#murse

So a patient comes in with a chief complaint of chest pain and we see widespread depressions, but no elevations. The patient is pale and diaphoretic, his pulse is high, and his oxygen saturation is low. Our immediate thought is a pulmonary embolism causing heart strain. We order the Angiography scan which requires me to check the kidney function before administering contrast, and we get this unexpected result on our bedside lab machine 

Never have I had a hemoglobin so low it didn’t show on the iStat. I went up to the provider and let her know. We redid it with the same result. Lab called and told me they received a suspiciously low hemoglobin and wanted to make sure I didn’t dilute the sample before informing me the hemoglobin was 3.5. They also informed me that the Troponin was positive.

Because of his clinical condition and deteriorating cardiac status, this patient received 2 units of red blood cells on a rapid infuser in the emergency department and was transferred to ICU with a diagnosis of GI bleeding.