(no subject)
As if I had not delivered enough pain on myself, this bit of something came to mind while YM-ing with dreamlessness-sempai.
The surgical patient from several posts down was correctly noted as not intubated. Normally someone with this kind of operation would already have an endotracheal tube, a tube straight from the mouth to the windpipe. The patient would be under artificial respiration, a machine doing the breathing, for the duration of the operation. This is a setup for general anesthesia (when the patient is fully asleep through the whole thing).
This is not the case with this patient. He is just given oxygen through the mask. He is allowed to do his own breathing. While this is a good sign, it is also a not-so-good situation.
This patient is NOT under general anesthesia because the patient is currently unconscious. To put him under general anesthesia would kill him.
Therefore he was placed under regional anesthesia, anesthesia applied to the area involved only, a setup used in Caesarian-sections. It's less dangerous on the patient, it's faster to apply on the emergency-room level, but it also means the surgeons have to work faster, in less-than-ideal conditions.
On the up side, he IS doing his own breathing. His situation is not so terrible that he needs mechanical ventilation, artificial breathing.
He's unconscious due to hypovolemic shock, loss of blood. His vital signs gave them hope that if they controlled the bleeding he would make it. Therefore once blood supply is stabilized and things have been fixed, he'll come out of it soon enough. That may take more than twenty-four hours, though.
All this just goes to show that the author did her research, at least asked help from the right people. While painful, this is really nice to see.
Sorry for being so geeky.
EK 8 )
The surgical patient from several posts down was correctly noted as not intubated. Normally someone with this kind of operation would already have an endotracheal tube, a tube straight from the mouth to the windpipe. The patient would be under artificial respiration, a machine doing the breathing, for the duration of the operation. This is a setup for general anesthesia (when the patient is fully asleep through the whole thing).
This is not the case with this patient. He is just given oxygen through the mask. He is allowed to do his own breathing. While this is a good sign, it is also a not-so-good situation.
This patient is NOT under general anesthesia because the patient is currently unconscious. To put him under general anesthesia would kill him.
Therefore he was placed under regional anesthesia, anesthesia applied to the area involved only, a setup used in Caesarian-sections. It's less dangerous on the patient, it's faster to apply on the emergency-room level, but it also means the surgeons have to work faster, in less-than-ideal conditions.
On the up side, he IS doing his own breathing. His situation is not so terrible that he needs mechanical ventilation, artificial breathing.
He's unconscious due to hypovolemic shock, loss of blood. His vital signs gave them hope that if they controlled the bleeding he would make it. Therefore once blood supply is stabilized and things have been fixed, he'll come out of it soon enough. That may take more than twenty-four hours, though.
All this just goes to show that the author did her research, at least asked help from the right people. While painful, this is really nice to see.
Sorry for being so geeky.
EK 8 )