OF VEINS and CANNULAS.......

 It been over two years since I've completed my nursing training and since then I have worked in the ER or the Emergency room for over more than a year and after puncturing numerous veins over a span of two years and finally learning to put in cannula without puncturing the vein( though I do have a bad I V  days from time to time) I have developed a sort of morbid fascination with the hands and the veins that courses through them. Many a times if not mostly during a conversation with  I find my eyes wandering towards people's hands and wondering how easy or tough it might be to put in a cannula. Though for records sake the toughest ones are the infants and toddlers (And I have a personal rule of not more than two stabs for kids.) Well some people have large veins and some have barely visible vein some straight and some convoluted ...oh oh there I go again. :) ;)

PAIN AND THE EMERGENCY ROOM

Being a nurse in the ER or the casualty or ED, I come across different patients in varying stages of pain. Some come clutching abdomen, bent over accompanied with 5 relatives literally picking the patient off the floor into the ER gurney, then there are people who come howling with pain literally screaming with anxious family members worrying their minds off along with ours and they have to be forcibly be evicted out. The other patients in the ER casting curious and worried glances wondering why we aren't doing anything for the poor patient in pain.
I often am amazed at the way some people come with stoic expression hardly showing any emotion or letting out any sound to show pain, its only after the examination; palpation to be precise that they evict some sort of a sound or expression to show pain though they might be in agony.
   Well pain is synonymous to the ER.  90% of the patients that come are in some sort of a pain be it a broken bone or a dog bite or abdominal pain or chest pain anything you can think of. And then of course you have some people fake severe pain for analgesia Its not always easy to tell but then someone who comes on a regular basis with the same pain with stable vitals and gets relieved with one particular analgesia .These are some of the signs  to watch out for.Then there are some who come in the middle of the night with headache and fever and want it to be taken as a life threatening emergency. Why dont they just take a paracetamol!!!!
But , at the end of the day its always a wonderful sight to see a patient leaving all smiles and thanks form the ER