Krispie Kreme

Today was my first day on the ICU. It started off kind of rough. for one thing, Germany is trying to kill me. I had my eyes swollen shut and my throat irritated by allergens that exist only here. It took the ER on Sunday and the clinic on Tuesday to find someone who agreed with my self diagnosis and give me drugs that do something. When i went to the ER on Sunday I was unrecognizable my face was so swollen. I became Asian for a few days with puffy eye lids. I had two black eyes and a moon face. I haven't felt the greatest. Then I went to the ICU today to hear bad news right from the start. There was a 6 y.o. Iraqi boy that suffered blast injuries and was at LRMC for weeks. He was evac'd to the stats last week. He died in flight on the way into San Diego. They had to land in Colorado to pronounce him dead. I saw him last week walking and playing on the peds ward. So full of life. That hid the unit really hard. I only got to meet him for that one day. A lot of the staff from this ICU team had been key providers in his care. He was so close. The LRMC team handed him off to and Air Force team so no one who had been caring for him got to be there when it happened.
Then, I was assigned to a burn patient. I've never seen a burn patient before. I've had plenty of powerpoint presentations on it. He looked no different that I was prepared to expect, but the real thing is quite different. He was a 22 y/o OIF Army enlisted. He suffered burns from a blast injury to 38% of his body. He was here for a layover and was on a specially arranged flight to the burn unit at BAMC in San Antonio this evening. His therapy was easy. However, he was waking up, trying to talk with a tube down his throat, his face was mostly burned so his lips were so swollen and his eyes swollen. The picture of the young man on his military ID card is indistinguishable from the man in the bed. He wasn't in pain, but he kept trying to to move. His arms and legs were all wrapped and he was restrained to the bed. His room was kept at 80 degrees and he had heat lamps on. The first time we went in there were were in there nearly two hours in gowns. I had to step outside I got so nauseated. Partially from the heat, partially from all the drugs i'm taking, and partially because of the nature of what I was seeing for the first time. It was overwehelming the ventilator, the tubes, and 8 IV's hanging, the daughting task of changing completely soaked bed linens. He had to be watered, glucose checked, I&O's, tube fed, meds administered, assessed every 4 hours, flushed, repositioned, and calmed and reassured whenever he woke up and tried to talk. He flat out sad straight up in bed at one point. He was so swollen lip reading was very difficult. I got "water" and "how long" out of him. Other than that, I can only guess. He was extremely lucky. His back and front and groin were not burned. However, he was not wearing eye protection, you can see it in the pattern of his burn. Hes lucky he's got his sight. His face will heal nicely. We kept a thick layer of bacitracin on, hence the look of a krispie kreme glazed doughnut. I was in the room when he was awarded his purple heart. He has yet to find out that he was the only survivor of the 4 injured in the blast. The air evac team came in a few hours before flight time and we got him ready to go. He left at 1900 for his 14 hour flight to BAMC.
Today was a rough day to go home alone from. I decompressed in the shower, watched Runaway Bride, now I'm typing and I'm ready to go to bed. I have to get up and do this all over again tomorrow.