An Adventure

It started with a text on Thursday night from my co- worker Sarah. She asked if I remembered her talking about workshops her mom did with the trauma nursing students at UT where she needs people to come in and be pretend patients. Of course I did. I thought it sounded like lots of fun. She said that her mom was in kind of a bind because someone had called and couldn't make it this Saturday and she asked if I wanted to do it. Something came over me and I immediately said yes! I said something came over me, because this is way, way out of my comfort zone. I would love to be an actress, however the logical part of my brain takes over and I immediately cause myself to back out of anything remotely close to acting! But I said yes to this and there was no backing out!! I immediately called my mom and told her what I had committed to. She said that it sounded like what Stanton (my brother) had to go through when he was in medical school. So, I immediately called him and he knew all about the training and the actors that were brought in to play patients. We talked awhile and he said he wanted to know what my ailment was and wanted to see pictures. By the time Friday rolled around, I was starting to get nervous and wonder what I had signed myself up for, but convinced myself that the worst that could happen was I go and they didn't need me to do anything and I would just turn right back around and go home!

Today, I woke up and was really nervous. Again, I was really wondering what I had gotten myself into :) But it turned out to be the most fun thing I have done in a long time!! It was a blast!!!!! I had so much fun. I got to the hospital at 12:30 pm and they had lunch for us. There were going to be two groups: one group would be patients of nurses and one group would be patients of physicians. I got to be in the group of patients being seen by doctors. There were 6 of us patients, 3 guys and 3 girls. We were all taken back to exam rooms and given scrubs to change into. Depending on our injury, we got scrubs to fit that (mine had a hole in it where a chest wound would be) Then we got makeup. My scenario was intially a man having been stabbed by his wife, but of course that was changed to a wife having been stabbed by her husband in the left chest with a butcher knife. I was brought to a rural county hospital (not a trauma center).

My Part:

I got an AWESOME stab wound applied to me:

All of us "patients" bonded with each other over our various injuries. I had a stab wound, one guy had a head and leg injury, one girl was shot twice, another guy got in a motorcycle accident, another girl was thrown from the car after an accident and the last guy had fallen from scaffolding and had injuries from that. We had lots of time to talk with each other and hang out and admire our injuries! Eventually, we each had a doctor assigned to us who was the doctor who would be administering the test to the physicians renewing their certifications. My doctor was Dr. Lee. She's 30 and she's a 5th year general surgeon. She was totally cool! She's a tiny, spitfire, ball of energy surgeon :) We went over what I was to do and how to react to the physicians coming in to examine me. My symptons behind the sucking chest wound were that I could not breathe and had distended neck veins, my BP was low and my heart rate high. I was in shock and had cyanosis. I was alert though (but I later become unresponsive). The doctors were to start with addressing my wound and making sure they covered their ABC's (airway, breathing and circulation). Then they put a needle into my left chest and then a chest tube. That makes my breathing a little easier , but does not significantly improve it. I become (acting, remember!) unresponsive and then they do an endotrachal intubation because they need to secure an airway. Eventually, a pericardiocentesis (sticking a needle into the pericardium - the sack around the heart - and draining fluid/blood from it) is needed. I'm able to breathe again! But not too much longer after that, I start exhibiting the same symptoms and they have to drain the pericadium again and get me to a trauma center stat! (OK, stat is my word, but I'm channeling my inner "ER" persona!)
Me in full make-up:

The way that the afternoon worked was two physicians would come in at the same time. One was being tested and the other was observing. There were several practice runs. Then one physican would come in at a time and be tested. In between physicians coming in and out, I asked Dr. Lee what the treatment was for my wound beyond them getting me to a trauma center. She said that it would be to get me to the operating room and open my entire chest and do heart surgery, because I had a hole in my heart. Wow - this is a lot more serious then I initially thought :)

There were some interesting situations...one doctor came in and wanted to intubate me when I was still alert and Dr. Lee said that by doing that they would have killed me because of making something else worse (and since I'm no doctor, I can't even begin to remember what it was!) Another doctor didn't know how to do a pericardiocentesis and stopped in her tracks. Dr. Lee kept telling her, "she's getting worse" "She's dying..." And I guess I would have, if I didn't get the pericardiocentesis. Another doctor kept having to do the pericardiocentesis because Dr. Lee said it kept filling up and I kept getting worse...even when I got into the helicopter to go to the trauma center - that's when this doctor said, "I'm not in the helicopter with her!" :) Thankfully these scenarios were all in the practice runs and not the actual test. I did the same scenario over and over again and I began hoping that every doctor would get it right but when they skipped something or forgot something, I would wince and want to say "No! You forgot to put the chest tube in!" Or, "Don't forget to give me a tetanus shot!" Or, "Remember to cover me up so I don't get hypothermia!" I might have started thinking I was a doctor ;) Dr. Lee told me that the pericardiom would continue to fill up with fluid/blood until surgery, so they'd have to keep sticking the needle into my heart and draining it (again - all pretend, I wasn't actually stuck with any needle!) That's not really possible because to get me from the ER to the helicopter to the trauma center, they couldn't physically keep doing that, so that's where putting a catheter into the wound would save the day. It would do the job of draining the fluid until surgery. I'm probably not explaining this all correctly, so if you're a doctor and reading this, you're probably laughing! The main takeaway was that I didn't die - although Dr. Lee said I came close a couple of times (during the practice runs!) and all the physicians passed their recertification. And in the end - that's all that matters! Of course for me, all that matters is that I had fun!!! And fun is exactly what I had. It didn't hurt that I got paid for it as well :) I met some amazing people too. There were also some cute doctors :) I was really happy the cutest doctor of all, was the one who (after many doctors before him forgot) said that I would need lots of blankets to prevent hypothermia. Hey - it's the little things and I'm all about staying warm! Of course - this was all pretend. The conditions were real and what they would do to treat the conditions were real and the physicians tests were real, but I wasn't hurt or otherwise injured and all my wounds were fake. And so my acting debut came to end. From 12:30-7:30 I was a trauma patient and loved every minute of it!! Acting is so much fun and hanging out with doctors - totally awesome! One of the doctors who was being tested said that I looked exactly like one of the doctors on "Grey's Anatomy" - that was definitely a highlight of the day :) As I was leaving, there was a doctor there (dressed in full scrubs, mask, badges...everything) that saw me walking with the walker. He asked what was wrong and I got to tell him about dystonia. It turns out he is one of the trauma surgeons at UT. He said he didn't know that much about neuro and had never heard of dystonia, but he seemed fascinated by it. I have to say, it was kind of cool telling a trauma surgeon all about my neurological problem and knowing more about it than he did! Today was an awesome adventure!!

The set up:

Saline IV:

Me with distended neck veins (the blue on my face is supposed to represent cyanosis):