Sometimes when your on a job, some things just don’t seem right. You can’t put your finger on it, but your suspicions just increase with time…..

Its all a bit weird...

It was the last hour of a very busy shift where we had also had a late meal break when we got called to a local office block to attend to a man in his 40’s who had reduced levels of consciousness….

…We knew that this job wasn’t going well when we couldn’t even find the building.  As we had no idea about when we might find when we get up to the patient, we pretty much took the entire contents of the ambulance up with us. Response Bag, Oxygen and Defibrillator – all pretty heavy kit.

We are presented with a male office worker who is sat on the floor, he does look a little worried but a good colour and looks generally well.  After chatting to him we find out that he suffers from Gout which was a little strange as there was no underlying cause.

He has a confusing history where he lives with his mother during the week about 20mile from the office but lives at his own home some 100 miles away at the weekend, he is no longer with his wife and is due to be looking after his kids that night. His GP is back at home and has been prescribed a whole host of different medications that he can apparently mix and match as he sees fit.  Its not quite clear whether more than one doctor prescribed these medicines or if even his current GP knows about all of his meds…..

All of his clinical observations are within normal parameters, I have done every test that we can do including neurological and stroke assessment, and nothing is obviously wrong.  He is one of those patients that just says that he “doesn’t feel right” and can’t be any more specific.  After about 30mins of questioning we find out that he feels a little dizzy when he stands up or walks and that he has taken his meds on an empty stomach…. Bingo, that’s it!

Just to cover my back I give the Emergency Care Practitioner a call to confirm my suspicions, but luckily I got an Ambulance Nurse who used to work in the local A&E who confirms that very little will be done in A&E for this patient and that he is best to get a lift home, be around friends or family and sleep it off.

During my phone call the patient receives a call from his son, the patients voice changes somewhat, its a bit like he is phoning his employer and is throwing a “sikkie” (not that we would do that of course)….

…it turned into an award winning performance of the proverbial dying swan, telling his 12 year old son that he couldn’t take him to youth group tonight due to the fact that he was currently with Paramedics and nearly had to go to hospital, he really really laboured these points and was only one step away from saying that he had nearly died – I’m sure of it!

Do you think that something wasn’t quite right here….?

(I’m not sure how this post will read as its mostly based on feelings and observations at the time)