Monday 1 June 2015

Themes

The Call Gods have been fucking with me.  Well, they always fuck with me, but lately they've been fucking with me even more than usual.  I know that may seem hard to believe now that you know what you do about them . . . actually, maybe they've been more evil than usual because I've told you about them.  I'll need to think about that for a while.

In the meantime, I'll explain what I mean and hope the Call Gods aren't able to read this.  Because if they can, they will rain down a shitstorm of epic proportions that will officially end me.

In addition to serving me ice-cold vengeance (though what I ever did to anger them in the first place is beyond me), they also play games with me.  No, not fun games like Pac Man or Skee-ball, but nasty games like Test Doc's Mental Strength.

I have mentioned Trauma Themes in the past, but I'll review in case you've forgotten.  Lord knows I've tried to forget and failed miserably.  Anyway, some of my days seem to be like the movie Groundhog Day - the same thing happens over and over.  I've sensed this many times in the past, but I've never actually chronicled it.

Until now.

Fuck you, Call Gods.  I'm on to you.

Two weeks ago I had a relatively busy trauma call with a total of 13 patients brought to me.  This may not seem like that big a number over a 24-hour period, but when you consider that it can take upwards of an hour per patient (or even longer for the seriously injured patients), that number doesn't seem quite so reasonable anymore, especially when half of them come in after midnight.  What made this day stick out in my memory was that three of them came in with isolated left shoulder injuries (dislocations and/or fractures).

What, you're not impressed?  That isn't a good enough example for you?  Don't worry then, I'm just getting warmed up.

Two months ago I had eight patients come in all day.  It wasn't that busy, and the night was rather quiet.  Now keep in mind that I get all variety of traumatic injuries, including car and motorcycle accidents, stabbings, shootings, assaults, bicycle accidents, boating accidents, industrial accidents.  That particular day all 8 of my patients were falls.  No car accidents, just falls.  One after another they came - fall, fall, fall, fall, fall, fall, fall, fall.

Still not buying it?  Ok, it gets better.

On a beautiful spring day, one where I was expecting a very busy day, I had only two patients all day.  Just two.  It was a lovely day, I was blissfully not busy, and I actually managed to enjoy the spring weather.  But though the Call Gods saw fit to spare me a lot of nonsense, what they did decide to send me were both sports-related injuries: first a martial artist who was kicked by his sparring partner and broke a rib, and then a football player who got sandwiched between two other players and suffered a concussion.

Still not good enough?  STILL not a believer?  Oh you will be after this.

Towards the end of last year I had a rather busy day, though nothing too out of the ordinary.  But of the 10 patients I had that day, two of them had isolated injuries . . . to the left 4th finger.  Yes indeed, the Call Gods chuckled as they delivered me a young man who had amputated the tip of his left ring finger with a table saw, and I guarantee they were laughing their evil asses off as they dropped off another young man who was shot through his left ring finger.

If you aren't a believer in the Call Gods by now, then you haven't been listening to a thing I've said.  And if you are a believer, I'm sure you realise the risk I'm taking by potentially angering them even more, but you know what?  FUCK THEM.

Ha ha!  Just kidding, Call Gods.  Ha ha!  Good joke, right?  No seriously, I was just kidding. Guys?

15 comments:

  1. we have an officer who is absolutely forbidden to use the phrase "don't take this wrong, but I hope I don't see you again tonight" because the call gods take it as a challenge.

    we tend not to have theme nights so much, here, though, unless you want to count the side effects of being a retirement community to be an ongoing theme.
    those don't provide much work for a trauma surgeon, though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm a police explorer and I'm dong ride alongs more and more often so I need to know more about the call gods. How can we please them? What words anger them? Do they accept sacrifices as bribes? Etc.

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    2. basically they exist to torment emergency responders. the basic rule of thumb is to never comment on how active or inactive they are being. also, starting to cook a meal, sitting down in a restaurant, and needing to go to the bathroom is often irresistable to them.

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    3. note that this works the other way, too. we have a fresh crop of drivers who need response runs to get signed off, so having one at the station tends to put the call gods right to sleep.

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  2. That is much like uttering the "Q" word, my day is already screwed, so it's Quiet. Saying something like "it's a quiet night/day" is the best way to piss people off quick on a hospital floor, particularly the nurses
    ~anon rn

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  3. we have adopted prophylactic use of "see you in an hour" (or half hour) which seems to trick the call gods into trying to spite us by NOT doing anything further.

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    Replies
    1. I like that, and will have to remember it. I've taken to using benign in lieu of quiet
      ~AnonRN

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  4. What if you had been a surgeon at the Virginia hospital Fabio was taken to after being smashed in the face by a goose while riding a roller coaster? That would make anyone a true believer.

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  5. Well, isn't that like the fact that within a group of 30 you have a very high probability of finding two people with the same birthday? Surprising from the outside but actually reasonable when you do the math. Just my two cents.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah. The odds of any two people within a group of 30 sharing a birthday is around 70%, but the odds of you sharing a birthday with someone in a group of 30 is 1:365.

      There's another one with lottery tickets where it's not all that uncommon for any person to win twice. But it'll never happen to you.

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  6. I am an emergency doc (love your blog, by the way) and I know the "theme of the night" all too well. In 13 patients one night this week, I had one respiratory distress, two cardiac arrests, eight psychotic episodes, and two envenomations (one snake, one spider). In the last two weeks all of my MVC's have been single vehicle motorcycle accidents caused by an animal running in front of the bike (save one, who was drunk and on a gravel road).

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  7. ...to be fair to the poster that touted probability, the town in which I work does play host to biker rallies this time of year, thus increasing the likelihood of a MVC being single motorcycle.

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    Replies
    1. yes, but nearly all because of jaywalking animals?

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  8. But! Three dog attacks in the first hour of a shift, three consecutive unrelated cases of neck edema, and two cases of fungating lesions on the left temple in the same day...that cannot be probability, that is the theme gods.

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  9. and I don't know what I did, but the call gods have decided I am not to sleep between 2:00 AM and 3:30 AM.

    ReplyDelete

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