Fast AF

Waking to go to the loo at 3 in the morning her increasing
breathlessness had got the better of her and she had been unable to
drag herself back to bed. This led to her calling 999. On arrival this
80+ year old lady was speaking only in single words and had sats on
air of 77% with a pulse of 150. All not good at all. Straight on to
the O2 with chair and two on their way. At this point she decided to
argue with me about going to hospital as she was worried about her
dog. Luckily I found her address book and called her son which sorted
that issue out. In the back of the vehicle a 3 lead ECG showed what
looked worryingly like runs of VT. Patient complained of epigastric
abdo pain which can sometimes be a manifestation of MI, especially as
she was diabetic. GTN given and a salbutamol nebuliser started as she
was crackly over all lung fields. Sats now at 92% which is better.
Rapid transport given to Poole resus where she was given frusemide,
digoxin and morphine which sorted her out. Final opinion was that it
had been an SVT due to rapid ventricular response to AF which had
precipitated the LVF. Good outcome as she made it to Ansty

Strange Weekend

Had a strange weekend. In 18 hours of attending this weekend I
actually had to treat only one patient. That this patient was a Fall,
Non Injury was fairly typical. For the rest of my time attending I was
left to deal with an Emergency Transfer to Southampton, wait and
return; an Urgent transfer to Harefield and then yesterday pick up
three Routines to go to Bournemouth for angio. Must mean that
something big is being 'saved up' for me.

Journey Bus

Two days two long distance transfers - took a 24 hour old babe up to
Southampton for an echo as she had Tetralogy of Fallot, waited then
brought her back yesterday. Today was a routine transfer of double
transplantee to Harefield as he had a nasty chest infection that
needed investigation by the experts. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Relief

Sometimes working as a relief technician can be a benefit. It seems
that if you find shifts you want to work and then feed that
information to the Scheduling department you will often get what you
want. Will be trying to keep this up and running next week.