Andy noticed Doug was stressed out today.

“He should take a cat nap!” [Good idea, Andrew.]

=(^+^)=

An incident at dialysis reminded me that everything can change instantly. Life is fragile. 

The incident at dialysis would have been mortal except for one critical factor: it happened in a dialysis unit in a hospital. Other units in other towns are in separate buildings, businesses serving their hospitals but in separate buildings that may be miles away from those hospitals.

In a medical emergency, a patient in my dialysis unit has a minimum of three, four RNs instantly dividing resuscitation chores including calling in more hospital staff. Precious minutes are saved and emergency staff come in to do advanced resuscitation work, taking over from the dialysis staff, who then are free to assist, to verify none of the other patients need immediate attention, and to pull curtains to preserve the patient’s privacy in this intrusive moment of his or her life. 

In other dialysis units I’ve been in, a medical emergency like the one here is problematic since staff were an RN supervising trained high school kids (in one place!) who don’t have the extensive skills any one and all of the staff in my unit have. The emergency patient here was resuscitated and stabilized in the dialysis room till she was ready (heart beating, breathing restored) to be moved to the emergency area of the hospital, where she got further lifesaving care.

It was a stressful moment but handled well.