Ms Boudreaux and I are on the same feeding schedule. I know this because I'm waiting expectantly in front of the microwave in the station. My small, hopeful face bathed in yellowish microwave light, nose up against the window, slave to the countdown timer, staring at my meal rotating in a tantalizing slow pirouette of deliciousness, and there's only 30 seconds left, and-
BEEP BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP BEEP.
This is the not the happy mealtime chime you would expect to hear when your food is ready in the microwave.
This is the annoying insistent ear-needle that emits from my pager whenever dispatch gambles I will be too weak from hunger to actually kill the sperm-waste mouth-breather that has interrupted my mealtime and requested an ambulance, full code, to go and pick up a lady who has removed her own PEG tube.
You see, Ms. Boudreaux doesn't like to keep her PEG tube in. Invariably, after a period of, oh, 20 minutes, she realizes there's some sort of tube sticking out of her belly, and proceeds to start picking at it, until she worms it out. Then it lays on top of her, or on the floor, or wherever it happens to land, and then whenever the LPN or PCA or whoever goes to feed her at the next meal time, they find it and call us. We pick her up.
She suffers the bumps of an 18 mile ambulance ride, and I do mean suffers - even the slightest rock of the module makes her scream in terror, and the road between Major Metro Hospital and here is quite potholed. She gets her PEG reinserted, and than takes another 18 mile ride back, before being placed back in her bed...so she can start picking at her PEG again.
I know Ms. Boudreaux's paperwork by heart now. I should, after all. This is the 5th time one of me or my coworkers has picked her up this week....and the 3rd time I've picked her up in a 72 hour period. As a matter fact, I can carbon my run report from the shift before, except for the vitals. When we returned the last time, I asked the nurse to put something on the patent's chart - get an order for restraints, or tape a large dressing over the PEG so she can't get to it, or something. Izzy sees the name at the top of the chart and then looks at me and rolls her eyes.
I walk into the room, check on her as Izzy gets vitals, and step back out. I have to talk to someone. The ADON and the shift RN are all standing behind the Formica, intently staring into paperwork.
"Excuse me, ladies."
No one looks up. They are silent as church mouse.
"Excuse me, ladies," I try again.
The RN looks at me out of the corner of her eye, and then over to the ADON, who is still ignoring me.
After I don't go away, she looks up with a smile. "Yes, may I help you?"
Some thing's not right here, but I can't figure out what it is. The staff is at least looking like they're trying. The hall smells only faintly of decubiti and turds. The charts are stacked neatly. What the shit is going on?
" I just wanted to talk to you about Ms Boudreaux. She pulled her PEG tube out again."
The ADON looks up, and she looks PISSED. What have I stumbled onto here?
"The tube is out, which is why we called YOU! You NEED to take her to the hospital so she can get it PUT BACK IN."
"Did you guys try calling her doctor to get something to cover, like I suggested? Or maybe some restraints?" I ask back.
"No, but her doctor did say to TAKE her to the hospital so she can get her TUBE PUT BACK IN."
I don't know if it my blood sugar, or not. I don't know if it's the fact that Ms Boudreaux's room is DIRECTLY across from the nurses station and she should be the easiest to supervise. That I already tried to help by getting a doctor's order to cover that PEG. What I meant to say next was "This is ridiculous." But at some point between the signal from my brain going to my mouth it gets mixed up and instead it comes out
"THIS IS FUCKING RETARDED."
Whoops.
Izzy, the two nurses, and a PCA that was walking by all have eyes the size of dinner plates. It is very quiet.
Well, screw it. At least I've got her attention.
"I AM TAKING HER. I'M JUST TRYING TO SAVE ME, YOU, AND THE OTHER TAXPAYERS SOME MONEY. I'M TRYING TO MAKE THINGS EASIER ON THE PATIENT AND THE ER THAT HAS TO PUT THE TUBE BACK IN. I ASKED YOU NICELY LAST TIME I WAS HERE TO CONTACT HER DOCTOR ABOUT GETTING A PAD OR REST-" The ADON cuts me off, finally regaining her composure.
"For your INFORMATION Medicaid says we can't restrain patients. If you don't like it, they down the hall. Go ask them yourself."
That explains the cleanliness...Medicaid must be doing one of their inspections. She said this to try and intimidate me. It backfires. The ADON recoils as I get a gleam in my eye and a giant, manic grin spreads on my face.
