Saturday, December 25, 2010
"An Accidental Finding"
A gentle, sweet-looking 13 year-old girl comes in with her parents complaining of facial & jaw tenderness, facial droop & slurred speech. The back of my mind is flashing the warning sign, "STROKE"!, but common clinical sense tells me it's obviously not, another quick glance by the ER physician & she's diagnosed with Bell's Palsy (a muscle disorder), an uncomfortable but non-life-threatening condition, before she's even triaged. Except for being a little nervous & uncomfortable, the child is fine with stable vitals and no other history. Blood-work is done & she's scheduled for a head CT as a routine protocol. The ER is surprisingly busy for Christmas Eve - shouldn't these kids be home opening presents?? Why is an abdominal pain for the last 2 weeks suddenly an emergency tonight? The radiologist calls the ER doc with the CT results & suddenly everyone else's complaints are miniscule - "8mm mass in the Pituitary, suspicious for a macroadenoma". Merry Christmas.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment