Tuesday 12 February 2019

Recognition

Though I live in a relatively small enclave of a much larger city, there are still occasions where I will see someone I recognise. It could be hospital staff, another physician, a nurse, or a patient or their family member. One of my patients several years ago (whom I did not recognise as first) turned out to be a woman who lived just a few houses down from me. It is usually difficult for me to identify a familiar face, because while I am good at recognising the face, I am terrible at coupling a name or place to it. But there are some faces that just stand out for whatever reason, and these faces tend to belong to people who, for one reason or another, have made an impact on my brain.

Yes, that's foreshadowing.

It was right around lunch time, which my stomach kept reminding me by attempting to digest itself (or so it felt and sounded), when Paolo (not his real name™) was brought to me in a heap of mud and vodka. According to the ambulance crew, Paolo had thought it would be a really fantastic idea to drink heavily during his lunch break at work and then drive his van off the road, causing it (and him) to roll over several times. I have to assume his right foot tumbled partially out of the window as the vehicle rolled, which caused it to get crushed between the van and the road and mangled both the foot and the van nearly beyond recognition. It's difficult to describe the carnage I found around what-used-to-be his ankle, but let's just say that there were very few structures I could actually identify as belonging to a human foot. And for the first time in my career, I removed a piece of a pencil from a traumatic wound.

Seriously.

Yet despite his grisly injury, he had surprisingly very little pain as we examined him and found no other injuries (other than a few lacerations on his scrotum. No, I have no idea how that happened). I suppose there is a reason the phrase "feeling no pain" exists.

Anyway, I'll just give you the short-short version: I sutured his scrotum and Paolo lost his leg, but he lived.

Wait wait wait, that's it? 'He lost his leg'? And you sutured his scrotum and aren't going to tell us anything more about that? That's the end of the story? What the hell is this, Doc?

What this is, is not a story about Paolo.

Uh . . . what?

Haha, the old bait and switch! I teased you with what you thought was an interesting story, but I'm swapping it for (what I think is) an even-more-interesting story, which will probably fall flat and be interesting to no one but me.

Alas, woe is me.

Aaaaaanyway yes indeed, this story is not about Paolo but rather about the guy who was taking Paolo's blood pressure, getting him a warm blanket, and reporting his findings back to the trauma nurse. I had no idea who he was. He wasn't one of the trauma nurses, because there were already two of them there and he was dressed in street clothes. He was a young guy in his mid 20's, handsome, tall, long hair, and he had a hospital badge, so clearly he wasn't just some guy who walked in off the street offering to help.

I know this kid, I thought. Who is he? Is he the son of a family friend? A neighbour No wait, is he the guy who replaced my refrigerator motor last year? I just couldn't place him, but he definitely looked familiar. Very familiar.

If anyone had been watching me from across the room, it must have looked as if I were ogling this kid, which I, uh, I guess I was in a way.

This bizarre leering continued for at least five minutes as he continued bustling around helping the nurses and I continued racking my brain for some inkling as to just who the hell he was. Finally, still at a loss, I decided that I had imagined the whole thing and that I didn't actually know him and that he wasn't the guy I saw buying 10 packs of Velcro at the hardware store last week (my mind goes to some rather strange places sometimes). I started berating myself for wasting so much time in this futile endeavor, and right around then the kid finally caught my eye, cocked his head, and smiled knowingly. As he walked up to me holding his hand out for a handshake with a big grin on his face, it instantly hit me, and I smiled back, extended my hand, and said,

"Oh, hello again Theo."

His grin brought it all back to me. I had seen Theo (not his real name™) in my trauma bay almost exactly four years ago to the day. He had been working as a volunteer medic, standing on the side of the road helping the victim of a minor car crash in the middle of the night, when a drunk driver plowed into him and another volunteer at high velocity. Both of them had been brought to me, but Theo was in much worse shape. While the other young lady had a minor fracture of her thoracic spine and a few abrasions, Theo had a horrific open skull fracture and a large subdural haematoma. He underwent surgery to remove a portion of his skull and evacuation of the blood clot and then spent several weeks in hospital before going to a brain injury rehabilitation facility. I remember him as being extremely polite, always willing to participate, always thankful, and always smiling.

He had had another operation several months later to replace his portion of skull followed by many more months of rehab. And now here he was, four years later, completely recovered.

And on his way to nursing school.

Instead of being turned off to the medical field, Theo told me that his experience only strengthened his will to continue his pursuit of helping. Today he was shadowing the trauma nurses and gaining experience for the future. As Theo put it, "As stupid as it sounds Doc, after seeing firsthand what paramedics, nurses, and doctors can do, I just want to give back. Pretty corny, right?"

