Why you so mean Michael?
You know what?
More often than not, I don’t want to bother or be bothered by anyone, and it’s not for any other reason than; I’m introverted as hell and I am content just doing what I need to do to get through the day and don’t mind being lost in my own world. I love taking pictures- pictures of the world through a glass lens for free and pictures of really sick hearts with piezoelectric crystals for a fee. I like sick hearts because I know that the person will most likely be on a vent and I won’t have to talk to anyone, (except on days when the nurses feel extra chatty about the last tech who just ruined their day because they were oh so busy and the tech was oh so needy {nod my head and smile}). These extra sick patients also tend to, but not always, have other underlying problems that most people don’t want to deal with in a normal shift (TB, C-Diff, or the ever dreaded scabies) so I take them with glee in my heart. I feel like as I get older I could go an entire day without saying a word to anyone, except when it comes to AIDET, and no one would be the wiser. I’m actually trying it out in small amounts here and there as a test to my will power to remain silent and to not get myself fired when all I wanted to do was work and not talk about how our new sanitizing wipes are turning our brand new machines cigarette smoke yellow from their original medical grade white.
Hmmm. I almost really don’t even feel like writing this here right now.
Today I get to work ready to rock and roll after stopping at Publix to get some eye drops, and there it is, the same old same, no one is doing enough, work harder, give us more, do this and don’t do that or else and then a well written “GO TEAM GO!”. That isn’t how I wanted to start my shift. I’d prefer just saying hi to our great secretaries, maybe bat my eyes at them so they smile at my ugly mug and page me when there are cool stat studies that need to be done, getting my supplies, cleaning my machine if someone else touched it while I was away at jury duty, and going to work. Really, there are times I feel like I am losing my love for what I do when the chiefs forget we are working with sick humans who have people who love and care for them looking over our shoulders asking ten thousand questions and not just numbers on a computer screen. They see an MRN and I see a grandma ready to leave her grandkids forever, they see one more test for the bottom line and I see someone who had a clot found by echo, then dissolved with meds and can now go home after one last look inside and a high five. I don’t want to lose feeling of holy crap that guy who is doing laps around the unit today because I called a doctor about something I saw and didn’t let him off the phone until he said he’ll call someone as soon as we hang up, but if I won’t let him off the phone there is nothing he can do. “Use your cell phone I’m staying on the line.”
Today, some, my wife and kids, coworkers, that homeless guy who asked for a sip of my coffee, could say I was walking around with a chip on my shoulder. (I didn’t sleep well last night and calling out isn’t an option.) Half way through the day while chanting to myself “I need to shave my face to save a life, 8 shaves a day keeps the bankers away.” I had to go to the heart transplant unit to do an echo on a post transplant patient. Some post transplants have awesome pictures and some make you want to quit your job. This lady I had to do – we will call Betsy (after my dog whom I like a lot… give me a break. I needed a name and the dog was biting my ponytail so bam). Betsy was laying in the oh so comfortable hospital bed with blinders on trying to catch some z’s and here I come with my big fancy brand new yellow and white machine. Betsy was happy to see me since she had been waiting for an echo for a couple days now. I introduced myself and she remembered me from before her transplant. Yes I get to see the before and afters a lot. I set up my machine, hooked up my lead wires to synchronize my cine loops to her heart, lubed up the probe with freezing cold gel and started the echo. Betsy lay there asleep; while imaged her heart, I was about fifteen pictures in to the test and I hit the continuous wave Doppler and Betsy hears her new heart for the first time. Continuous Wave Doppler listens to the blood moving inside a persons heart along a chosen beam path and creates an audible sound that can be heard by anyone near enough to care.
She gasps for air, says “Is that my heart?” while quickly lifting her blindfold to see what I was seeing. I say “yes that’s your heart”.
I turn the over sized and underused screen so she can see better; I exit out of Doppler and showed her the black and white grainy 2 dimensional image of her new heart. I tell her what she sees is her heart in motion and I don’t make eye contact with her as she begins to weep. She rested her hand on my hand that held the imaging probe and, she sobbed and asked again “Is that really my heart? It’s so beautiful.”
She cried some more and I held the image for her to see as long as she desired. A few minutes past and as her breathing normalized I was about to continue my study and she asked. “Can I hear it again?”
“Heck yeah you can.”
I turned up the volume and Dopplered the heck out of her heart. I took my time imaging Betsy’s heart while she cried herself to sleep today because my time with her was way more important than a “we expect eight studies a day damnit.”
Betsy expected one study today and that is what I gave her. This lady got to see and hear her new heart pump her blood through her body and will never forget that. (she recorded a few seconds on her cell phone.)
Betsy is why I do echos, vent patients keep me away from the masses and my coworkers so they only think I’m a jerk and not given the chance to see me be a jerk.
Introverted empaths unite… well maybe tomorrow.
Michael Trump 