Reasonable Rascal
09-10-09, 13:04
Like many people I am still trying to make up my mind as to how bad this new flu really is/will be, and my personal response to it if it turns out to be anything less than a full-blown 1918 scenario. But accounts like the one quoted below from another healthcare forum - one which is specific to a certain genre of nursing and anything but a clinically oriented by intent forum - give me pause.
The quotation is a snip from the overall post, the deleted part which was not in any manner relevant.
We lost 2 kids to swine flu last week. One an infant with multiple chronic issues, so no big surprise, but the other was a previously totally healthy 10 year old. sick less than 48 hours when he died. Sent home sick from school Thursday morning, he was massively septic, and in DIC by the time he got airlifted to us on Friday evening. when we intubated the first time the ET tube was filled with blood and clots, and we couldn't ever stop the bleeding well enough to ventilate him. Coded him for about 3 hours before we called it. Blood pouring out of the ETT faster than we could suction it out, and faster than we could replace it, the whole time. I have a whole new respect for H1N1 now, and will be the first one in line when there is a vaccine available. The only other bug I have seen take someone out faster is meningococemia. I saw that one kill a healthy kid within 4 hours of symptom onset once. I have a feeling it is going to be a long rough winter, and it is starting earlier than usual.
A very sobering eyewitness account from another nurse. Not sure what part of the country she is in right now.
RR
The quotation is a snip from the overall post, the deleted part which was not in any manner relevant.
We lost 2 kids to swine flu last week. One an infant with multiple chronic issues, so no big surprise, but the other was a previously totally healthy 10 year old. sick less than 48 hours when he died. Sent home sick from school Thursday morning, he was massively septic, and in DIC by the time he got airlifted to us on Friday evening. when we intubated the first time the ET tube was filled with blood and clots, and we couldn't ever stop the bleeding well enough to ventilate him. Coded him for about 3 hours before we called it. Blood pouring out of the ETT faster than we could suction it out, and faster than we could replace it, the whole time. I have a whole new respect for H1N1 now, and will be the first one in line when there is a vaccine available. The only other bug I have seen take someone out faster is meningococemia. I saw that one kill a healthy kid within 4 hours of symptom onset once. I have a feeling it is going to be a long rough winter, and it is starting earlier than usual.
A very sobering eyewitness account from another nurse. Not sure what part of the country she is in right now.
RR