Man alive! 0.25 cc can be quite the difference between a stable patient and a borderline case!
Had a 72 year old with left total knee replacement. She was doing fine untill she started having bouts of nausea and vomitting. To calm her stomach down, I gave her 1.25 mg of
Inapsine (Droperidol)... about 0.5 cc of it - which is well within standard adult doasge limits.
Bad idea!
Within half an hour, she became so highly sedated, I had to constantly shake her awake to assess her condition. She had me worried sick! Medically she was "stable"... but just barely. Her Sodium was low, blood pressure and O2 saturation was borderline. She was an ex-smoker, so I was constantly afraid her lungs weren't perfusing her blood with enough oxygen, so I refused to take her off the 3L of O2 she was recieving.
Eeesh! I ran my tail off trying to stay on top of her case. Just wanted to avoid sending her down to the ICU (or worse
). She came out ok after about 6 hours though and she was tolerating fluids by mouth.
But I was so behind that I managed to catch up paperwork only an hour after my shift officially ended!
Never again! Next time someone is ordered Droperidol, I'm giving it in 0.625mg bolus increments. I've learned my lesson