"Down the hall? Oh, good. Which hall? I've got some stuff to tell them about the things I've seen here." I take off down a random hall at a fast walk.
Izzy would later tell me that right after I walked off, the ADON looked at her with the biggest "Oh shit!" expression that she's ever seen. Izzy just shrugged back, and after that, the ADON comes scurrying out from behind the desk.
"Sir! Sir! Sir!" she's screaming as she runs down the hall, adrift in my wake as a I storm down the hall. To be truthful, I'm bluffing, and can't think of anything immediately off the top of my head, but if I gave it five minutes I'm sure I can come up with something.
Just as I'm about to round the corner, she grabs my arm. I've never seen a 400 pound lady move that quickly except when there is a buffet involved. She's breathing heavily after her little 30 yard sprint.
"There's no need (huff, huff) for that (puff,puff). We don't (::minor pig grunt::) want anyone (::wheeze::) causing trouble (::fart::) (::wheeze::)."
There is steel in my voice but I'm no longer yelling. "Look, I'm taking her in. But you need to call her doctor and get some orders written so that she doesn't have to keep getting bounced around. She's terrified of it. It's fine if you can't restrain her - I don't know all those rules. All she really needs is a large trauma dressing taped over the site inbetween meal times, or something like that."
I walk off and load Ms Boudreaux up in my unit. I spent the rest of the shift waiting for a phone call from a supervisor that never came.
I've got mixed feelings. It was extremely unprofessional of me to talk to anyone, much less an ADON, with that kind of language. But I'll be god-damned if the next time we stopped into pick Ms Boudreaux up, it was for abnormal labs. And she had on a soft, vest-type apparatus over her abdomen, keeping her from picking at the PEG.
I won't say it justifies my actions or behavior....but at least this particular issue got fixed.
-MM
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
- Range Report
This will be a departure from my standard EMS fare.
Few of you, if any, know of my interest with firearms. My mother, raising me as a single parent, was decidedly protective of me (suggesting to my grandmother, at one point when I began walking, that I wear a helmet to prevent head injuries) and anti-firearm - when I was young she kept me away from firearm toys, nearly going nuts when my grandmother bought me a toy raygun water pistol at a young age. My obsession with toy guns and GI Joe, however, eventually forced her to cave, results being that I had quite a collection by the time I got to be too old to play with toy guns. When most other young tykes were reading Clifford, The Big Friendly Dog books, I had my nose buried inside a military issue manual on Jungle Warfare.
My uncle and grandfather had both served as Marines, and my (necessarily absent...but this is a post for another day) father was a police officer. In fact, until I graduated I had just assumed I would join the military or serve as a law enforcement officer. I was actually in the city police department's Explorer program before getting into a similar program in EMS. Part of the program involved a week long camp at a military base in Gulfport...where one of the segments was at a firing range. I will never forget exiting the class room and loading and firing a police issue .38 at a target. My shooting was horrendous but the excitement remained with me all day. My mother wasn't much of a hunter, though, and other than a few trips with my godfather, another police officer, I never fired anything larger than a BB Gun....but it was enough to fuel my desire.
Since that time my knowledge of firearms has been mostly from books and the Internet.
I finally decided that now, as an adult of 24 years of age, I would venture forth into the world of firearms and test my mettle.
Which why, about a month ago, I found myself in the 6th lane of a local shop and shooting range near my hometown. I had requested and received a safety briefing and course in range protocol (because if I had a misfire, I didn't know what the hell to do), and had a rented Glock 22 in .40 and two boxes of shining, factory fresh rounds laid out in front of me. I'm happy to say that my book knowledge served me well and I was able to load my own magazines and operate the pistol without further assistance. I slid my safety glasses down, advanced my paper target down the range, and it began.
I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin, and I wouldn't say firing a pistol made me masculine or powerful. But I definitely derived immense satisfaction from the flash and noise, the recoil of the grip, the satisfying snick as I slid the magazine and chambered a round.
My shooting was atrocious, and I could not get my hands to stop shaking the whole time. I fired a box to get used to the weapon, and my friend Courtney, who had accompanied me, and I had a little competition after, firing in the following sets at 15 yards.
Center mass, 5 rounds, x2.
Head, 5 rounds.
Torso, 5 rounds in under 4 seconds.
