Thursday, July 03, 2008

The fingers are falling! The fingers are falling!

Fingers and huge ass diesel truck doors do not make good partners. They do not dance well together. They do not make nice googly eyes at each other.

Oh no.

Truck doors do not like fingers at all. Oh no they do not. In fact truck doors don't like fingers so much that they think it's mighty fun to cut the little suckers right off. And they laugh when the tips go plop in the dirt.

So do I.

Sometimes I think I'm not a very compassionate nurse. I might need some hospital mandated classes on that.

So Sally Sue comes in with 3 finger tips soaking in hydrogen peroxide in a plastic cup. First and foremost to all my readers: DO NOT STORE AMPUTATED FINGERTIPS IN HYDROGEN PEROXIDE!! Umkay? This is how you should handle your amputated parts.

Anyhoooo......... Sally Sue tried her best to do the right thing with her parts. She meant well so I did not lecture (hard to believe? Pashaw!). She had a great dressing over her hand so I promptly set about packaging the fingers in a dry, sterile, cool environment. Once the parts were comfy I focused my attention on her hand.

I unwrapped the gauze and saw 3 cute little stubby fingers dripping blood. A quick Xray, followed by a few digital blocks (numbing the fingers so you can get in there and really look at them/clean them/play with them/whatever you want you crazy freaks), and I had my way with her fingers.

They were full of dirt and debris. Truck doors are dirty. Ranch trucks are even dirtier. Hay, cow shit, horse shit, dirt, you name it - it's all in the seals of the doors. I did a little cleaning, the doc did a little reattaching, and off to the ortho doc 2 hours away she went. Hopefully they will be able to completely reattach her fingers for her.

She was on vacation from Florida at a dude ranch here in Ory-gone. Hell of a way to spend your paid time off eh?


1 comment:

kimbersRN said...

I have been checking your blog regularly to see when you are posting again. Missed you and I'm glad you're back. I left ER nursing in 2005 to become a DON, but I enjoy the guilty pleasure of reading blogs like yours to reconnect with what it was like. Yours is definitely a favorite!