Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Countdown is Scaring Me!

I am off work from now until Tuesday night, the 3rd.  It may seem like a long time, but in this week, besides all the Halloween preparations, is squeezed in a 3-hr mandatory inservice, a lab draw at the hospital, new tires for the car, an oil change and fuse replacement for the truck, a grooming session for Tandi, and attendance at "The Woman in Black" at the local Playhouse. They tried to work in another MD appointment on Fri. but it didn't work out, thank goodness. 

Oh, and the lab draw on Friday?  Someone misread or misreported the results.  The Vitamin K was the absolute wrong thing to give J-Man, as his level of the blood thinner was sub-therapeutic--too low. And he's gotten the vitamin K all weekend.

When I got to work last night, I pulled his results up on the computer and found the error.  I placed a call to his doc, who was very upset, and we restarted J-Man back on the injectable blood thinner.  You know, the $90 a pop kind, that we were fortunate enough to be given. Thankfully, we had some left, and someone covered my patients for me at work so I could drive home and give him a dose and rush right back to work.  More labs were drawn this morning, and so far, everything is A-OK.  We just have to start all over with the Coumadin again.

Tomorrow it's due to rain.  Hard.  All day and all night.  Did I need any more interruptions in my Halloween preps??? Maybe it'll be drier by Wed. afternoon and I can put more out and get the lighting arranged.  Sorry there are no pictures yet.  I worked out there for a while, but my neighbors kept coming by to comment on the goings on and ask about J-Man.  One of them remarked that I don't seem to have as much out this year as usual.

Wonder why that is?

5 comments:

Cathi said...

Isn't he lucky you're a nurse and found that error!! Hope things start go more smoothly for you!

Lori in South Dakota said...

Glad you caught the error!! Maybe a "mud monster" would be appropriate this year. I remember an old movie--was it called "creature from the black lagoon??"

MightyMom said...

so how'd that happen when you had both the lab and the hospital draw and report the blood result??

what lab are they screwing up anyway? PT-INR??

AnnieO said...

Good heavens! He is a lucky man that these things got double-checked by you. Wow, that's a serious error and I hope they get a session in the timeout box :)

audreypawdrey said...

It is awesome that you know what he should and shouldn't have! It is scary to think about how I would never have even suspected it was wrong. Glad you caught it!