The Importance of a Good Poop

23Mar08

So I stroll onto the medical floor, it’s a busy place, with a 7/1 pt/nurse ratio, sometimes things get over looked.

I grabbed my patients chart and glanced over the vitals, and freaked.

I quickly found the nurse and requested that she get a prompt and current set of vitals and then the hunted down the charge nurse to find out why no one had called about the O2 sats in the mid to low 80s.

Upon confirmation that the pts. sats were still low, I got stat ABGs, chest Xray and KUB, as her belly was quite distended.

pO2 was in the 50s. We transfered her up to tele, then turned to the radiology. Chest Xray was negative. KUB said “constipation, otherwise unremarkable.”

a couple of enemas later her pO2 rose to her baseline 70.

note to self… fiber is good.

Filed under: Humor, Lessons Learned, Medicine   |