Yeah, but it’s been a few months. I’m a physician, so I get a few more opportunities than other people, and its kinda expected under certain circumstances.
This is the tale of Shrimplover. He really, really loves shrimp. Unfortunately, he’s allergic to it. But he had some for lunch one day anyway. Then he started to not feel too good. So he drove to my office, where he managed to walk into the lobby, and sit in the first chair he found, as he felt he couldn’t go farther. Didn’t check in, didn’t ask for help. Just sat down.
Fortunately my Physician Assistant was walking by, and noted he wasn’t looking too hot, so she and others dragged him to the treatment room where they put him on the table and got me.
The man was a mass of hives. Even his eyelids were swollen. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy, did our Shrimplover. More ominously, he was bronchospasming to beat the band. So I gave him an injection of adrenaline under the skin while my nurse tried to start an IV. As she’s doing this, Shrimp starts calling out “I’m going, doc, I’m going! I can’t see you anymore!” I look at him, and sweat is running off his face in rivers, and his blood pressure is dropping, while his heart rate is increasing. Hmmm…vascular collapse, suboptimal, especially in my frigging office! Then his blood pressure disappears, he stops breathing, and his heart beat becomes extremely erratic. Technically, he is a Pulseless Nonbreather, and in many jurisdictions, he is dead.
Fortunately I’d stuffed the cuffs of my pants into my socks, so nothing leaked out. The RN had just gotten the iv in, so I gave her a syringe of adrenaline to push directly into his venous system, which she did, and with a large fluid push behind it, it reaches his heart. While we wait and I contemplate starting CPR, knowing it’s not real effective in vascular collapse.
But I’m spared from physical exercise when, after about 30 seconds, Shrimp levitates off the table, clutching his chest, and hollering “my heart doc, it’s gonna explode! My heart can’t take it!” Pressure’s up, heart’s pumping effectively, soon I’ll be able to change my pants!
He stabilizes in about 5 minutes, the paramedics come in, and ask why the hell they should take such a healthy-looking guy off to the hospital, I show them Shrimp’s rhythm strip, and they quiet down and transport him. He does fine.
I sit, do paper work, and decompress. I decide to see one last patient before my shift ends. I enter another room to find a young woman crying hysterically. What’s the matter? “I found a bug in my food! I might have eaten it! Maybe I did eat one! I need an antidote for eating a bug!”
She shows me her salad. Sure enough, there’s a potato bug drowned in the dressing. I reassure her. I tell her “in many parts of the world bugs are an important source of protein for people’s diets! This bug is not poisonous! In fact, this bug is related to shrimp. Are you allergic to shrimp?”
The above all really happened a few months ago, especially the lady with the bug in her salad.