When I first arrived at work, I caught up with the day JHO to find out if he has anything to handover to me. 15 minutes into the start of my shift, I heard the Sister's page going off, like this, "*Teet *teet *teet. Cardiac arrest Ward 9." I was thinking to myself, "Oh no."
I ran upstairs to that ward and found the nurses crowding over a patient who I saw the day before with haematemesis. Mind you, this was the first arrest, in which I was the first medical staff there....urggh!! I saw one nurse on top of his bed, while the other trying to fix the bagging stuff. But no one was maintaining patient's airway. So I quickly did the usual head tilt chin lift thing. The nurse on top of the bed was waiting to start compression. I said, "Don't wait, start compressing." The sister who held the arrest page started to hook the patient up to a cardiac monitor. He was in PEA. While they were doing the BLS, I tried to get an ABG. Obviously, I was blindly ramming the needle into his groin, in hope of trying to get a sample from his femoral artery. I got a sample, and thought it was a venous one, but I analyse it anyway. I ran for my life to the next block of the hospital to get it analysed.
10 minutes into the resuscitation, the whole arrest team decided that it was really inappropriate to resuscitate the patient. The registrar was about to call out the time of death, however, my colleague said, "Wait, I can feel a pulse!" Then, the patient started to breathe. However, he only had a GCS of 3. His ABG showed that he was very acidotic and had a potassium of 7!! Immediately, we gave him calcium gluconate and insulin dextrose.
He continued to breathe and survive for another 3 hours, before he left the world. It wasn't fair to the patient to try another round of CPR. I really think it was good for him. He had hepatorenal syndrome and was grossly ascitic. Having said that, I felt quite sad that he left, because for the past few days, he has been annoyingly funny to be with. You get what I mean? He kept swearing at you when you try to go near him, he kept grumbling the moment you need to replace his IV cannula. He shouts, "Doctor, where are you? Oh for fuck sake, why are you doing this to me? If you're not going to remove this catheter, I am going to pull it out from my d**k."
It was funny at that time. But when I saw him lifeless, it felt so strange. Lucky I was in the same ward as the sister who carried the arrest page. See, I do not hold the cardiac arrest page, it was the other night JHO. So I would not know of an arrest until someone informs me about it.
*phew It was really a grand way to start my night shift. The rest of the night was pretty constantly busy, but no one particularly ill.
May he rest in peace.
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