Hey EC, haven't posted in a while. I just need to a place to vent and get some things off my chest. Sorry in advance if this is long. First of all I work in an Emergency Room. I'm the guy that splints your broken bones, cleans out your cuts, and bandages you up. I work in a support role for the nursing and physician staff. Most of the time I love my job. There's nothing better to me than putting a smile on someones face who has nothing to smile about. Two weeks ago there was an incident. I was assisting two nurses that were giving an infant antibiotics. Two shots, one in each thigh. I was holding the kid's knees and hands so he wouldn't wiggle around too much. Standard procedures there. Here's where it all goes wrong. The nurse that was on my side was withdrawing the needle from the kid's thigh and instead of sheathing the needle into the protective case right away she pulled it across my wrist leaving me with a relatively deep laceration about an inch long. Stuck by a dirty needle, just my luck.... I didn't make a big scene in the room, I just left quietly and washed my cut and bandaged it. I notified my supervisor and checked in to the ER to be seen. I had my baseline labs drawn and discussed prophylaxis anti-retro viral therapy. I decided to take the medication since the parents are frequent fliers in our ER and are known IV drug users. Definitely not the most responsible people in the world. The nurse came up to me later and said she was sorry and didn't even know she stuck me. Well thanks for not paying attention to where the fuck the needle your holding is. Had she been paying attention I would not have gotten stuck or she would have known she had stuck me. Now here is what has me fuming. The protocol is that we obtain consent from the source patient for HIV/Hepatitis testing to see if they are carriers. We'll my wonderful co-workers discharged the patient from the ER before this was done. Way to fucking go co-workers you just screwed up the most important part. It would be nice to know what I'm up against here. The hospital has been calling the patients parents and leaving messages every day for two weeks now to bring the kid back for testing. They haven't answered or returned a call. So much for common decency for a fellow human being. The medication I'm taking is Combivir and Viracept. Both are used to treat HIV and are used as a prophylaxis to HIV exposure. These meds are horrible. The side effects are brutal. I have the worst diarrhea ever. I can't seem to get away from the bathroom. I'm constantly nauseated, vomiting occasionally. I have a never ending headache. I'm so tired and fatigued that its hard to get up in the morning and make it through the day. I have no appetite. I have lost 10lbs in the past two weeks. I pretty much feel like crap 24 hours a day. Good news is that besides the side effects, my body is handling the meds well. My blood counts and liver function tests are good. I just need to power through 2 more weeks on these meds then I can stop them. I'm not looking forward to the next 6 months of wondering if I'm going to test positive or not. It's going to be very nerve wracking and I think that the worst part. Anyways just needed to vent. Thanks for reading. I could really use a hug right now. I'm just very stressed out.
Hug! You need it, so I'll ignore my anti-hugness for the moment I hope you come out clean at the end, so vent all you need to get through the now.
Well let me be cheesy here for a minute: When everything seems dark, you must be the light within. That always helps me. I know you are probably freaking out right now, and I would be too. Most of my family works in a hospital setting, my mom is a phlebotomist, and my sister is a surgical tech, both of which have been stuck accidentally. Now this sounds a little to wishy washy for many people to hear but I think the reason they came out fine is because they believed the would. Believe in yourself, your going to be ok, no matter how this turns out!
Well let me be cheesy here for a minute: When everything seems dark, you must be the light within. That always helps me. I know you are probably freaking out right now, and I would be too. Most of my family works in a hospital setting, my mom is a phlebotomist, and my sister is a surgical tech, both of which have been stuck accidentally. Now this sounds a little to wishy washy for many people to hear but I think the reason they came out fine is because they believed the would. Believe in yourself, your going to be ok, no matter how this turns out!
