Hi people...I just had to share a thought that occured to me today... Well, I was just thinking what a strange job I have. I mean, I gave someone an IV drug the other day that stopped their heart, literally, if only for a few seconds. This woman's heart was "in" what we call SVT, which is **Supra-Ventricular Tachycardia** which is *not* good, to put it bluntly, without going into all the details! (The above electrocardiogram strip shows an example of SVT). Anyway, if someone comes into Emergency like this, one of the things we do is to get I.V. access and give this drug called Adenosine, which is administered very fast. Anyway, I gave this drug and then **watched** as the wiggly lines on the monitor **"flatlined"** for about 5-10 seconds, and then the heart rate began again, a bit fast, but not in SVT anymore, which is the outcome you are hoping to achieve! Even though you *know* that's what this drug does, it is another matter to give it for the first time and watch that line go flat...your heart feels like it's going to stop too, and then you breathe a sigh of relief when their beat picks up again! Like I said, ***strange job***! :-)>

Here's a picture of the bed where all this excitement happened...**after** I'm happy to say, the person got well enough to go home...thanks for letting me "debrief" with you!

Man that must be too scary.. .n

You and Slynky should colaborate on a composit image. You could supply all the high-tech stuff. And needles. I'm sure if the patient here really understood what you did she would be very grateful to you.

I hate those ECG thingies. With the conductive icky gel they stick those things with on the chest and stuff... Plus I had to remove all the metal stuff on me, which took a while LOL For a while I felt like the creation of Dr. Frankenstein. Can you read my ECG? hehe (*

Wow.....scary stuff Cameron!

///////_

Hey "debrief" away! Those things are scary when you're on the patient end but I thing seeing it from your side must be a lot worse!

Wow, that sounds terrible! Hope you can get it off your chest.....try to do something fun, go out with Mrs. Punk and have a beer or two or something! Anyway, ever thought about becoming a photographer ? :)

Stars why are you glueing the icky glue all over yourself? PC-Is SVT the technical term for an irregular heartbeart? The ECG looks really uniform, shallow, and far too regular. Is it heart valves which open and shut rappidly but not long enough for the blood to punp. Just courious. My mother has an irregular heart which she controls with medication. Back when they diagnosed her. They asked her to run on a tread mill. Her heart freaked out and apparently the nurse looked like she was goin to have a cow. from what I gathered it was the nurse which alerted my mom that something was wrong! Sorry I have no ECG thingies to show though. If I can think of something techie I'll trade ya. Bsteph

Ok everyone can switch off here, I'm going to get a little bit technical: SVT is a form of junctional tachycardia which means the stimulus for the heart beat originates from the AV node of the heart rather than the SA node, which usually "fires" to stimulate the normal cycle of heart activity (ie, a beat) In the example above, the tachycardia is regular, but as you deduced Bsteph, the heart is going through it's cycle much too fast to have effective filling and emptying of the atria and ventricles, hence a decreased cardiac output (bloodflow) that compromises the patient. Irregular heartbeats are another thing. It sounds like they performed a "stress test" with your mother, which is quite a common test and often picks up any potential problems early on. There are a multitude of drugs to deal with irregular heart beats! I hope your Mum is feeling ok now. BTW, I sometimes feel like I'm going to "have a cow" but I hope I don't outwardly show it...it tends to scare your patients!! lol I thank you all for your indulgence in this non-photographic topic. My job isn't that terrible, sure it has it's scary moments, but it is always scarier for the person in the bed! Also, I asked for this job, and have been doing it for over 20 years now...so I really can't complain! It's more rewarding than draining, most of the time. I started this thread more to share with you the (belated) revelation I had as to how truly bizzare some of the things I do must seem to others! The doctors get heaps of responsibility on their shoulders, I'm glad I'm a nurse! (Also I think of Air Traffic controllers and the like, now that would be stress)...Right! Enough of this! - back to photography! Thanks everyone!!!

OK - to help you adjust to your revalation: Some of the things that you do seem bizzare to me, PunkClown. Heeeey.. wait-a-second, here: You've got BOLD text in your post! That's, like, one of the only things I don't like about the forum! I usually use BOLD liberally in letters. How do I get BOLD in my posts? Sorry to change the subject. Joe_/////_/

Mom's fine. First high blood pressure then irregular heart. But she's alright. Watches what she eats and keeps her temper under control! My nephews have no idea how good they have got it!!! Bsteph

I'm glad your Mother is ok Bsteph. LOL Joe...I'm glad you changed the subject, and thanks for the "revelation adjustment" :-)> Now, about BOLD text: when you're are typing in your message to post you have to use HTML "tags" around the characters you wish to make bold, or italicize or underline etc. Try this: <#>Word you want (bold/italicised/underlined) here<'foward slash'#>, But instead of the # symbol, use b for bold text, i for italicised text and u for underlined text. I've used 'foward slash' instead of simply typing / because it doesn't appear if I try to show you < /# > without the spaces between the <> and the /#!!! ....the mysteries of HTML...but use / where I've written 'foward slash' - I've probably made this sound more convoluted than it should be, sorry Joe...no indepth HTML tutes will be forthcoming from me! Anyhow, I hope this helps...try it out and see!

:-)> And I got my little smiley-goatee guy in the middle by typing center where the # symbol was instead of b, i etc! Have fun...