Word: hipping
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hospital, our medical people pulled out all the stops. Cardiology came in because his heart was stuttering. Renal was called because Sandy's muscles - ripped around his broken hip, and squashed by his body weight on the hard floor - were producing myoglobin, which, along with dehydration and low blood pressure, was poisoning his kidneys. In the hospitals where I trained, this case would have been a "save" - a great grand rounds case. But here, especially with no family hovering, the only human audience was the crew taking care...
Eventually, after testing and transfusion, a lot of thought, discussion, writing and worry, the medical guys called me in, told me Sandy's story and asked if I would take care of his hip. He was still in the ICU. But instead of the shriveled, unresponsive mess I expected, there was this big smile and huge handshake from an unshaven but definitely handsome seventysomething guy. Sandy was a big man, broad-shouldered and lantern-jawed - and as pleasant and clubby as could be. He didn't remember anything about lying on the floor for three days; he barely complained about...
...each morning after surgery, Sandy had one consistent message for me: "I gotta get back home." This was a motivated patient with a goal - home. I had started to tell him about rehab - the great majority of our hip fracture patients get a week or so of intensive physical therapy as soon as they are medically stable - but Sandy would have nothing to do with it. "Please don't let them put me in the warehouse - I'm fine, doc - just need to get back to my own bed, feed the cat, catch up on the papers." I didn...
...anything can happen to anyone - the only thing in the world he wants is to be in his house. He was OK there before, and his hip is going to be fine...
...have visited psych facilities and I liked Sandy - I didn't want him in one. No, he didn't remember being on the floor and, yes, he was foggy with details of time. From his first day post-op, he seemed to regard the hip surgery as something in his distant past. But it's so easy to lose track of time. He was good on most everything else - or was he? He was a little wacky the way he went off on stories, but he really wasn't any wackier than so many other people his age - and those...