Below is the target I fired at. The grin on my face is unmistakable.
Lord help me, I think I'm turning into a gun nut.
- MM
Few of you, if any, know of my interest with firearms. My mother, raising me as a single parent, was decidedly protective of me (suggesting to my grandmother, at one point when I began walking, that I wear a helmet to prevent head injuries) and anti-firearm - when I was young she kept me away from firearm toys, nearly going nuts when my grandmother bought me a toy raygun water pistol at a young age. My obsession with toy guns and GI Joe, however, eventually forced her to cave, results being that I had quite a collection by the time I got to be too old to play with toy guns. When most other young tykes were reading Clifford, The Big Friendly Dog books, I had my nose buried inside a military issue manual on Jungle Warfare.
My uncle and grandfather had both served as Marines, and my (necessarily absent...but this is a post for another day) father was a police officer. In fact, until I graduated I had just assumed I would join the military or serve as a law enforcement officer. I was actually in the city police department's Explorer program before getting into a similar program in EMS. Part of the program involved a week long camp at a military base in Gulfport...where one of the segments was at a firing range. I will never forget exiting the class room and loading and firing a police issue .38 at a target. My shooting was horrendous but the excitement remained with me all day. My mother wasn't much of a hunter, though, and other than a few trips with my godfather, another police officer, I never fired anything larger than a BB Gun....but it was enough to fuel my desire.
Since that time my knowledge of firearms has been mostly from books and the Internet.
I finally decided that now, as an adult of 24 years of age, I would venture forth into the world of firearms and test my mettle.
Which why, about a month ago, I found myself in the 6th lane of a local shop and shooting range near my hometown. I had requested and received a safety briefing and course in range protocol (because if I had a misfire, I didn't know what the hell to do), and had a rented Glock 22 in .40 and two boxes of shining, factory fresh rounds laid out in front of me. I'm happy to say that my book knowledge served me well and I was able to load my own magazines and operate the pistol without further assistance. I slid my safety glasses down, advanced my paper target down the range, and it began.
I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin, and I wouldn't say firing a pistol made me masculine or powerful. But I definitely derived immense satisfaction from the flash and noise, the recoil of the grip, the satisfying snick as I slid the magazine and chambered a round.
My shooting was atrocious, and I could not get my hands to stop shaking the whole time. I fired a box to get used to the weapon, and my friend Courtney, who had accompanied me, and I had a little competition after, firing in the following sets at 15 yards.
Center mass, 5 rounds, x2.
Head, 5 rounds.
Torso, 5 rounds in under 4 seconds.
Below is the target I fired at. The grin on my face is unmistakable.
Lord help me, I think I'm turning into a gun nut.
- MM
Thursday, June 18, 2009
- Not Good Enough
A few months back the hospital here in Backwater Parish closed down. It wasn't much of a hospital...a few levels above above a band-aid station. About a year ago a new company bought it out, and basically ran it into the ground - trimming the daytime surgery and closing down the L/D section that was operating. They declared bankruptcy before, I shit you not, jetting off to Aruba, leaving the residents of Backwater Parish to the mercy of the gods.
The ER was small but it in a true emergency was great for quick stabilization before we choppered out the patient to Major Metropolitan Area. And for minor emergencies it saved everyone time, money, and effort.
Since the nearest hospital in my service area (around 400 square miles, give or take - largely rural bayou area) is now at least 18 miles away, we've been doing a lot of driving. My region is a busy one and though two units work my service area, we've been caught with our pants down on coverage several times.
My supervisor and coworkers all shared the same thing with our corporate management. "We're spread too thin, out here." "We need to rework our coverage policy."
We're too wide open, and this isn't good enough, I said. It's only a matter of time before someone dies.
Our complaints, advice and suggestions all fall on deaf ears. The policy remains unchanged.
* * *
Derry is a young, severely mentally disabled patient of ours. I've picked him up several times since I came to Backwater, mostly for minor, chronic care issues - fevers, peg tubes issues, etc. He house is a mere 5 minutes from our station, and the trips are usually to the hospital in Backwater. Easy trips, back and forth. His grandmother doesn't always remember my name right away, but she knows my face. She always makes a big show of reading my name tag, and we cut up on the way to the hospital.
