Step 2

Later I got a call from one of the other hub PA's about a guy who has a nose bleed that won't stop. He is on a blood thinner that he isn't supposed to be on, but he had made it around the entry physical and snuck by us. Now he has a nose bleed that nobody can control. He went to a Role 2 and had 2 "rhino rockets" placed in his nose. They are basically catheters that have balloons and a tampon on the far end that blow up to stop posterior ( way in the back of your nose) bleeds. They were sending him to us to find him an ENT doc to fix his nose bleed. He arrived later looking like a character from Star Wars. Actually a real war because his shirt was covered in blood.I explained to him that his nose may be bleeding because of his blood thinner and that he needed a blood test. I also explained that there may not be an ENT doc at the Role 3 and he may need to go to Dubai or home to the US. "Just send me back to my fob." he said. I explained to him that we couldn't do that because of his epistaxsis aka nosebleed. "I ain't going to Dubai, I hate Arabs," he said. I explained that we would send him to the Canadian hospital. "I'll just wait for my R and R on the 19th, then." No you won't. You'll bleed to death by then and you can't keep those things in your nose for 9 days,  you dumbass. Ok, I didn't actually say that, I just thought it. I went down to the Role 3 and asked if they had an ENT doc. "Negative," was the answer. I went back to my patient and explained that he has to go to Dubai. "Nope, I ain't going, " says he. I explained to him that he would have to move up his R and R and leave on an earlier flight. This took a good 20 minutes of explaining. I actually had to tell him that I was making him go home. More emails and phone calls. I wrote up his consultation letter and mad copies of all the pertinent paerwork and arranged for someone to take him to the travel office and get him a place to stay.
We were on top of the clinic watching the lunar eclipse when we got an ambulance call.You guessed it, it was for him. It turns out that he never changed his shirt or washed his face so the manager thought that he was bleeding to death.We checked him out and sent him back, to leave on the 0600 flight out of KAF.
The next day I went to get my appendectomy patient out of the Role 3 and take him back to his room. And who do I see? Nosebleed guy. Wandering around. I didn't give it much thought at the time, but...
I went to lunch and when I came back one of the Medics asked me,"Guess who's back?" "You are kidding me, he was supposed to be on a flight." I walked into the room and realized that not only had he missed his flight , he had pulled out his rhino rockets and was now bleeding all over the place. Dennis was in the room valiantly try to stop the bleeding. Unsuccessfully, I might add. While our new Doc squeezed the dumbass's nose together, Dennis went down to see if he could get some new rhino rockets. Turns out that our Role 3 doesn't have any, but they have foley catheters and nasal packing. Doctor B volunteered to repack him. I stayed out of the room. For fear I may kill his dumbassidness. I offered moral support and all that and poked my head in to see if I could do anything to help. Before anyone could answer, I closed the door. I'm helpful like that. The room looked like a slaughter had taken place. Took awhile to clean it up. We sent our patient back with a stern warning not to touch the packing in his nose. Emails and phone calls started flying. He needs to be out of here now. I offered to buy his ticket and drive him to the plane. Seriously. 600 dollars well spent. "No problem," said our travel and HR department, "we'll get him out of here." "He'll need a babysitter," I told them. "and don't let him pick his nose." He probably won't even change his shirt. We all imagine him wandering around the Dubai airport like Tom Hanks in "Terminal." "Mr. Dumbass, white courtesy phone. And try not to bleed on it."
Reason #2 for my migraine...