She had a what?

They can’t spell and were very poor in geography....

So many memories fill my head from those wonderful years I worked in two different ERs, I miss those days, almost enough to consider returning...PRN(as needed).

When I was working at Springhill Hospital, we had a dream-team crew. Yes, we did have one or two squirrelly people, but overall, I had awesome co-workers. I loved the crew and will always hold them close to my heart.

There was continually a short turnover in our Registration area, we decided it was because they were paid about the same as a worker who flipped burgers at McDonald’s. But as a result of this problem of quick turnovers in Registration, we had to suffer through charts that came to us poorly written, with misspelled words and full of errors. This story is about one of those charts (cases).

We could not decide if the new people out there registering our patients were really that bad or just did not care. Possibly a little of both.

I was inputting orders and shaking my head about how incomplete and incorrect the info was on the patient's records I was working with at the moment..their chief complaint (reason they came to the ER), was listed as “Stomuck Ake”. That was embarrassing. These records are legal documents.

It was at that moment that I noticed another patient, it was a young woman who appeared to be in great pain, she was being wheeled to the GYN room. She did not look pregnant, but she was doubled over in pain and  was suffering,

My attention was pulled from her to the phone as the cardiologist I had called for Dr. S on another patient, was returning my call and he impatiently agreed to hold while I located him. 

Once the cardiologist and Dr. S were talking, I turned my thoughts back to the patient in the GYN room as I was curious about her and her severe pain. Dr. M, who had gone in to examine her, asked me to call the Burn Unit at USA Hospital for this patient. My mind was spinning at that request. I asked myself, did he say the Burn Unit? Then I wondered what could be wrong.

The GYN patient’s nurse stopped next to me and said, Oh My God, I Would NOT want to be that girl! I asked what happened...it was at that point her nurse began to tell me the story.

This young woman told her nurse and doctor that she felt a weird feeling in her privates this morning and couldn’t figure out what it was. Her roommate was not at home to help her, so she walked over to a full length standing mirror, tilted it so that she could see her vaginal area and was totally shocked at what she saw! She had a huge infestation of pubic lice!

It freaked her out so much that she decided she had to fix this problem ASAP. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her, to the kitchen. She flung open the cabinet door just under her sink; this is where they kept the bug spray. There it was, a can of “Industrial Strength Raid”.

She grabbed the can, then ran straight to the bathroom and sprayed her vagina full force from the front to the back! It took only seconds for her to realize just how bad that decision had been.

The stinging and burning was extremely painful. She called her friend who lived nearby to come quickly and take her to the hospital. She said “I thought I was going to die, the pain was so unbearable!”

Our physician was able to clean the injury up and put some soothing burn treatment salve (Silvadene) on it, then prepped her to go to the USA Burn Unit for further treatment of those nasty chemical burns that intensified with each passing minute.

The ambulance arrived to take her to USA Burn Center. Moments later I picked up her chart and it read:  
Chief Complaint:    
Patient has a burnt Virginia.