We had picked Derry and his Grandma up earlier in then day for a doctor's office visit. He had a slightly junky breath sounds and pretty good fever going, and was tachy at around 130. I teched the call and kept him on my monitor there and back to his home. His other vitals were OK though, and I let his doctor know about the tachycardia. We both agreed that it was probably from the fever.
The doc gave him a pretty good checking out, was a little worried about a possible respiratory infection. She wrote a handful of scripts and advised Grandma to keep giving him meds to keep the fever at bay.
We tucked Derry back into his bed.
"Alright, buddy, behave," I say to him. I tip my hat at Grandma on the way out.
13 hours later we are down in deep Backwater, at someone's duck camp for an accidental fall. As we get a refusal we get paged for a code back in The Locks, the biggest city in Backwater Parish, where our station is and hospital was. The address looks familiar on the pager, but it's not until I get the call notes that I know who's house it is. No unit is around or even close to The Locks. As a matter of fact, no other unit is anywhere close to Backwater Parish. We are it.
I won't say what happened on the way over, only tell you that it was a good thing that it was late at night and the roads were empty.
It takes 18 minutes to get there. As we pull up the chopper is landing in the parking lot across from Derry's House. The chopper was the next closest unit, with a flight time of 10 minutes from Major Metro Area.
The fire department isn't angry when we get there, just confused, maybe even hurt. "Where were you guys? We've been doing CPR, but the AED advised no shock."
The chopper medic and I code Derry for another fifteen minutes. We finally get a PEA, that goes into fib, we shock it, epi it, get an ugly, bradycardic pulse that we pace and medicate, to no avail. We get on the road but Derry slips back into asystole 5 minutes away from the hospital. They call him moments after we slide him over.
I am sweaty and spent, angry at myself, the hospital, the system. A loud BANG as I slam down my clipboard with a curse and leave the ER room to get some fresh air.
I see Grandma on the way out to my ambulance. I guess the look on my face says it all, and her expression collapses. I wrap her in a hug. She doesn't have to read my nametag this time. "Oh, March, why? Why?" she questions me.
I have no answers.
After a while, I walk her inside to the consult room and sit her down.I walk back into Derry's room and apologize to everyone. They are understanding and don't hassle me any.
Although this happened awhile back I still think about it a lot. I am at war in my own head.
My head tells me that this is a blessing for Derry, that he is now happy and whole, living the life in Wherever It Is That You Go When You Die. It tells me that I did everything I could for him and that you can't save everyone. It tells me that even with the perfect setup you're not going to get every patient back, and that I'm being too hard on myself.
My heart seethes with rage at our response time, and the coverage situation. It is furious with the Buy n' Fly health care company that raped the hospital and the residents. Over and over in my head I see Grandma's face crumple, feel her tears on my neck. The look of the firefighters, hurt. Where were you guys? they asked me. What took so long?
Derry lived in the middle of the biggest city in Backwater Parish. It took only 3 minutes for fire and police to arrive but 20 minutes for EMS personnel.
Later, I talk to one of the firefighters I am friends with. He's kind of a big deal in backwater Parish. "I know it wasn't yall's fault," he tells me. "I know it's dispatch. But they've got to do something."
Yesterday, we are twenty five miles away for what began as an asthma attack and ended up as a repository arrest.I don't know how the long the patient has been down. I medicate, intubate, and pass an electric current through her to bring her back to life. She gets choppered over to Major Metro Hospital. Last I heard she was still alive although not doing to hot.
I stock my bag and and replace the items I used, and only one thought burns in my head.
Corporate policy and Politics are all being placed ahead of the patients in Backwater Parish, and I'm mad as hell.
Because whatever the fuck the higher ups are doing, people are dying, and It's Just Not Good Enough.
-MM
The ER was small but it in a true emergency was great for quick stabilization before we choppered out the patient to Major Metropolitan Area. And for minor emergencies it saved everyone time, money, and effort.
Since the nearest hospital in my service area (around 400 square miles, give or take - largely rural bayou area) is now at least 18 miles away, we've been doing a lot of driving. My region is a busy one and though two units work my service area, we've been caught with our pants down on coverage several times.
My supervisor and coworkers all shared the same thing with our corporate management. "We're spread too thin, out here." "We need to rework our coverage policy."
We're too wide open, and this isn't good enough, I said. It's only a matter of time before someone dies.
Our complaints, advice and suggestions all fall on deaf ears. The policy remains unchanged.
