Last week at the free clinic, we had a surprising diagnosis, one that we didn't see coming. The patient is a 46 yr old with a 30 pack year history of smoking. He came to the clinic with a very high blood pressure and a headache. So the providers started to treat him for HA's related to hypertension. We were doing weekly blood pressures for about 3 weeks. The BP was coming down and the HA's were supposedly getting better. As we all know about how patients will sometimes tell us what they think we want to hear. And we all know what happens when they do that - they put their lives into danger, danger which they really don't even realize. Well on January 8th, our gentleman landed in the ER. Now I would have thought that it would have been heart related or BP related. This is where the curve ball came in. He actually was found to have lung CA with mets to his brain. Yep he had a brain tumor. And he also told the ER he had stopped taking the BP meds we had prescribed. He not only told us what I am believing he thought we wanted to hear, was that he was getting better, but he stopped taking his meds.
Who knows, maybe had he gotten to us before he did - we might have been able to help him and identify his issue sooner. Who knows though.
All of our smokers get information to quit, as well as the handy AARC booklet. We are watching as people come in weekly and tell us that they have either quit or cut down. This for me as a respiratory therapist is huge.
Again, every therapist needs to pay attention to the patients they treat.
December 21st -1000 patients
January 17th - 1027 patients
Cancers = 34 patients
View from the free medical clinic,
Bette Grey, BA, RRT, CPFT