TLC TV Listing Description: A medical student faces the first major challenge of her career when an otherwise healthy patient suddenly crashes after a routine operation, and a major miscommunication could cost a teenage boy his life when a doctor can’t identify his condition.
While recovering from a parathyroid resection, a patient begins trembling and demonstrating sings of post operative confusion, although the time frame for such a reaction had long passed. While doctors search for an explanation, the patient stops breathing and there are increases in his blood pressure and temperature. The medical student, already in hot water for suggesting the surgeon nicked the thyroid gland or caused a post operative infection, tries to console the patients hostile wife. During their conversation, the wife mentioned having to “deal with” her husband’s migraines. She went on to tell about once giving him one of her pills for migraine and described how it over-excited him and “flipped him out.” This bit of information gave the medical student an idea and she announces that she believes the patient is being poisoned, leaving the wife feeling like the accused. That hot water just got hotter! However, she explained what she had learned from the wife and reminded everyone the patient was taking antidepressants, but was one of very few people who have a reaction when those medications were mixed with a medication given during the thyroid surgery: methylene blue. The patient was now suffering from what is called serotonin syndrome.
A young patient diagnosed with meningitis doesn’t seem to be responding to treatment. In fact, he is getting worse. The teenager is showing signs of increased cranial pressure, but CT scans of the brain are completely normal. Doctors then decide to do a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) to check CSF pressure and such. When the needle is inserted, spinal fluid squirts out at the doctor, leaving all who witnessed it in disbelief. At this point, all doctors had to work with was the unusual finding of elevated eosinophils. Increased eosinophils most commonly indicates parasite infection, but it was unlikely as the sort of parasite that would cause such symptoms was not found in the area and the patient denied any travel. Doctors decide to ask a more thorough history and finally, a clue comes to light. The boy mentioned staying with his father in Texas every summer and doctors suddenly believed that had their answer! The boy hadn’t mentioned travel to Texas because he didn’t feel it was “vacation” or “travel” as he lived there. Armed with new information, doctors were able to diagnose the boy with Valley Fever.