* * *
Derry is a young, severely mentally disabled patient of ours. I've picked him up several times since I came to Backwater, mostly for minor, chronic care issues - fevers, peg tubes issues, etc. He house is a mere 5 minutes from our station, and the trips are usually to the hospital in Backwater. Easy trips, back and forth. His grandmother doesn't always remember my name right away, but she knows my face. She always makes a big show of reading my name tag, and we cut up on the way to the hospital.
We had picked Derry and his Grandma up earlier in then day for a doctor's office visit. He had a slightly junky breath sounds and pretty good fever going, and was tachy at around 130. I teched the call and kept him on my monitor there and back to his home. His other vitals were OK though, and I let his doctor know about the tachycardia. We both agreed that it was probably from the fever.
The doc gave him a pretty good checking out, was a little worried about a possible respiratory infection. She wrote a handful of scripts and advised Grandma to keep giving him meds to keep the fever at bay.
We tucked Derry back into his bed.
"Alright, buddy, behave," I say to him. I tip my hat at Grandma on the way out.
13 hours later we are down in deep Backwater, at someone's duck camp for an accidental fall. As we get a refusal we get paged for a code back in The Locks, the biggest city in Backwater Parish, where our station is and hospital was. The address looks familiar on the pager, but it's not until I get the call notes that I know who's house it is. No unit is around or even close to The Locks. As a matter of fact, no other unit is anywhere close to Backwater Parish. We are it.
I won't say what happened on the way over, only tell you that it was a good thing that it was late at night and the roads were empty.
It takes 18 minutes to get there. As we pull up the chopper is landing in the parking lot across from Derry's House. The chopper was the next closest unit, with a flight time of 10 minutes from Major Metro Area.
The fire department isn't angry when we get there, just confused, maybe even hurt. "Where were you guys? We've been doing CPR, but the AED advised no shock."
The chopper medic and I code Derry for another fifteen minutes. We finally get a PEA, that goes into fib, we shock it, epi it, get an ugly, bradycardic pulse that we pace and medicate, to no avail. We get on the road but Derry slips back into asystole 5 minutes away from the hospital. They call him moments after we slide him over.
I am sweaty and spent, angry at myself, the hospital, the system. A loud BANG as I slam down my clipboard with a curse and leave the ER room to get some fresh air.
I see Grandma on the way out to my ambulance. I guess the look on my face says it all, and her expression collapses. I wrap her in a hug. She doesn't have to read my nametag this time. "Oh, March, why? Why?" she questions me.
I have no answers.
After a while, I walk her inside to the consult room and sit her down.I walk back into Derry's room and apologize to everyone. They are understanding and don't hassle me any.
Although this happened awhile back I still think about it a lot. I am at war in my own head.
My head tells me that this is a blessing for Derry, that he is now happy and whole, living the life in Wherever It Is That You Go When You Die. It tells me that I did everything I could for him and that you can't save everyone. It tells me that even with the perfect setup you're not going to get every patient back, and that I'm being too hard on myself.
My heart seethes with rage at our response time, and the coverage situation. It is furious with the Buy n' Fly health care company that raped the hospital and the residents. Over and over in my head I see Grandma's face crumple, feel her tears on my neck. The look of the firefighters, hurt. Where were you guys? they asked me. What took so long?
Derry lived in the middle of the biggest city in Backwater Parish. It took only 3 minutes for fire and police to arrive but 20 minutes for EMS personnel.
Later, I talk to one of the firefighters I am friends with. He's kind of a big deal in backwater Parish. "I know it wasn't yall's fault," he tells me. "I know it's dispatch. But they've got to do something."
Yesterday, we are twenty five miles away for what began as an asthma attack and ended up as a repository arrest.I don't know how the long the patient has been down. I medicate, intubate, and pass an electric current through her to bring her back to life. She gets choppered over to Major Metro Hospital. Last I heard she was still alive although not doing to hot.
I stock my bag and and replace the items I used, and only one thought burns in my head.
Corporate policy and Politics are all being placed ahead of the patients in Backwater Parish, and I'm mad as hell.
Because whatever the fuck the higher ups are doing, people are dying, and It's Just Not Good Enough.
-MM
Thursday, May 28, 2009
- Collisons
Blacktop shines slick with rain as we race towards the strobes in the distance. All the sugercane has been cut and we can see the wreck, even though it is two miles away. There has been a car accident at a local intersection, with an entrapment.
