#51 - Hospital patient

This is a story about a patient that I met when I was doing one of my PT school rotations.  I was working at Methodist hospital in Houston on the acute care service.  Keep in mind that I was 20 years old, and was still learning.  To date, I have found, that there is really nothing as intimidating as IV's, catheders, pulse ox monitors, leg pumps, blood pressure monitors, oxygen, neck braces, nurses call buttons, and a 70 year old man in a hospital gown.  Especially when they are all tangled up together and all beeping at the same time.  Also, especially when your job is to get them up out of bed and get them to walk for the first time since anesthesia.

Anyway, I had already done this a few times that day, so my clinical instructor obviously thought that I was ready to fly solo.  She reviewed the chart with me, and sent me off to his room saying, "Just be sure that his neck does not move because he just had a cervical fusion."  O-K!

I go to the room, make a little small talk, untangle all the wires, and we're off.  Roll to your side - Check!
Sit up - Check!
Put on the hard neck brace - Check!
Stand up bed side with me----Wait, Wait, Wait! I forgot to move the catheder...
OK, Stand up bed side with me - Check!

So far, so good.  Me and him.  In the hospital room alone.  Doing well.  So then I decided that we would stand again, and then take a few shuffling steps while we turned and sat in the bedside chair.  He agreed.  This is where things got a little tricky!

We stood up.  We shuffled 1-2 steps.  Then, his sock-clad feet just sorta started to slip/slide between my legs.  Both of them at the same time.  To say it was a fall, would be incorrect.  About 1/2 way down, I was looking at him, and he was looking at me.  I said, "Can you get your legs back underneath you and stand back up?"  He said, "I don't think so.  Can you lift me up?"  I said, "I don't think so."  So the mutual decision was made to slowly and gracefully continue to lower ourselves to the floor (hard neck brace and hospital gown in place)

Deep sigh!  Safely to the floor (the nasty hospital room floor) with no neck movement.  But now what?  No help in sight.  I knew that there was no way out and I would have to call for help.  I reached over for the nurses call button.  Palms sweating.  Heart racing.  "May I help you?" asked the nurse.  "Umm, yes ma'am,  this is Monique, the student PT, can you please come and help me?  Mr. Hospital Gown/Neck Surgery patient is on the floor and I need some help getting him back up." I said very politely.

While we were waiting for the calvery to show up, the very very nice 70 year old man in the hospital gown said to me, "It's been a long time since I've been on the floor with a pretty young girl without my pants on."  Nice...

That's when all hell broke loose.  About 6 women came running in, and within 15 seconds, had the man lying down on the floor, put a sheet underneath him, and then did a dead man lift to get him back in the bed.  Safe!  All wires still attached where they should be.  They looked at me and said, "Now, who are you again?"

Deeper sigh!  I then had to tell my clinical instructor, call the patient's doctor and tell him what happened, and then write up an incident report.  Thank God it all turned out ok.  When I went to check on the patient the next day, he introduced me to his family as his girlfriend...Nice. 

Moral of the story... Hospital floors, anesthesia, and socks Do Not Mix!