A woman calls our ED and is rather upset. She wants to speak to a doctor for medical advice.
After a couple of sentences, it is readily apparent that the woman has been drinking.
“I want to talk to a doctor NOW.”
“Ma’am, the doctors are busy treating patients and they aren’t allowed to give medical advice over the phone, anyway. Do you have a family doctor?”
“No. I want to talk to an EMERGENCY doctor.”
“An emergency doctor would be happy to see you if you came to the emergency department, but no one can give you advice over the telephone.”
“I don’t want advice, I just need to talk to the doctor.”
“What’s this regarding, then?”
“I’m babysitting my girlfriend’s cats and I’ve had a couple of drinks. I found a bottle of Xanax pills in the closet and took a couple of them to get high. I want to know how much Xanax is too much.”
The secretary repeats what the woman has said. She has now caught the attention of me and one of the nurses who are now listening to the secretary’s side of the conversation.
“Too much for what?” The secretary asks.
“Well, I don’t want to pass out and have these cats eat my face.”
The secretary repeats the woman’s statement so that the nurse and I can hear it. We exchange puzzled looks. Then I motion for her to give me the phone.
“You should really call an ambulance and come to the hospital to be seen.” I tell her.
[click] … the woman hung up.
The secretary then quipped “You should have told her to go dig a catcher’s mask out of the closet. That would have stopped the drinking and the cats.”
So what is the answer? How many Xanax could she have safely taken?
Xanax and booze? It’s a terrible combination. Like, potentially fatal.
With just Xanax alone, she could probably take as many as she wanted. It’s tough to OD on benzos.
Sidebar Xanax tale.
Patient calls the office in a panic. Says she was taking her dog for a walk and her newly filled bottles of Xanax and OxyContin, (don’t ask, not my patient, another story) oops, fell on the ground and she wants her pharmacy contacted at once.
Writing physician happens to walk to station at that moment, overhears staff responses–including major eye rolling and not-so-muffled laughter–and advises them to tell the patient to “pick ‘em up and bring ‘em in along with the bottles.” Patient balks, keeps running her story. Staff blood pressure rises, I step in.
Me: “Mrs. _______, this is the psycho therapist. I am aware of your situation and want to first make sure you understand what Dr.______ is asking you to do regarding your medication.”
Patient: “Yes, I understand but the pills are all dirty from being on the ground.”
Me: “That’s okay, just do the best you can and pick them up and put everything in a bag, including the empty bottles and bring them in immediately. Dr._______ will see you today.”
Patient: “I, uh, I can’t bring them in.”
Me: “You can’t? Why is that?”
Patient: “They’ve blown all over the neighborhood.”
Me: (looking out the window at completely motionless trees) “They’ve blown all over the neighborhood? There’s no wind today, how did they do that?”
Patient: “I don’t know.”
Me: (imagining what that scene would really look like, were it at all true…dozens of pills flying through the air, neighbors rushing from their houses, happy as clams) “I suppose the bottles were airborn too.”
Patient: “Yup.”
This from the wife, and office manager, of a local physiatrist whose license had just been revoked by the DEA. After all she’d heard from patients her her lifetime, everyone in our practice thought she could’ve done so much better than that.
(Sorry for the length; felt the need to share. War stories are good medicine.)
That is awesome. I remember seeing images of dead people (from EMS files during my rotation on the ambulance as a resident) whose hands a feet were eaten off by their starving cats. She must have seen them too!
Booze/Pills combo caused Karen Ann Quinlan to go into a vegetative state until she died 10 years later.
It was her parents going to court for the right to pull the plug (She lived beyond that)that has made it possible for advanced directives today.
I drank my cat’s water a couple of weeks ago. Sigh. My stomach still does flip flops when I think about it.
These stories had me laughing hysterical…only because I work for a psychiatrist and get these kinds of calls daily.
We have patients call to say that the prescribed dose of a medication was too high (i.e., 30 mg TID) and made them sick. Can we please give them another script for say, 20 mg QID, instead? We tell them that is fine, but that they must bring in and surrender the unused medication to our office and we will write a new script ONLY for the remaining month. (Yes, we are really mean and legalistic when it comes to writing scripts). The response from the patient? “Um, I threw them away since they made me sick.”
RIGHT! Like I just fell off a turnip truck! Come see me in a month when I can legally write you another script.