We arrive on scene to find three teenagers trapped inside a crumpled mess of a late model sedan. The driver is the most seriously injured, disoriented with a large avulsion to the knee. He took most of the impact and the door he sits behind is deformed. He's going to have to be cut out. I'm surprised he doesn't have an humerus fracture. Fluids have been leaking from beneath, and there is a slight stench of radiator juice and gasoline. I don't jack squat about how flammable what I'm standing in is. This is not safe, but we can't leave the patients, and the fire guys don't look that concerned.
After quickly assessing the other two teens, both stable and complaining of minor neck pain, but neither need to be cut out. I call over the radio for back up and look to find Izzy, tell her to grab the spine boards, and braces. When I look up, though, she's already on the far side of the car with the equipment. "Those two out first, in our unit. The driver goes in the backup unit."
Izzy simply nods an affirmative, and I don't look up again...because I don't have to. Izzy functions on her own, and as I climb inside with the driver, I can hear her giving firm but polite orders to the Vollies out on the wreck with us. By the time I've got the driver collared and IV'd, she has both patients in the back of our. Less than a minute after the Vollies pop the door on the car, our backup unit is on scene. I do a quick handoff, and walk back to my unit to find Izzy ready with a set of vitals for each patient.
Our transport to the hospital is uneventful, and, as just about always, our unit is cleaned and ready to go back in service by the time I finish with my paperwork (I try to finish as fast as I can. I hate the she does most of the clean-up of my messes). In the back of a unit she anticipates my next move with near psychic comprehension. She's got an incredible work ethic.
The truth is working with Izzy has me spoiled pretty well. Days when I work overtime or with a different partner, it's apparent to me how well we work as a team. I'm not sure how much of it is chemistry or if she's just that awesome. For all you EMTs out there, remember this: most of the time, a Paramedic is only as good as the Basic backing them up.
Izzy isn't just coworker... a coworker is someone you work beside. She's someone I work with.
A partner.
-MM
We arrive on scene to find three teenagers trapped inside a crumpled mess of a late model sedan. The driver is the most seriously injured, disoriented with a large avulsion to the knee. He took most of the impact and the door he sits behind is deformed. He's going to have to be cut out. I'm surprised he doesn't have an humerus fracture. Fluids have been leaking from beneath, and there is a slight stench of radiator juice and gasoline. I don't jack squat about how flammable what I'm standing in is. This is not safe, but we can't leave the patients, and the fire guys don't look that concerned.
After quickly assessing the other two teens, both stable and complaining of minor neck pain, but neither need to be cut out. I call over the radio for back up and look to find Izzy, tell her to grab the spine boards, and braces. When I look up, though, she's already on the far side of the car with the equipment. "Those two out first, in our unit. The driver goes in the backup unit."
Izzy simply nods an affirmative, and I don't look up again...because I don't have to. Izzy functions on her own, and as I climb inside with the driver, I can hear her giving firm but polite orders to the Vollies out on the wreck with us. By the time I've got the driver collared and IV'd, she has both patients in the back of our. Less than a minute after the Vollies pop the door on the car, our backup unit is on scene. I do a quick handoff, and walk back to my unit to find Izzy ready with a set of vitals for each patient.
Our transport to the hospital is uneventful, and, as just about always, our unit is cleaned and ready to go back in service by the time I finish with my paperwork (I try to finish as fast as I can. I hate the she does most of the clean-up of my messes). In the back of a unit she anticipates my next move with near psychic comprehension. She's got an incredible work ethic.
The truth is working with Izzy has me spoiled pretty well. Days when I work overtime or with a different partner, it's apparent to me how well we work as a team. I'm not sure how much of it is chemistry or if she's just that awesome. For all you EMTs out there, remember this: most of the time, a Paramedic is only as good as the Basic backing them up.
Izzy isn't just coworker... a coworker is someone you work beside. She's someone I work with.
A partner.
-MM
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
- John Lennon
Izzy and I have been busting hump all day, a common occurrence since they've switched dispatchers in our area recently. The new guy is, to be kind, a complete ball-lick. Actually, I take that back. A ball lick, at least is useful or fun to at least one person. This guy is more like a herpes lesion - no fun for anyone. Whatever. Dispatch is dispatch, and you're going to get crapped on eventually. It's just seems like it's been us...every shift.
