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Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

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Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#31

Post by nickjj »

WJW wrote: post #3
mpalmer wrote: post #2

The most pressing issue for the orthopaedic team was my left shoulder, which was visibly dislocated. Before attempting to reattach it, the doctor told me I would be given a dose of fentanyl: an opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. He went away, returned and started using a bed sheet to try to pop the shoulder back into the socket. Alarmed, I told him that I had not been given any pain medication.…

Really seems like a "hey nurse did this patient have their fentanyl yet?" would have resolved this issue. Anyway if it's really 100x more potent than morphine you'd think any person that did have it in their bloodstream would not be all that capable of stating that they have not had their medication yet.

> Really seems like a "hey nurse did this patient have their fentanyl yet?" would have resolved this issue.

You'd be surprised at how questionable hospital care is run in NY, even with $450 / month insurance with a high deductible.

To protect the privacy of the person I know, here's a story from 2-5 months ago:

- Person A goes into doctor's office for something pretty common

- Doctor requests cat scan or MRI (I forgot which one is which) based on symptoms

- Person A gets the scan

- Doctor evaluates results and says to book surgery in a hospital ASAP as it's probably cancerous

- Person A books surgery

- Hospital gives prep instructions to be performed by Person A 48 hours before surgery

- Person A does everything and goes in for surgery

- Person A is prepped for surgery and is put under anesthesia

- Surgeon comes in and looks at the scan in the operating room

- Surgeon says this scan is nothing to worry about and surely doesn't warrant surgery and it's not a tumor or cancer

- Person A is wondering how the surgery went after coming to from being put out

- Nurse says no surgery was done and even she was able to look at the scan and see nothing was wrong

- Person A is told to go home and wait 4-6 weeks to self heal

So let's ignore thousands of dollars in bills (deductibles). All of this could have been avoided if someone actually looked at the results of the scan before going through the motions of putting someone under anesthesia and a massive amount of stress.

That's only 1 of many stories. In another case someone I knew had their blood drawn twice in the hospital because the 2nd nurse didn't believe them when they said they just got their blood drawn by another nurse 10 minutes ago. The vials were literally next to them, about 3 arm's lengths away.

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#32

Post by aidenn0 »

yellowstuff wrote: post #21
papeda wrote: post #4

From the end of the article: > To come so close to death does not provide a shortcut to wisdom or contentment. It doesn’t answer all your questions or eliminate your weaknesses. I’m fundamentally the same person I was before, but with one big difference. I’m viscerally aware how tenuous our existence is. How you can be walking on solid ground only to find it suddenly disappear from beneath you. The meaning comes in w…

I don't have hard statistics, but there's a New Yorker article about survivors of Golden Gate Bridge suicide attempts that says many of them regret the attempt and don't try again. The people who survive jumping off a bridge is probably pretty close to a random sample. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V_siZl...

100% of the people that don't survive never try again either though.

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#33

Post by chasd00 »

mpalmer wrote: post #2

The most pressing issue for the orthopaedic team was my left shoulder, which was visibly dislocated. Before attempting to reattach it, the doctor told me I would be given a dose of fentanyl: an opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. He went away, returned and started using a bed sheet to try to pop the shoulder back into the socket. Alarmed, I told him that I had not been given any pain medication.…

this happens a lot. my stepfather was in the hospital, a nurse came in and gave him a shot of morphine and walked out. another nurse came in and before my mom could stop her gave him another dose. He coded from the overdose but pulled through.

my sister worked as an admin in some department at a hospital I can't remember. a patient coded and they did nothing because they were marked do not resuscitate but the patient came back on their own. Afterwards, the nurses found the patient was labeled incorrectly.

I've told my wife and mother (mom is an RN) that if any of our family go into the hospital they are not to be left alone.

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#34

Post by kls »

papeda wrote: post #4

From the end of the article: > To come so close to death does not provide a shortcut to wisdom or contentment. It doesn’t answer all your questions or eliminate your weaknesses. I’m fundamentally the same person I was before, but with one big difference. I’m viscerally aware how tenuous our existence is. How you can be walking on solid ground only to find it suddenly disappear from beneath you. The meaning comes in w…

Years ago I had a legitimate attempt by taking a combination of a full bottle of opiates and benzos (A pretty deadly combination). I was pretty hell bent on being dead. I know at the time, my thoughts where use a gun (I am a big second amendment advocate, so was not going to be a statistic in the argument), carbon monoxide, pills or hanging. The reason I bring this up, is I actually think there are two main branches of why people attempt to commit suicide, neither or which is for thrill seeking. Those two branches are those that feel a tiredness that normal people just don't feel. It an unreal tiredness like you want to go to sleep and never wake up. You really don't want to be dead but you don't want to go on like you are, eventually something happens, you get overwhelmed and you see no other way. You cannot think about anything past just not being tired in your soul.

I think the second has a form of self loathing and self hate possibly combined with that tiredness. I think this reflects in the way people choose to commit suicide. I think jumpers have to be of the latter mindset, because jumping off a building was the furthest thing from my mind. When I committed to it, I just wanted it to be over. I did not want to suffer, I did not want to fall thru the air contemplating my mortality, I just wanted to not exist. I think jumping, suicide by cop and those type of attempts come from an internal anger at oneself, I did not have that anger, I was just tired. I specifically chose to OD because I figured it would do the trick and the fact that going out in euphoria seemed to me to be the next best thing from the instantaneousness of a bullet. I survived by pure chance and luck and am thankful I did and am better now, have not had a thought in years, but my point of the post was to say I think there is a pattern to the way people choose to commit suicide.

