Healthcare junk w/Elok

[Rusty Edge]

YIKES!

I would like to thank all of you for doing what you do.

My experience with RTs as a patient has to do with my history of spontaneous pneumothorax and cough syncope.  Great combo, right?  But the RTs were good people and helpful.

Once upon a time I went to the E.R. in the middle of the night because my convulsions terrified my wife. I was worried it might be brain cancer like my uncle had. On the drive there It occurred to me that I might have another pneumothorax because of the way I felt, but I was too terrified of a brain tumor to think of it sooner. And as you know, talking is the last thing you want to do with a collapsed lung because it leads to a coughing fit.  E.R. doc correctly diagnosed and explained cough syncope. Was going to send me home. I said it reminds me of pneumothorax. He sent me for an x-ray and sure enough, - 50%. I got opiates to suppress the cough, got admitted, and got some sleep.

So at the ass-crack of dawn the resident and his entourage come to check me out before surgery to fuse the lung to the chest wall. They are doing their stethoscope routine and ask me to cough.... Next thing I know I am on my back on the floor with four or five faces circled above me staring at me like deer in the headlights...

I said, "Let me guess...Nobody read my chart."   
No answers, they just all broke eye contact. I hope that experience made an impression and saved some lives over the years.


Well, it helps me appreciate the way my father died of lung cancer (originally Non-Hodgkins lymphoma) by drowning in his own fluids. Via con Dios, Dad. You didn't have to fight that long.

I'm also allergic to penicillin like he was. Sulfa, too. I expect to die of pneumonia once I attain enough nursing home experience.

[Elok]

Whoop, I never did respond to this.  As an RT I work in a fairly narrow scope of practice, so I wasn't even aware "cough syncope" was a thing.  I hope you've got it sorted now?  Nursing homes are indeed not the sort of place that fills one with confidence; it's not where top nursing talent is going to want to go, and they're not really equipped to provide top-flight care, so in practice we get a lot of business from people falling through the cracks at some home that doesn't have the people or the gumption to keep their residents in good condition.  We patch them up, they go back to the home, a little while later they come back.  Part of that is just age, of course.

[Rusty Edge]

Cough syncope is something that seems to affect overweight guys over 50.  The long-term management is like so many other things- get down to a healthy weight....and keep it there.  The alternative/interim solution is not to do more than the standard throat or lung-clearing double cough.
When you deep cough bend over and get your head down so that it is level or lower than your heart and fresh blood can get to your brain at low pressure. Also, keep cough drops in your pocket and in your car.