Anyway, we are paged out for a transfer from a residence to a local hospice. We make our way over and arrive at the residence. I'm a little gun shy. The last hospice transfer I had was form the hospital to the patient's home.
The patient passed on in the back while we were en route. The partner I was working with that day had never had anyone die on her before, and it was an (understandably) emotional time when we arrived at the residence. They didn't understand that the patient was gone, and the granddaughter actually requested to work the patient until his wife managed to come over. She put her hand on her granddaughter's shoulder and pulled her into a gentle hug and said "No baby, its OK. He's gone." They started crying, my partner started crying, etc.
Back to the present, we walk inside where we meet a lady I will call Delores. She's sitting in her bed, in the back bedroom. She's in a hospital bed, with oxygen cannula attached, watching Judge Judy. A recent "Glamour" magazine is sitting on the nightstand.
It's obvious from the start this lady is a card. She looks at me and cocks an eyebrow. "And who is THIS gentleman?", she asks her hospice nurse.
I introduce myself. "I'm March, this is my partner Izzy. We're taking you over to the hospice".
'Lord, I don't even have my face on. Well, OK. Let me get my purse."
We chat and joke for a little while. As it turns out, Delores grew up in the 1960s in London...and she let us know all about the wild parties she attended. She worked as a model before falling in love with one of her photographers and lived allover the world before immigrating to the US and settling in the South, where she and her husband did charity work for a children's hospital and raced hot air balloons. The nurse gives her some pain medication before we leave.
We get her loaded up, and I hop in the driver's seat. "What kind of music do you like, Delores?" I call out through the window.
"Well, I was always a big John Lennon fan." Oh crap. I was hoping she'd give me a genre, not a specific request. I put on the local classic rock station and pray for a miracle. Unfortunately, it's a Fleetwood Mac marathon, and we listen to that as we drive over.
We are getting pretty close to the hospice, and I switch radio stations on a whim, and incredibly...
...I hear the opening melody to "Imagine." Chills run down my spine. I turn my head to the window and wave to get Izzy's attention, and then point at the radio. which I turn up. John Lennon's voice blares beautifully from the speakers. The song ends just as we pull up to the entrance of the hospice.
I pop open the back doors, and Delores has a huge smile on her face. We bring her inside and put her in the other bed. "Light as a ballerina!" I say, a line I caged from Peter Canning's book. She gives us each a hug and tries to tip us, which I decline, saying the pleasure was all mine. She then looks over at the male hospice nurse that has entered. "Oh, lord, two strapping young lads! I had better watch out for my purity!" and we all crack up.
She is still smiling as I walk back to the hallway where Izz is making the stretcher up. Izz tells me apparently, when the song came on , the lady got all excited. It was her favorite song.
We load the stretcher in the back and I put my sunglasses on, still wearing a smile.
I don't want Izz to see that there is something in my eye.
-MM
Anyway, we are paged out for a transfer from a residence to a local hospice. We make our way over and arrive at the residence. I'm a little gun shy. The last hospice transfer I had was form the hospital to the patient's home.
The patient passed on in the back while we were en route. The partner I was working with that day had never had anyone die on her before, and it was an (understandably) emotional time when we arrived at the residence. They didn't understand that the patient was gone, and the granddaughter actually requested to work the patient until his wife managed to come over. She put her hand on her granddaughter's shoulder and pulled her into a gentle hug and said "No baby, its OK. He's gone." They started crying, my partner started crying, etc.
Back to the present, we walk inside where we meet a lady I will call Delores. She's sitting in her bed, in the back bedroom. She's in a hospital bed, with oxygen cannula attached, watching Judge Judy. A recent "Glamour" magazine is sitting on the nightstand.
It's obvious from the start this lady is a card. She looks at me and cocks an eyebrow. "And who is THIS gentleman?", she asks her hospice nurse.
I introduce myself. "I'm March, this is my partner Izzy. We're taking you over to the hospice".
'Lord, I don't even have my face on. Well, OK. Let me get my purse."
We chat and joke for a little while. As it turns out, Delores grew up in the 1960s in London...and she let us know all about the wild parties she attended. She worked as a model before falling in love with one of her photographers and lived allover the world before immigrating to the US and settling in the South, where she and her husband did charity work for a children's hospital and raced hot air balloons. The nurse gives her some pain medication before we leave.