As for the experience without dying, for the particular way I felt, the only thing I could suggest is if someone offered to put me in a drug coma for 3 months then wake me up and see if I wanted to go back for another 3 months. I would have taken that option in a heartbeat. I just wanted a break from life.

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#35

Post by iab »

Tronno wrote: post #28

Reading this gives me flashbacks of my own fall from about 45 feet, which broke my spine, pelvis, and ankle. The initial days after the surgery were confusing, painful, and scary. If the fractures had been another half inch to the right, I would have been paralyzed for life. Indeed, I lost control over my bowel functions, and for a few agonizing days was unclear if I would ever get them back. I learned how to insert…

A sharp reminder for us all. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#36

Post by arkitaip »

chasd00 wrote: post #33
mpalmer wrote: post #2

The most pressing issue for the orthopaedic team was my left shoulder, which was visibly dislocated. Before attempting to reattach it, the doctor told me I would be given a dose of fentanyl: an opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. He went away, returned and started using a bed sheet to try to pop the shoulder back into the socket. Alarmed, I told him that I had not been given any pain medication.…

this happens a lot. my stepfather was in the hospital, a nurse came in and gave him a shot of morphine and walked out. another nurse came in and before my mom could stop her gave him another dose. He coded from the overdose but pulled through. my sister worked as an admin in some department at a hospital I can't remember. a patient coded and they did nothing because they were marked do not resuscitate but the patient…

This is why checklists have become are a huge thing in the medical field.

In your scenario, imagine if the first nurse had it drilled into her that she must tick a box on the patient checklist, which lies very visible next to the patient and is almost impossible to not notice, and you have a physical system that makes it difficult to commit mistakes

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#37

Post by minerjoe »

chasd00 wrote: post #33
mpalmer wrote: post #2

The most pressing issue for the orthopaedic team was my left shoulder, which was visibly dislocated. Before attempting to reattach it, the doctor told me I would be given a dose of fentanyl: an opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. He went away, returned and started using a bed sheet to try to pop the shoulder back into the socket. Alarmed, I told him that I had not been given any pain medication.…

this happens a lot. my stepfather was in the hospital, a nurse came in and gave him a shot of morphine and walked out. another nurse came in and before my mom could stop her gave him another dose. He coded from the overdose but pulled through. my sister worked as an admin in some department at a hospital I can't remember. a patient coded and they did nothing because they were marked do not resuscitate but the patient…

Everyone in a hospital should have an advocate with them. My girlfried was going through treatment and one day they tried to give her a shot, insisting that she needed it. She is deatly allergic to most things. I pushed back, refusing the treatement. They were looking at the wrong chart.

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#38

Post by a_t48 »

mattr47 wrote: post #24
mpalmer wrote: post #2

The most pressing issue for the orthopaedic team was my left shoulder, which was visibly dislocated. Before attempting to reattach it, the doctor told me I would be given a dose of fentanyl: an opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. He went away, returned and started using a bed sheet to try to pop the shoulder back into the socket. Alarmed, I told him that I had not been given any pain medication.…

I've had both morphine via IV and fentanyl via a lollipop. Both were in Afghanistan and as far as pain relief goes the morphine was way better for me, because I got a large dose in my bloodstream. I totally understood at that point why people get addicted to that stuff. I did not care about anything at that point. The fentanyl just did not have a strong effect on me.

I had morphine for appendicitis. It didn't appear to do anything for me. :(

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#39

Post by dkdk8283 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #27
mattr47 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had both morphine via IV and fentanyl via a lollipop. Both were in Afghanistan and as far as pain relief goes the morphine was way better for me, because I got a large dose in my bloodstream. I totally understood at that point why people get addicted to that stuff. I did not care about anything at that point. The fentanyl just did not have a strong effect on me.

Most fentanyl is administered IV as well, the “100x more potent” stuff is mostly misleading because the doses are different but it is substantially more effective than morphine. My wife does anesthesia and if they’re going to use opioids at all, it’s almost always IV fentanyl. It’s extremely rare that patients report any pain afterwards. Though there’s a big movement toward opioid-free surgery so that’s promising.

As someone who went through a IM nail procedure I couldn’t have done it without opiates. I didn’t get addicted either. It’s a valuable drug that was abused.

Re: Falling five storeys from a New York rooftop changed my life

#40

Post by mncharity »

mpalmer wrote: post #2

The most pressing issue for the orthopaedic team was my left shoulder, which was visibly dislocated. Before attempting to reattach it, the doctor told me I would be given a dose of fentanyl: an opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. He went away, returned and started using a bed sheet to try to pop the shoulder back into the socket. Alarmed, I told him that I had not been given any pain medication.…

Doctors, surgeons in particular, are both project manager and individual contributor. At peak IC work load, the manager role gets starved for cycles. A failure to track "X was intended - did it actually happen?" is a typical of this.

Having someone with you can help. "He's right, Doctor, the nurse hasn't yet ...". A role of maintaining a clear picture of project state, making sure everyone is on the same page, and more.

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