen asleep on his feet, drank some alcohol out of his hidden stash in the garage while he was “semi-conscious”, and then returned to his bedroom to pass out heavily and scare his wife to death, without remembering a thing.
Nice.
A considerable amount of money was wasted on tests.
Moral of the story: If you go to the ER, make sure you tell the physician what drugs you’re taking, and if you take Ambien, go to bed not to work.
March 5, 2010
A little while ago Mike treated a guy in the ER that had been run over by a pig.
The man was going to slaughter the pig. He shot it in the head and it had slumped to the ground. When the man went over to the front of it, the pig jumped up and rammed him, breaking the man’s tibia bone in his leg.
The pig chased the man around the room for a few minutes. The man was frantically trying to keep away from it. Finally, someone else came into the room, saw what was happening and shot the pig again. This time it died.
The man was alright except for his broken tibia.
Usually Mike treats people in car injuries, not pig injuries.
All in a day’s work.
Moral of the story: Make sure your pig is good and dead . . .
February 6, 2010
One time a dad brought his daughter into the ER. He was very excited.
“She’s got something up her nose! It stinks so bad!”
The dad had detected a smell coming from his daughter, but could not figure out where it was coming from. He was giving her baths 3 times a day, and it was driving him crazy.
He finally noticed when she looked up, there was something in her nose. The something was a small strand of carpet she had stuck up there. It blocked the airflow and started attracting mucus which then started to reek.
When Mike was telling me this story he commented that cases with foreign bodies were quite interesting. He’s also seen beads and beans in noses and ears.
The weirdest is when people get bugs in their ears (hold on to your stomachs folks). When the person feels the bug in their ear they usually smack it, which drives it into the ear canal.
Mike is the one that has to delicately pull the insect out with alligator forceps, without puncturing the eardrum. He said it’s really strange to see a transparent wing poking out or two beady little eyes looking back at him.
Moral of the story: Don’t smack your ear if a bug tickles it, and if your child starts to stink mysteriously, be sure to check the nose.
December 6, 2009
There’s a doctor that works with Mike in the ER, I won’t name any names, but I hear he’s a bit of a jokester; I’ll call him Doc #1. And there’s another doc that’s more serious, level-headed and conservative (he would never break the rules)-I’ll call him Doc #2.
One day the hospital was repaving the cement of the entrance to the ER. The job was finished, but the cement was still wet. Mike was working, and Doc #1 suggests they go out and etch their names into the soft concrete. Mike asked him if he was crazy.
Doc #1 continued to describe how fun it would be, trying to persuade Mike to join him, but to no avail.
A few days later, someone showed Mike a photo of the concrete. It ended up, Doc #1 had written the name of Doc #2 with the year 2009.
Doc #2 was fairly concerned when he heard that his name was etched in the concrete. He vehemently denied doing the dirty deed. What Doc #1 didn’t realize was there was a video surveillance camera at the entrance. It had recorded the whole act.
Some people started joshing Doc #1, telling him he was going to have to pay $1500 to get the patch of concrete repaved. Someone got a hospital administrator to write him a letter telling him he was going to be required to pay. Some people even got mad at the administrator, thinking he was going overboard…
Doc #1 finally figured out it was a big joke on him.
Moral of the story: Make sure the cameras are turned off when you’re going to play practical jokes, especially if you blame your actions on someone else (or maybe don’t do the deed in the first place–you may save yourself some grief).
December 3, 2009
This made me sad and angry when Mike told me about this case.
A boy was brought in by his parents because he had stuck corn kernels in his ears and they couldn’t get them out. Mike was able to remove them and afterward asked the boy why he had put them there in the first place.
His response was, “There were movies on at my house, and I didn’t want to hear the bad things.”
I seriously want to cry for children that feel this way.
Moral of the story: Don’t allow our precious, innocent children to view things that are scary or inappropriate. Even if we are desensitized to intense media, we should still protect the purity and happiness of our little ones.
December 2, 2009
One time Mike had a concerned, young mother bring her toddler who couldn’t walk, into the ER. The child appeared intoxicated, acting overly relaxed and woozy. The mother had no idea why.
Mike ran some tests. They came back positive for marijuana. And it wasn’t the level that a person might have from just breathing second-hand smoke. The tests showed a high amount, more than if the child had smoked it herself.
Mike told the mom and asked her how it could be so. She denied giving any to her daughter or smoking around her. She thought about it for a minute, and then explained that they lived in an apartment complex. It had a small park where she had taken her daughter to play that day.
Occasionally her daughter would put cigarette butts in her mouth, and that day she had. Mike felt that she was telling the truth. They came to the conclusion that the child had chewed on a joint long enough to ingest some of it.
Moral of the Story: Kids will put anything in their mouths. Be vigilant with young children in places that have lots of cigarette butts (or don’t take them there in the first place).
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