I didn't think it sounded corny at all. I actually thought it sounded rather wonderful.

33 comments:

  1. It's a great story, Doc Bastard. Thank you for sharing. ☺

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  2. Wow, not boring at all. It's great he even recovered as well as he did but to then decide to pursue a career in nursing is just amazing. Good for him, thanks for writing about this.

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  3. oh come on. why did Paolo lose his leg??

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    Replies
    1. It was mangled beyond any hope of repair. While he still had blood supply, the nerves controlling sensation and movement of his ankle and foot were destroyed, so while the soft tissue probably could have been salvaged with many reconstructive operations, it would have been completely nonfunctional. He will have a much better functional outcome with an amputation and prosthesis.

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    2. I met a guy whose situation was very similar to that. the doctor's prognosis was "it will take a year to reconstruct it, there will always be pain, and you will never regain full function." he opted for the alternative with less healing time and less chronic pain.

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  4. Great story. Glad to hear of the good outcome for Theo. But it does seem that most of the stories you tell come to you from someone who began with "Here, hold my beer." Is that just the way it is, or are these stories just more interesting to you.

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    Replies
    1. As I've said in the trauma bay multiple times, if I'm seeing you as a patient, there is a very high likelihood that in the past 60 minutes, you've made a very serious error.

      Plus these stories are far more interesting.

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    2. ...or you were unfortunately in close proximity to someone who made a very serious error, as was the case for poor Theo four years ago. I'm glad to hear he's doing so much better, and even able to go on to a career in medicine!

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  5. What no story about a guy sticking another thing up his ass? Those are my facorite!
    In all seriousness wasnt expecting a feel good story.
    Also welcome back doc

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  6. Yay Doc. A twofer. It is awesome that Theo is doing so well and will be an asset to the hosp[ital.
    He knows what it is like to be at the receiving end which will help those coming in not knowing what the hell happened.
    He's been there got the tshirt and is now paying it forward.
    Great job to both of you and good luck Theo.

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  7. It's always good when people we rescue go on to rescue others.

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  8. Great story, Doc! Definitely worth the bait-&-switch. You have prolly inspired more folks like Theo than you'll ever know.

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  9. Ok, this is not fair "I just got to work on a 'Monday'" reading material! Call me a softie, but it took a minute to be able to read the comments. Thanks for inspiration and...FEELS!

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  10. Yup The feels got to me to, i admit it.

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  11. Great story, Doc! While I don't work trauma or anything that dramatic, it is very gratifying to see former patients and hear success stories.

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  12. I see it is once again time for the ritual trashing of the spammer.

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  13. tried these guys. never saw my furniture again.

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  14. Kali ma.....kali ma....
    Wait no....wrong ritual

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  15. I heard someone say Cali or Kali, chatting my name brings me..
    We should Google that company and go tank their Google rating and Yelp rating, give them bad reviews about leaving white fishy smelling jizz stains on our baby furniture, too much or not far enough?

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  16. I have thought about it, but I'm concerned that my virus protection isn't quite robust enough.

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  17. I think they are to under the radar for that to even be an option.
    And not the Kali i was trying to invoke but close enough

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  18. It's understandable for 3rd world countries to still use pagers in their hospitals. Rotary phones are awesome too! Thank you Silicone Valley!

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    Replies
    1. had to drop something off at my local hospital and guess what the sign at the entrance said. that's right, "turn cell phones off inside hospital."

      but feel free to tell us how in the hospital you pretend to work at, they just poke the surgeon on fakebook if they want him to do something.

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  19. BTW, the lead-lined walls of the trauma bay and other areas of hospitals in 3rd world countries are also designated bomb shelters for nukes. lol

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    Replies
    1. Ken, what have we discussed about playing with spreadable diseases, catching the dumb is real..

      Missed ya Ken, I see doc hasn't posted and I liked showing all the men I know his RFO stories to traumatize them.

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    2. yeah, I keep having withdrawal symptoms.

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    3. WE NEED OUR FIX DOC! WE JUST NEED 1 HIT WE SWEAR

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    4. Like how vaccinated children spread their measles to healthy unvaccinated children. Or how vaccine leads to homosexuality according to a new study.

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    5. perhaps you could be a bit less cryptic?

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    6. You lack the brain to debate Connor.

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  20. Luv ya too Connor.. ❤️

    Why hasn't the doc blasted their crap in to nothingness, I miss DocBastard..

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