Last night was a very emotionally hard night. I had a patient that was in her thirties with two teenaged children that accidently poisoned herself with floor stripper. Someone had put it in a pepsi bottle and someone else put it on the kitchen table and she took a swallow of it. When she arrived at the Emergency Room, she was still able to talk and swallow but quickly went down hill. Within 15 minutes she was having severe difficulty breathing as the floor stripper was very caustic and burned all the way down. We were able to put a breathing tube in with moderate difficulty and stablized her until she got to the ICU. But her prognosis is very poor. It is third degree type burns on the inside. I took care of a similar patient a few years ago and unfortunately he died after a few weeks of being very ill. I had to tell her children that their mom was very ill...very hard when you cannot give the typical...she'll be ok sort of thing.
I cried on my way home. It was a hard shift.
Do not store anything in drinking containers except for drinking liquids...please.
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