Happy Birthday to Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today started as a fairly typical sub-i day on the infectious disease service. I went in, saw my eight patients (the entire hospital is full, so each service has more patients than we're supposed to--we had 14, and we're supposed to have 12), and then went on rounds and made plans on them for the day. I have the two actively sickest patients--the patient with lymphoma and growing fungus out of his lungs, and a patient who came in Friday with an allergic reaction to Bactrim (sulfa antibiotic). He came in with some facial swelling and a mild rash; he now has toxic epidermal necrolysis, which is a severe reaction that causes skin (>30% of the body surface area) to slough off. He's being followed by derm, burn surgery (they're essentially burn patients when missing that much skin), ophthalmology, ENT, speech, and nutrition (as well as infectious disease, of course). He's getting a lot of IV fluids and IV antibiotics and still isn't doing that great, but he's always pleasant and polite when I go in and talk to him. It seems like the nicer they are, the worse they do. At this point, he has a 35% chance of mortality. I hope he makes it.

After rounds was Tuesday didactics, then I went back up to the conference room to work on my notes, but my resident and intern sent me home early as a birthday present :) So I got to go home and relax for a few hours. Adrienne and I went out to dinner and ice cream, which was a nice way to spend an evening before going on call tomorrow :( Two and a half more weeks, and then my work for med school is done. I can't wait.