We get called for a diabetic and arrive at the nursing home to find one nurse pouring orange juice in the woman's mouth, while another nurse checks her blood sugar. On the bed table, I see an empty glucagon vial and a syringe. "Her sugar was forty and she was vomiting," the nurse says. I gave her one glucagon fifteen minutes ago. Her sugar's fifty seven now, I'm going to give her another."
"Why don't you hold off on that," I say, "and hold off on the orange juice unless she can swallow. We'll give her some sugar in her vein."
I put a tourniquet on the woman's arm, and start looking for a vein. I'm not seeing much. I notice the nurse standing next to me, looking at the arm as well. I am tempted to say, could you please move. "There's one," she says. She runs her finger along the forearm.
I look. I don't see anything. "I don't think so," I say.
"I could get it, no problem," she says. She pats me on the head as she walks behind me and exits the room.
Yeah, okay.
I find a vein on her other arm, along her wrist and put in a 22. I see the nurse poke her head back in the room as I slowly push in the D50. The patient is alert now.
I don't see the nurse again.
