Half day

Alhamdulillah I finally get my half day off this week. I had a feeling my registrar initially planned to not come today (her grandfather in law died last night) but she came anyway because if she didn't I'd have to work on my half day off yet again and I'd be totally pissed off you know!

It was a good thing she came though. One of the patients got a new stroke. I arrived first this morning so I went to check this patient out. Totally disoriented. She couldn't even tell me her name. Her right side was totally weak. So I diagnosed extension of stroke and ordered an urgent CT brain. When my registrar arrived, I told her about it and she was panicky. We had to send the patient to the emergency department. That took nearly 1.5 hours to organise. Imagine that! Just think of the red tape and paperwork involved.

This is the 3rd time I actually saw an evolving stroke. Yesterday she was perfectly fine. It was her birthday too. Today she was a totally different person. There was nothing we could really do except for the brain CT which would only confirm what we already know. She is already on aspirin, therapeutic enoxaparin and recently warfarinised.

She is probably the first of my patients that I actually made a diagnosis for. I admitted her (she came from the main hospital after a stroke), diagnosed a new onset AF and now the new stroke. The registrar said well done. Good for me, but not for the poor patient I'm afraid.