A Bad Day at Work, and Then a Day of Thanks
Friday was one of those days that had me second guessing my decision to go into my field.
I walked in to the remnants of a ten hour long session of "extreme blood banking" A patient in his 70's had come in with a leaky AAA (abdominal aortic aneurism) The aorta, the largest artery in the body, carries blood away from the heart to the rest of the body. As a person ages, sometimes a weak spot will form, and the high pressure of the blood in the aorta will push on it, causing a "balloon". If the balloon grows no bigger than a certain size (the details of which escape me) all is well, but if it gets too large, if often either begins to leak, or burst all together. In this case, it started with a leak, and ended up rupturing in the OR. The guy used 23 units of blood, ten units of plasma, and two of platelets before dying. The testing and prep of all these blood components, all while knowing that every second counts is stressful to say the least.
Case #2
A healthy woman is in the or having her fourth child by elective C-Section. She goes into DIC, disseminated intravascular coagopathy, and begins to bleed out. She too, used quite a bit of products, but happily, after an emergency hysterectomy, survived.
I got to lunch at 2 pm. Oh, and the remainder of the day's work was still there waiting for us.
Another reminder of the fragility of human life, and how thankful we should all be for every blessed minute.
I have two wonderful sons, a wonderful husband, and we are all healthy.
We all had a wonderful day with my family yesterday, and every minute I thanked God for them all.
I walked in to the remnants of a ten hour long session of "extreme blood banking" A patient in his 70's had come in with a leaky AAA (abdominal aortic aneurism) The aorta, the largest artery in the body, carries blood away from the heart to the rest of the body. As a person ages, sometimes a weak spot will form, and the high pressure of the blood in the aorta will push on it, causing a "balloon". If the balloon grows no bigger than a certain size (the details of which escape me) all is well, but if it gets too large, if often either begins to leak, or burst all together. In this case, it started with a leak, and ended up rupturing in the OR. The guy used 23 units of blood, ten units of plasma, and two of platelets before dying. The testing and prep of all these blood components, all while knowing that every second counts is stressful to say the least.
Case #2
A healthy woman is in the or having her fourth child by elective C-Section. She goes into DIC, disseminated intravascular coagopathy, and begins to bleed out. She too, used quite a bit of products, but happily, after an emergency hysterectomy, survived.
I got to lunch at 2 pm. Oh, and the remainder of the day's work was still there waiting for us.
Another reminder of the fragility of human life, and how thankful we should all be for every blessed minute.
I have two wonderful sons, a wonderful husband, and we are all healthy.
We all had a wonderful day with my family yesterday, and every minute I thanked God for them all.