Power outage. Very common in Mexico. In fact, my morning was very reminiscent of the time I lived there. It made me smile this morning when I turned on the faucet and water came out. Wasn’t always so when a small tinaco was all the water reserve until power came back on. The power outage affected the whole hospital campus, which unfortunately included the campus housing and therefore my small studio.
It was rather surreal to see the hospital so handicapped. The main hospital generators failed as well. Therefore we had only the back up of the back up. At one point frantic messages were sent out to all the residents to respond to the ICUs immediately. Ventilators failing, extra hands were needed to bag patients. This didn’t last long. They have a back up of the back up to the back up. No one died... that I know of.... jk! I think...
Finding a computer that would turn on was difficult. And once you did find one, if it was hooked up to a printer that would print, was the next question to ask. As it was June 1st, many of us residents arrive early to spend extra time going over our new patients. But today we spent that extra time just trying to find our needed information! I am on the trauma team this month. My second challenge of the day was a bleeding patient that needed an emergent procedure. But... without reliable energy source the Interventional Radiology suites were not given clearance to perform any procedures. Hours spent going back and forth between services and different Attendings, and possible suggested solutions, each one worse than the prior. All the while, patient still bleeding!!! Third challenge of the day of course while trying to figure out disposition for our bleeding patient is traumas. Splitting off to handle them, and then to round again. Fourth challenge, and honestly could have potentially been the worse was my lack of caffeine. No power in my appartment, so I couldn’t make my own, then the cafeteria closed due to no power, so the day was well underway and my headache started. Still without a chance to break-off, I continued on despite the headache and tried to tough it out. But when I became nauseous I finally forced myself to stop and take care for a second. I could just picture myself start to vomit, and realized I would be of no use to anyone at that point. However, forcing yourself to drink something while nauseous, and then keep it down as well... easier said than done. Made me break out in a sweat and my hands shake. But then again that could have just been the fact that the air conditioners weren’t on generator power and the hospital temperature was steadily rising.
All in all, it was quite the welcome back to Westchester!
Much Love!
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