sleepless nights in the rat

it's madness.

called in at 5am to see a lady with high blood pressure and chest pain. a couple of anginines and she started coughing up blood. tried a few times to get a cannula into her arm, hoping to hit a vein. i didnt. the notes said she'd been to the base a couple of mornings ago with svt, except she spontaneously reverted to sinus when the ambulance turned into the bay at emerg. called the consultant on, and all of a sudden my patient became palliative. wonderful.

that was the start of my crazy weekend on call. i had been on call thursday and friday nights too, but they were relatively quiet. saturday i worked until past 11pm. dvt. cellulitis. falls. hypoglycaemia. blocked picc lines. confusion. even admitted a new patient. sunday was much the same. except i got to called in to talk a lady out of killing herself. that'll get your pulse up a bit. all in all it was a good experience. the consultant on call was a absolute champ and pretended not to mind when i called her for the sixth or eighth time and ordered me to have dinner stat.

otherwise not much happening here in the rat. missing lots of lunches and eating a lot of crappy dinners. not really drinking and passing much water. my cold is still hanging around. and my sleep is terrible (i keep thinking the on-call phone's gonna go off). got a new reg yesterday and she seems okay. still living above the hospital and the crew's getting pretty pissed off. i hope the old keith house comes good soon. going for my hazard perception test this week and hopefully the driving test next friday. fingers crossed i'll be a p-plater by next weekend. what a joke. oh and i got a palm t5 on monday, courtesy of doris who went back to melbourne. now i just need to find someone who's got mims or amh.

i must admit i'm loving it. this has been an excellent few weeks. i must be going nuts like my oldies.