I can’t even explain how busy we’ve been at the hospital over the last two weeks – our ICU has 28 beds (although only 26 are currently usable due to the last 2 being used by another department during our oh-so-close-to-being-finished renovation). I worked just after New Year’s and we had about 14 patients in the ICU, which is pretty typical for us in non-SnowBird season. Just two days ago, we had 26 patients occupying our 26 available beds. Insane.
For those of you who may not be familiar, “snowbird” is our loving term for those in the elderly population who live in a warm climate for the winter and return to their northern/midwest home when the temperature is more tolerable there (and less tolerable during Phoenix summers). The exact times that the snowbirds arrive in Phoenix varies each year… sometimes we get busy in December if the snows are intense in other parts of the continent and other times we don’t start getting busy until after they have celebrated the new year with their children and grandchildren. Then, the snowbirds usually start to head back home in April or May, again depending on the weather where ever “home” is for them.
So, we’ve officially been hit with snowbird fever. I don’t know what it is, but it seems that people get out here every year and get hit with unplanned illness. Maybe it’s the stress of the holiday season or the stress of packing up and moving across the country? I’m honestly not sure. But, this year, I’ve noticed an especially large number of unexpected admissions- ruptured AAAs (abdominal aortic anneurisms, where the aorta ruptures and the patient is bleeding out into their belly), ruptures esophagus (esophagus ruptures, leaving the patient unable to breathe and emptying stomach contents into the chest cavity), and massive heart attacks leaving the body systems nearly useless. We have a high percentage of patients on dialysis (meaning they have kidney failure), which attests to the overall acuity of our unit right now.
I’m wondering if this is a downward trend in the health of our country, or perhaps a sign of the times with less people getting preventative health care. Hmmmm?
Stay healthy, Phoenix.
