amusedWhat labs do you order for acute hallucinations? He's been in the hospital far too long for it to be DT's; he's not much of a drinker anyway. So I got a basic met (that's an electrolyte panel) and an arterial blood gas. They came back with a bit of an alkalosis and a bit of worsening renal function. So I gave him fluids - half a liter over an hour, not a whole lot, really, just enough to feel like we were making some difference. And to be honest, I only gave him half a liter because I'd had to diurese him two nights before so I wasn't sure about the whole liter, even with a stable cardiac status. I didn't anticipate this was going to change anything.
The nurse just called me back to tell me that his visions had stopped, post-fluid bolus. "He's sitting in there contemplating what he saw..."
We've been talking with the folks with the Latter-Day Saints recently, for various reasons, one of which is theological curiosity. So visions are on my mind; and our response to things we don't understand.
I wonder, I said, if I just interrupted a religious experience. But it seems that God wouldn't be stopped by a bit of normal saline.
"No," says the nurse, just as serious. "I think God would require lactated ringer's at least."
This, O Best Beloved, is quite possibly the funniest thing I have heard in days. And I had to tell you, because some of you will understand.
