Tuesday, 23 September, 1997 08:23

I got creamed again last night, but at least I had a good eight hours of sleep under my belt. Unfortunately, it doesn't help any with the raging headache that I've developed. Sleep will do that, though, and ibuprophin.

The problem was, none of the stuff that I did was really interesting, nothing to get my curiosity up, nothing to get the adrenaline going. Just chest xrays on people with coughs and kids with the croup. And CT scans on people with headaches. Just think, people with headaches for six days come into the emergency room, and we are damn near required to do CT scans of their heads, to make sure that they don't have a cerebral bleed. Why are we required to do that? Because if they do and we miss it, we get sued big time. And one in a thousand will have a bleed.

And why do these people come in in the middle of the night? Because their pain has increased so much they can't stand it? No... because they hope that we aren't busy, and they will get treated faster. True, in many cases.

Don't get me wrong, there are legitimate reasons for coming in to the ED in the middle of the night with a headache... I've seen many of them. And at least fifty percent of the people who do so are legitimate.

It has been raining steadily for the past 36 hours, and will continue into Wednesday morning. We really need the rain, I guess. People are always telling me when it rains, "It's great sleeping weather! You should love it!" I have to tell them, "All weather is great sleeping weather when you work nights." It is hard for regular people to understand... they think that going home and sleeping is somehow slothful, or a treat, when you've worked a twelve-hour night. It ain't a treat, it's a damned necessity!

I was just disturbed by something hitting the back deck... a large dead branch had become waterlogged enough to break free from its perch high in the maple in the back yard. It made a small mess, it mostly just broke up when it hit the deck. It was a very rotten branch.

Enough, already! It's a great day for sleeping... and I only have tonight to work!