Tower Of Babel

Hail up people. It has been a pretty tiring day for me with the business of ‘on call’….one of them days where a man don’t even get time to scratch him balls errr…. head. See, last night one of our young female patients who we recently diagnosed as having Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) or ‘Lupus’ for short, started to run into worries. Became short of breath, had a few wheezes in her chest. Anyway, a couple nebulisations set her straight last night.

This morning at 7 AM, I am frightened outta mi sleep by the cell phone (remember I cancelled the pager account a few weeks back)…like I said, hospital stop page docta once dem have cell. Save about $1G per month. I answer, is Nurse calling seh the patient getting well tachypnoeic (short of breath) and now having fever and she starting her on oxygen. OK I have no complaints with that, I soon reach. I start to think in my mind while doing the bathroom routine what could really be causing the friggery. SLE patient, high dose steriods, immunosuppressed by her medication, in hospital fe about ten days now. OK, likley problems…Pneumonia.. or worse…Pulmonary Embolism (clot inna de lungs) to rass!

Have a quick cuppa tea to belch off the gas, swallow down a ripe banana and hold a quick fresh. Reach much earlier than I usually do for my weekend round when tings kriss…..early bird catches the worm…..need to get some investigations done and me nuh love ‘beg’ the people inna support services to do stuff on weekends…you seeit. Cause nuff of dem fulla attitude. Furthermore, I respect people not having to do unnecessary stuff on the weekend…but is hospital it name. I not into the ‘cry wolf’ business….brings to mind the eediat runaway bride that Jdid beat me at posting about. What a damn fool though eh! Youd’a marry her after all dat? I think I would haffi give it some serious thought still. Anyway, I gone off track.

Reach work by 8:15 AM and go straight to the problem patient, examine her thoroughly again, with special emphasis on the chest examination. Indeed, her breath sounds on the left side dimished. OK, I need some stuff…..some bloods, a blood culture, sputum culture, Chest X Ray…etc etc. I am in shock, the radiographer was quite nice, I can send her down to the department now! I actually told my girl, “Thank you!” (Not that I’m rude to people anyway.) But you see, I don’t see why I should have to beg to get the stuff that we need to do in order to carry out some reasonable level of patient care! We all being paid to do dis.

Anyhow, after my blood taking, inserting of IV cannula (drip) she is wheeled down to the X Ray department. To my amazemant, she is back with films in 15 minutes. Is the fastest Chest X ray I ever get done. (I wonder if my radiographer girl like me voice eh?? ) Stop it!!!! No, is Sunday morning and it early…..so.

I look at the films and indeed, my suspicions of the lesser evil…pneumonia… are pretty much confirmed. Nevertheless, I commence the treatment for both the pneumonia as well as the clot until tomorrow when the nuclear lung scan will help us rule out the clot…(dat nuh do pon weekends.) I finish the rest of the round and leave to come home for a late ‘breakfast’…more like brunch….as I reach back home after noon. Never had the strength to cook nutten, so buss a tin of sardines and dress it up with some onion, vinegar, pepper, tomato and kill it with some hardo bread (so much for low carb….) Tough, man did well raw.

Anyway, me here now using the blog as a means of chilling out. There’s a bit more if you can endure….

I see where the spitting Immaculate girls are in the news again. I would like to say to the UK teacher who says that this incident would be considered ‘minor’ there….TOUGH! If they think it is minor there, good for them…we do not have to wait for England to decide for us. It is by no means minor if you ask me…..expel dem ra$$ from de school so that they will learn their lesson. Let it be a warning to all school pickney, whether they hail from Cherry Gardens or from Tivarli! (Remember Reneto Adams’ pronounciation of Tivoli?) We not going to let them have the upper hand and we ‘aint tekking nuh shyte! We need to adopt the same zero tolerance attitude with the damn criminals here! Anyway, mek me cool down, is Sunday.

What else a gwaan? Actually, I here passing time that I really should be using to do something else. See, I have been asked to give a talk on Thursday evening to patients who are members of the Lupus Foundation of Jamaica on ‘the Skin and Lupus’. Have nuff clinical pictures on my hard drive that will help me to construct the talk, but I doan start the Powerpoint yet! No, I not getting nuh ca$h for doing the talk either…but money isn’t all. It is a service to patients. Part of the constitution of the regional skin association is that our members…. (I’m the Sec…dog work…) should strive to educate other docs as well as patients on dermatological matters. Of course, is often the same tired members that involve themselves in this sort of activity….while others don’t….no time to give talk….only interested in mekking the big bucks in private…..anyway….that is a topic I not getting into. I have committed to doing the talk, so I will soon get cracking. Might even have a one VX likkle later…it will help to get me in the mood to do the talk, and one drink won’t cloud my medical judgement or mek me type foolishness on the Powerpoint. Hope you all have been having a less hectic weekend than I an I. Easy.

BTW, yesterday was the Three Year Birthday of the blog…seems like the session had to be postponed since I was on call…still, I had a good time Friday nite, so it wasn’t all that bad.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 1st, 2005 at 7:02 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.