I'm so glad ...

R

redhead

At the Start
Joined
Mar 1, 2008
Messages
2,103
... that the anti-skive police have not found this forum!

I typed the dictation for the consultant on-call last night as a favour to another secretary in the department. The first couple of patients were pretty routine e.g. old lady slipped and fell sustaining a broken neck of femur - usual fare for an orthopaedic ward. Bad enough for the patient and family, but generally not life-threateningly serious.

Then things got a bit more serious when he was called in last night to the victims of a road accident. This is not the sort of department where harrowing or tragic stuff happens every day the way it does in Oncology (cancer care/treatment). However, this had him choked and me crying as I typed.

I cannot give many details for fear of breaching confidentiality, but the image with which he was confronted still choked him up 20 hours later and was enough to have me welling up as I typed it. He arrived just after a couple were stretchered into A&E to find a man with very serious injuries trying to see and speak to his wife - who had died whilst in the ambulance - and getting more and more agitated that he was getting no response. There were other details that added to the distress but I will not disclose them.

Suffice it to say that having typed the notes and filed them on the Ward notes, I returned to my office in a bit of a state, decided to take a break and logged on to Talking Horses.

Thanks for brightening a very upsetting day, everyone.
 
A big hug, as Troodles says, to you, and to your consultant. Anyone who's ever dealt with distressing cases will always find one situation more than the others really gets to them. So sorry you both had a really difficult time, Redhead. Give yourself a nice treat for being so caring, and consider yourself hugged by Trudi and me. (Which, if you knew us, might see you off to A&E yourself!)
 
Thank you both, although I think the families involved need far more comforting than I do. One has lost a wife and mother, the other has lost a daughter. Their children were also with them but are at another hospital specialising in paediatrics, so they aren't even together.

I can walk away, they can't.

As you say, Krizon, some cases touch you far more than others and this one has hit our office and the ward staff quite hard, things were very subdued up there yesterday.

Oh well, I can do my bit to help by making sure that things go smoothly for them on the more mundane side of things like insurance and legislation etc. Sounds so trivial and unfeeling, but such things can cause a lot of angst in someone already suffering serious injury let alone a bereavement as well.

Thank you both again for caring. xx

Thanks again to Talking Horses for providing much-needed relief during a difficult day.
 
Appreciated all the same Michael.

We normally only have to deal with the physical side of things e.g. cut you open, fix the broken bit, stitch you up and send you on your way. Such harrowing emotional damage is difficult to do anything about and makes one feel so darned useless.
 
But you most definitely aren't useless, Redhead - every small action you take to make the wheels go round smoothly makes it just that bit less traumatic for the survivors when they start picking up the reins again. Seems to me it's the small things which seem insurmountable to a grieving partner or parent and the less of those there are to deal with, maybe the better it will be for them dealing with the big stuff.

Thank heavens there are folk like you out there who chose a vocational career and for what it's worth, I for one am extremely grateful to you.
 
You're all so kind! Thank you again.

Now can someone tell something funny (or funny/rude) 'cos I'm getting all unnecessary again! :lol:
 
Echo what everyone else says - some cases really do affect you. Hope you're bearing up ok, easier said than done I know.
 
Balance restored yesterday afternoon. I went down to Fracture Clinic Reception to drop off the post and held the door open for a gentleman pushing a wheelchair in which sat a lady with a broken leg. He got to the reception window and said loudly that he wanted to return some damaged goods! I can't relay how funny it actually was as he went on to say that she (his wife) was guaranteed for at least 70 years and that he wanted her either mended pronto or another model ("any chance of a newer one?"). All said with a straight face.

Maybe he really did mean it! :blink:
 
Great stuff! (I don't know how DO's managed to get a smiley to work for him, but consider I have, too!) :))
 
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