After a morning of rounding on my patient with cryptococcal meningitis, we sat down to calculate his electrolyte status, which we hadn't checked in a couple days since he didn't have an IV. Needless to say, his electrolytes were all off, he had low sodium, calcium and low potassium, which in the U.S. probably would have gotten him stat runs of potassium and fast replenishment of his electrolytes. We spent the afternoon trying to convert the measurements of his potassium and calcium to the measurements we use in the U.S. I was reminded of high school chemistry class as we were converting millimoles to milliequivalents and milliequivalents to milligrams and mililiters... I had a headache by the end and after everything we determined that his calcium was actually normal. His potassium was still off with our calculations and we decided to replete it slowly since we won't be able to check labs consistently this weekend. All our calculations seemed somewhat futile at that point! It was heartbreaking because I feel like his problems are so much larger than his electrolytes and that we really are just scratching at the surface.
Keep watching...Kate and I were going to try and check out the game preserve this weekend, to familiarize ourselves with the local flora and fauna.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Make sure you take lots of photos and try and post some up here if you can!
Kate, did I give you the computer cable for my camera?
I have no computer cable. :( But, I think Abelle's will work, and we took pics on her camera. We'll try to post the pics tomorrow. -kate
Post a Comment