Bad Days

Was talking to a friend who had a bad day. We all have that. The ones we think about and perhaps even blame ourselves on a bad (read: PMS) day. Like every job, we all have bad days, except unfortunately ours as doctors usually involve patients dying.

Mine?

Well, I have recurring memories (and nightmares) of that sick patient dying from a tension pneumothorax. Despite the surgeon's attempts with the chest tube.

Or that young guy with the pancreatic cancer whose family refused to believe there was no hope.

Or how it felt to have those ribs cracking under my hands when I did CPR on that dialysis patient.

Or that man who clotted off his mechanical mitral valve and went into cardiac arrest.

Or that GI bleeder who was just gushing out blood from the rectum as fast as we were forcing the transfusion in. I stained my scrubs with her blood that night, as she was dripping onto the floor at one point.

Or that ICU monitor alarm that sounds like a horn, that goes off at that moment when the patient decides to die. Did some consults in the CCU this week; that sound still gives me the shivers.

On days like that, you just wanna come home and curl up in bed and not talk to anyone. And just drink yourself to sleep.

Because life (and death), has to go on.