Estoy trabajando mucho.

Had my own mass causality yesterday.

It started out by simply being a Monday. That right there is a bad day on the trauma service as inevitably the hospital has filled up over the weekend and needs major decompression. As if the conveyor belt stalls each weekend and everything gets backed up. So Monday was a bad start. Then it was a busy trauma day on top of that. We were already up to four traumas when an ED nurse runs up to me. There was a 15 passenger van in an accident. Multiple casualties. Multiple nonresponsive. Varying ages. And that's all they know at the moment. Thankfully I had a midlevel with me that day to handle the work, but this was bigger than us two. I sent out a message to my fellow co-residents asking for extra hands, and I messaged my Attending letting him know he needed to show up, and just in case he wasn't fast enough I called one of our critical care fellows. Organized as best I could with the little warning we had, and then the first level one rolled through the doors. I received that one and my attention was then focused to the task in front of me, broken only by each new trauma alert as it was paged out. With each alert an old familiar panic rising from my inability to be in multiple places as once started dancing in the back of my head. But slowly, and one by one a handful of co-residents started showing up able and willing to do anything. My Attending (he did finally show up) encouraged me to start managing everyone rather than running any one trauma. I think back on my co-residents showing up and all working together. It was absolutely chaotic, and at the same time so smooth. Multiple patient's went to the OR, lined up one after the other (trauma, orthopedics, neurosurgery, even OB). I took one of my patient's myself. By the time the mass casuality was handled, all patient's dispo'd, consults called, clearances granted or not granted and I had finally finished with my case it was 4 am.  I remember walking home through the parking lot in a surreal state; That I was going home to sleep knowing full well that my alarm is set for less than 60 minutes later. I did it though, showered, took out my contacts, and snuggled under my covers. All to turn off my brain and finally end the day.

It kind of worked. Being able to wake up and start anew. Relied on caffeine for the rest. I think back on craziness and get choked up with gratitude at my awesome co-residents. At morning report, the other attendings listened to each trauma being presented, eyes getting wider with each one. "Why?" they asked. "Why wasn't a Code Triage called?" I didn't have an answer per se to that question, but I could say my co-residents, they had it handled!

Much love and prayers!