There's a boy on our Vascular Surgery service currently. He hasn't been in the hospital the whole month so far, but... he's been there more often than not. The etiology of his disease presents quite the conundrum, specifically because no one is quite sure what exactly the etiology is. One can tell he's a good kid. Happy, making jokes, close with his parents. And every time I walk out of his room, I'm thinking to myself, "He has no idea what this means for him." He's been told, but you can tell he doesn't understand. A lifetime of anticoagulation, and with that no sports. A string of never ending doctor's appointments, and future returns to the OR. He doesn't realize just how life altering this will be for him. And that makes me sad, because one day he will realize. And I'm afraid with that realization he will no longer be happy.
Over the past two weeks, I've picked up on the fact that Vascular is a service that tends to hold onto its patients. The exact opposite of other services, for example trauma. On the trauma service if a patient is on the floor, the biggest question is disposition. Where is the patient being discharged to? And, what needs to happen to make that discharge happen? It's also a service where the patient's never want to leave. Vascular on the other hand likes to sit on their patients. There are currently multiple patients that ask me every day if they can go home. I discuss their daily plan with them, to which they always respond, "okay, and then after that, then can I go home?" At which point I defer to future plan making based on the days events. If it were up to me I would set them up with the home services they yet needed and, yes, let them go. But it's not up to me, and unfortunately I don't see discharge anytime soon in their future.
Much Love.
No comments:
Post a Comment