Thursday 2 April 2015

BLEEDING!

Day 2 - and here we go!

There are some symptoms that bring a patient to the hospital no matter how small. These symptoms include: Bleeding, severe pain, difficulty with breathing, loss of consciousness or altered sensorium/function, occasionally fever, seizures e.t.c. Of all these, I believe the one symptom that triggers the most amount of fear in people no matter how old they are is bleeding. It seems to be saying, “hey, I’m outside, I’m supposed to be inside the body”. It is the symptom that gets even the laziest doctor off his a** everytime.

A little story to explain what I mean; Growing up in Nigeria, every Christmas, I travelled back east with my family (still do). It was always so exciting because you get to meet cousins that you haven’t seen the whole year and spend the ones you see occasionally and almost every waking moment with them. On one of such occasions doing what we do best, the game for the day was “whose turn is it to ride the car?” The car is a small toy car that can only take one person at a time and it couldn’t move itself anymore. But no, we had to put a smaller person on the bonnet of the car while a bigger person pushed both of them from behind. A small cousin sitting on the bonnet that day wasn’t so lucky because she fell and scraped her knee. She was whimpering at first, until she saw a tiny speck of blood on her knees, then it became an all out weeping and screaming “see blood!”. It took the super powers of her dad to calm her down.


Once in a while, you ask a doctor who just finished call how it was and he/she replies “bloody”. What we mean most of the time is “busy”. I had one of those bloody calls before, but not bloody as in hectic, bloody as bleeding every turn you take. A woman is brought into the emergency room and she complains of bleeding, I do a pregnancy test which comes out positive, it turns out she’s having a miscarriage, she may require an evacuation. Another lady is brought in obviously pregnant and obviously bleeding, no need for too much questions it’s an antepartum haemorrhage, she’s moved straight to the labour ward for the doctors there to take over management following the possible cause. 

A little breather, and another is brought in almost unconscious, she’s pregnant, first trimester and bleeding. Diagnosis came out to be a ruptured ectopic gestation and straight into the theatre she went. To cut the long story short, there was almost no kind of bleeding I didn’t see that day. But the funniest was when a young lady walked into the ER, says she’s having a miscarriage. Then after taking her history (story of her illness), examination and a pregnancy test, I realized it was just the return of her normal menstrual period since her last child birth. That was a relief and an actual breather in such a BLOODY call.

What is your reaction to bleeding? Does it scare the lights out of you or what? I’d love to know. Also, what symptoms scare you the most? Just leave your replies in the comment box below.

Cheers…….

18 comments:

  1. This is an interesting topic Dr. Kere. I can recall playing with my mates when I was a boy. We played rough. On two occasions I was hurt and required stitches (about six) each time. The wound came from striking my head on a wall and falling on some broken glass. They were bloody situations. In each case I was calm a ever. Years latter when I was in college a lab required that prick our fingers for blood. I had no problem doing it, but my lab partner began to sweat and became light headed at the sight of his own blood. Like I said I find this to be an interesting topic.

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    1. Wow! Seriously, I don't know how anybody can get male children to play calmly. Glad you came out of it okay. About the sight of blood, I guess that's why I'm a doctor,however, too much of it is nauseating.

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  2. I'm hemophobic and terrified of blood, so bleeding, not so great for me.

    Good luck with the 2015 A to Z Challenge!
    A to Z Co-Host S. L. Hennessy
    http://pensuasion.blogspot.com

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    1. Sorry to hear about that. Thanks for the wish.

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  3. I'm actually more squeamish around blood than I used to be. Before, I used to be rather fascinated by getting my blood taken. Now, not so much. I blame it on cutting myself rather severely a few times too many. ;)

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    1. Lol, that happens too Sara. Thanks for commenting.

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  4. Bleeding when you're pregnant is a frightening thing to go through. As far as I know, I'm okay around blood, but then again...I haven't been around as much blood as you have.

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    1. You are right Chrys, bleeding in pregnancy is a frightening thing to go through. For the everyone involved - patient, their relatives and the healthcare team.

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  5. This may have been some kind of trigger for me :) Well written. Thanks.

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  6. I'm okay around blood, can get my blood drawn just fine, watch other people get their blood drawn, see blood on an injury, etc.

    betty

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  7. I definitely fall in the category of not liking the site of my own blood. I get all woozy and have to sit down. Other peoples blood however does not bother me.
    TheFrogLady

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  8. My grandparents are doctors, so not a lot of things scare people in my family, certainly not bleeding... There are a lot of interesting stories, though.

    @TarkabarkaHolgy from
    Multicolored Diary - Epics from A to Z
    MopDog - 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary

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  9. Think maybe slightly more squeamish than use to be. Was time ehen could talk guts & gory while calmly eating pizza or spaghetti w/o batting an eye.

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    1. I still find it difficult to swallow food in the of guts and gory. Just can't seem to get used to it.

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