Who: Richie Jameson,
Kevin Lawson and
Quentin LawrenceWhat: Plan of action
Where: Children's Unit, Mount Sinai
When: Saturday morning
Richie was working all weekend this weekend, and things were pretty hectic. He had a full patient allocation and a few of his patients were quite seriously ill and needed close monitoring. Not severe enough to warrant admission to the PICU, but the next step down. Helping kids was the reason he wanted to get into Pediatrics, but it was never easy to see little people sick or in pain. He knew that it was his job to try to help them, though, which was the rewarding part. He knew what it was like to be a kid in hospital, and over the years, the doctors and nurses who had cared for him had been amazing. He had a lot of good role models, so he hoped he was just as helpful to his own patients these days.
He arrived at little Tanner's room with a smile at his guardians, Kevin and Quentin. "He-llo. We have progress. Pathology has been kind to us," he revealed, holding Tanner's medical record in his hand and reading over the latest set of nursing notes to see what was progressing on the most recent rounds. But, as always, his attention was first zeroed in on the child and he went over to Tanner and softly stroked his little forehead. Tanner was conscious, but groggy. He hadn't really come through the anesthetic very well and he was still running a pretty mean temperature. You knew when a child was even too ill to cry that it was serious business. Richie had ordered him on antibiotics and a nasogastric tube, which wasn't nice for parents to see, but necessary in this case.
"Hi there, little man. We need to get these pukies sorted, don't we?" Tanner had been vomiting throughout the morning. Richie had suspected Tanner had a bowel obstruction as soon as he presented and was examined. Normally, it would first be attempted to treat it conservatively, but when they sent him for a CT, they discovered it was a nasty obstruction and if it wasn't fixed surgically, his life could be in danger. Richie hadn't hesitated in ordering the surgery and Nate signed off on it. While they were in sorting out the issue, they had taken biopsies to try to find out what was causing the little lad's stomach issues that he had a history of since birth. The heartbreaking part was, the abuse that his mother had been inflicting on him may have been aggravating any inflammation he had inside, causing it to exacerbate. It was such a sad situation.
He was still stroking Tanner's hair soothingly when he started to explain things to Kevin and Quentin. "The good news is that it's not cancer, and there's no cancerous cells whatsoever. That was the biggest red flag we were looking at, given his ongoing issues. The bad news is, when they were in, they had to resection. It was the only way to remove the obstruction, but that's okay. He'll heal. What the biospy results have shown is an inflammatory bowel disease called Crohn's. There's no cure, unfortunately."
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