Who’s On First?

The LOLs (Little Old Ladies) were out in full force.

One was having a stroke. One was in renal failure with high potassium. Another one fell and whacked her noggin.
Then comes the ambulance call. There’s a sale at the Dollar Store and in the midst of the frenzy, one of the LOLs “wasn’t feeling good.” One of my favorite complaints.

When she arrives, she reiterates her complaint. “I don’t feel good.”
“Well what part of you doesn’t feel good?” I asked.
“I don’t knooooow.” Off to a good start. Could you be more vague?
“Well what caused you to call the ambulance?”
“I didn’t call the ambulance.”
The little artery in my temple began to pound.
“Why did the ambulance come to the Dollar Store, then?”
“Apparently someone called it.”
Back to square one. I can feel a strong pulse rate of about 80 in my temple without even touching it
“OK, why are you here right now?”
“Because the ambulance brought me here.”
“Why did the ambulance bring you here?”
“Because I don’t feel good.”
“Well when some people tell me they don’t feel good, they mean their hair is falling out, when some people tell me they don’t feel good they have ingrown toenails, when some people tell me they don’t feel good they mean they are vomiting. When you tell me you don’t feel good, what do you mean?”
If she says “I don’t know” again, I’m going to yell out “Third BASE” just for the heck of it.
“I mean that I’m sick!”
If there was a Samurai sword in the room at the time, I would have used it.
“You have ingrown toenails?”
“Noooo.”
Your hair is falling out?”
“Nooooo!”
“You’re vomiting.”
“I did vomit once.”
Amazing! Progress!
Then comes the revelation we were all waiting for: “I’ve had gallbladder problems for 20 years and I think I was having a gallbladder attack.”
Sure. With my luck, she’ll be the one having an acute MI. So we run an EKG. Sinus bradycardia. Rate 57. No ischemic changes.

The phlebotomist was in the room and was totally enjoying the conversation. Looked like she was ready for some popcorn or something. I looked over at her and she smiled.
Oh yeah? Think this is funny? I just decided to order four blood cultures from different sites. Ha ha. Laugh at THAT!
So she puts the tourniquet on the patient’s arm and sticks her with the needle to draw blood.
The patient gets pale, does a couple of head circles, and passes out. I start muttering incomprehensively to myself and eagerly walk to the back of the room to grab the smelling salts out of the drawer. Then I glanced at the monitor and saw this:

DOH!
Precordial thump … no change. Get the paddles. Charging to 200 joules. Everyone clear … zzzt.
Welcome back, ma’am. Now … as you were saying about your gallbladder. Oh, you’re having another attack now?
Wonderful. Now the monitor shows this:

Can you shock someone into an MI? If so, I just did it. This lady is like the ACLS megacode from hell.

Offff to the cath lab with ye. The dye doesn’t lie. You can now unleash your doublespeak on the cardiologists who are much more fluent in doublespeak than I. Aaarrrrrrr. Now pardon me while I go change my pantaloons.

If I have too many more patients like this, I’m going to be able to build a fire pit out in our back yard. All I’ll need is some concrete.