Walking without a pulse

[Almostmedic]

There are a few of these LVAD pt's in my area. They are really proactive with their medical needs. They usually stop by the fire stations every so often to drop of educational documents on how to care for them in an emergency situation.

The first time I heard of them I saw this layperson driving like a bat out of hell into the ER with a weird box on their hip and a siren sounding. After asking around it turns out it was their LVAD running out of batteries. I remember thinking if that was my life line I would sure as hell always have a spare battery on me haha.

[dstevens58]

My best friend had an LVAD in place until he got his heart transplant. He did not have the LVAD for a long time, as it pushed him up at the top of the transplant list. The distance between me and the hospital where he was located was too far for me to explore the device any further. The next time I saw him was after the transplant.

[Arctickat]

I thought of this thread for some reason last night while I was swearing at a doctor who didn't want us to transport a septic post op pneumonia patient until his BP was 100 systolic. An hour later it was still in the 70s over 40s, and he was in increasing resp distress because his legs were raised. Umm...yeah, he was in shock because he couldn't breath....sigh. I finally went to the doc and told him we were leaving, with the patient for the 1:45 transport to the ICU.

anyhoo, back on topic....what would the SPO₂ look like? My no sleep tonight common sense tells me that there would be a digital reading, but no waveform or heart rate. What have you guys seen?

Edited July 7, 2012 by Arctickat

[Kiwiology]

Trev you dork leave the poor doctor alone he is probably having a brain meltdown from the lack of Tim's in the middle of nowhere SK

[Arctickat]

Yeah, well, I still haven't been to bed yet because as soon as I got home at 0410 I had to start filling 11 SCUBA cylinders for the PADI dive class for today at 0800. At 30 min a tank you can do the math...class was late. Spent all day playing yoyo in 20 feet of water. If I get called there again only to find something that makes me wanna lose my mind it'll be an interesting evening.

I'd have bought him some Timmy's if it would smarten him up, but he's leaving soon anyways. It's odd though. It seems that every time I go to this community to pick up a patient, someone pulls such an astoundingly boneheaded move that I wonder why the patient isn't dead already.

Ok...I'm off to beddy bye. Don't think I'll need any of your bedtime valiums.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Arctickat