Well, this day was pretty much a diamond. Quite a jewel, it was. I had to go in early, and again, I slept poorly, but I did get up on time. And made it to work on time, too. Karen took me in and dropped me off, it's really nice having a chauffeur. Gee, I hope that the spellchecker picks up on that! Karen wouldn't like being called a chuffer, I don't think. Anyway, it was a busy but routine day until late this afternoon, when I got a call from a doctor's office; the doc wanted to send a young man in who was having abdominal pain from an injury, and the doc thought that he probably had a splenic hematoma. Well, the patient didn't get there until after 16:30, and since he was too sick to drink the oral contrast, I had the exam done right about 17:00. And he did have a fractured spleen... the radiologist had me bring the parents and the kid into the reading area, so he could show them what was going on. Not coincidentally, this guy is one of my favorite people... Anyway, after he'd showed them the spleen and they had gone off into the waiting room to wait for the original doc to call, he noticed something else... an odd flap in the aorta, which is the main artery carrying blood from the heart. The damned kid had a dissecting aneurysm! This is something that is very rare, and almost unheard of in kids. What happens is that the aorta (and all arteries, actually) are composed of three muscular layers. What happens with a dissection is that there is a hole in the inner layer, and blood starts going into the space between the first and the second layers. This keeps the blood from getting places where it needs to go, and it's almost always a product of a bad heart valve, not trauma. An event traumatic enough to create an aortic dissection is usually enough to kill the subject... This kid was hurt on Monday night in a football game, got a helmet in the gut. He didn't really appear to be in acute pain, although it was obvious from looking at the films that he had to have been... he either had a very high pain tolerance or was very, very stoic. Or both. Anyway, I rushed the kid over the the ER after I finished the exam... it was a miracle that he'd lasted two days, and I was not wanting him to crash on my table... I left the IV in him, although he wanted it out, naturally. I don't think that he had any idea how sick he was... is. I just called the hospital, he is still in the ER and relatively stable. I figgered that he'd be in surgery by now. I would imagine that he would be a poor surgical risk, what with the splenic injury and all... blood loss from that can be pretty high. His BP was also pretty high, probably from renal artery insufficiency. Adrenalin, y'know. Yeah, sometimes I wish that I could pray. I am sending really good, healthy thoughts at this kid. Anyway, I called Karen to come pick me up, and then I took her to Poor Richards for supper. Poor Richards was the main hangin'-around place when I'd come home from the army, but they've moved and gone way down-hill since the last time that I was in there. Karen had chicken-livers and I had a patty melt, which was OK, but the chicken livers were... well, weird. Not good weird, either, but just blah weird. So anyway, that was a bust, but it was kinda nice actually going to down-town Topeka. They've been trying to renovate it for years, but nothing has worked yet. I suppose that they'll just keep using tax dollars for more schemes until it's actually all abandoned. Probably half to two-thirds of the storefronts are empty now. Really pathetic. Andy got us a new mower today, well, not a new one, but a rebuilt one, and the price was right... nothing. The old one had a bent crankshaft... Karen picked up the clutch kit for me this evening, ran right about $100.00. Cheapest place that would put one in was $450.00... hightest was $600.00. Additionally, Andy is gonna help me put it in if I get into trouble. It does look like I'm gonna have nice weather for it, though.
Now I need to take a shower and get to sleep...