Medical School

My HIV Needlestick

I’ve had a stomachache and the runs all day. why should you care? well it goes back to about a month ago. lemme start it real storyteller like…

It was early in the morning and i was doing my floor work- that’s where i go through the little obsessive checklist after rounds to make sure that i have done all of the patients’ stuff. anyway i was sleepy because i had only gotten 4 hours of sleep the couple of nights before. i remember that my brain had been working really slowly all morning - not slow enough to notice but a little slow on the trigger.
To make a long story short i was in mr C’s room giving him his injection and he was asking me if he would make it home by next monday for his daughter’s birthday. i reassured him that he would. this was a patient that a few weeks ago had been on a respirator for some unexplained pulmonary cavitary lesion, fevers, and an episode of respiratory failure during which he desatted(sp) to 70-something percent on what i think was 4L Oxygen nonrebreather. This was all in association with his high viral load HIV and low CD4+ count; by definition end stage AIDS.
as i was cleaning up the alcohol swabs and various other trash, something (i don’t remember what it was- nor is it really relevant) fell out of my left hand. I reflexively went to catch it with right hand and jerked my hands apart as i felt the sharp stabbing sensation of the needle piercing into the meat of my thumb. i took a short quick breath and hesitated as mr C continued to talk about going home. his voice faded into the backround of my thoughts “Hepatitis A 3%, Hepatitis B 30 %, HIV .03%. is that right? is that right? dear God what the hell does that mean in real terms. am i going to get the d*mn AIDs or not. i looked at mr C with his hair missing in patches, his skin with disseminated ulcers and his upper lip caked with the dry blood from the irritation of the oxygen. as he continued to wheeze i returned my focus to my thumb. a few drops of blood had now come to the surface and i felt a stinging in my thumb that i’m sure was psychosomatic that travelled down my wrist as i walked as quickly as i could out of the room without making too manifest my increasing sense of pannic.
I made it to the back utility room before i started doing the full blown talking to myself thing that i don’t think i have done since sometime in early adolescence. so to fast-foward- i took the steps that they told us to take at that safety presentation that i half watched thinking to myself “what idiot is going to stick himself with a needle?” (this would be a good time not to answer my question/ feel free to chuckle to yourself)
The triple combination therapy reduces the chances of transmission even more than the initially mentioned 3/1000. either way they were six horsepills twice a day and made me dog sick. no you don’t understand! i felt the queasiest ever. like the worst college hangover combined with the worst motion sickness. i could not eat and i was so nauseous that i could not sleep. my stomach gurgled and burned as did what i’ll call my food exit. and my solid waste- uh there was none - that was liquid and usually came with 10 seconds of warning at 20 minute intervals. day after day for 2 weeks i saw slow improvement. i would go through morning rounds and my shirt would be drenched in sweat and i’d be bent over from the abdominal pain.

i had to let it go after week three because i was always in pain, lethargic and my stools were black -this made me scared of upper GI bleed.
either way- it’s been two weeks since i stopped taking the meds and i still have liquid stools- this is making me nervous.

well that concludes my story- i promise that the next story i tell won’t begin with and end with bowel talk.

© 2001 diamondTearz.