We get her loaded up, and I hop in the driver's seat. "What kind of music do you like, Delores?" I call out through the window.
"Well, I was always a big John Lennon fan." Oh crap. I was hoping she'd give me a genre, not a specific request. I put on the local classic rock station and pray for a miracle. Unfortunately, it's a Fleetwood Mac marathon, and we listen to that as we drive over.
We are getting pretty close to the hospice, and I switch radio stations on a whim, and incredibly...
...I hear the opening melody to "Imagine." Chills run down my spine. I turn my head to the window and wave to get Izzy's attention, and then point at the radio. which I turn up. John Lennon's voice blares beautifully from the speakers. The song ends just as we pull up to the entrance of the hospice.
I pop open the back doors, and Delores has a huge smile on her face. We bring her inside and put her in the other bed. "Light as a ballerina!" I say, a line I caged from Peter Canning's book. She gives us each a hug and tries to tip us, which I decline, saying the pleasure was all mine. She then looks over at the male hospice nurse that has entered. "Oh, lord, two strapping young lads! I had better watch out for my purity!" and we all crack up.
She is still smiling as I walk back to the hallway where Izz is making the stretcher up. Izz tells me apparently, when the song came on , the lady got all excited. It was her favorite song.
We load the stretcher in the back and I put my sunglasses on, still wearing a smile.
I don't want Izz to see that there is something in my eye.
-MM
Monday, March 16, 2009
- Izzy Tales
I was off the truck over 10 days recently on a minivaction for a friend's wedding. This meant my partner, Izzy, was working with a swing medic, who for clarity shall hence forth be referred to as "Swingy" . This is one of the adventures she told me about.
Also, it's pretty gross. Don't read if you have a weak stomach.
* * *
"Oh, god, March, I wanted to DIE this weekend."
"What happened?"
"Well, Swingy and I had gotten our butts kicked all night. We were just about to head home and get off shift when they gave us a Critical Care call at Incompetence Memorial Hospital coming back to Metropolitan ER. We get there to find this massive lady intubated with all kinds of medicine flowing into her, still on a spineboard. She had a history as long as my arm. Apparently she had coded and they brought her to IMH where they got her back. We load her up and drive over to Metro to drop her off."
"When we get to Metro, the hallway is full of every doctor, nurse , and tech that can be corralled. We transfer her over, and I'm standing down at the end of the board. I don't know why what happened next happened, but I'm so thankful it happened."
"I'm down at the end of the board and step to the side a little bit. I don't know why I stepped to the the side, I just did. There was no reason for me to. "
"All of a sudden, the most rotten, disgusting, and vile stench that has ever passed these nostrils invades my sinuses and will NOT GET OUT. I look at where I was just standing and there is a brown waterfall spewing from between her legs, flowing down the board, splattering onto the floor. "
"Everyone starts gagging. The room is silent except for retches and a doctor at the head of the bed who says 'Um, I believe that is feces!' (at this point I want to yell 'no shit, Sherlock'! but I'm gagging too hard)."
She looks nauseous at this point. "One of the nurses was hunched over a trash can vomiting and crying, crying and vomiting."
"It smelled like every single piece of bacteria and rot that had been lodged in this woman's body in the past 60 years all of a sudden exited her bowels...explosively. It was the worse thing ever."
* * *
Apparently here People start leaving the room in droves, but the Critical room at Metropolitan is really crowded, so a bottle neck forms at the exit. People could not leave fast enough to escape the poo.
* * *
"Swingy comes out of the ER later and sits down. He's all sweaty and kind of pale. 'Izzy,' he goes, 'that is the worst thing I have ever smelled. Worse than any decubitis, any GI bleed, anything. Ever."
Izzy looks a little green around the gills.
"Horrible. It was a brown waterfall of death." She swallows heavily.
"Glad I was in Lake City!"
"Asshole."
-MM
Also, it's pretty gross. Don't read if you have a weak stomach.
* * *
"Oh, god, March, I wanted to DIE this weekend."
"What happened?"
"Well, Swingy and I had gotten our butts kicked all night. We were just about to head home and get off shift when they gave us a Critical Care call at Incompetence Memorial Hospital coming back to Metropolitan ER. We get there to find this massive lady intubated with all kinds of medicine flowing into her, still on a spineboard. She had a history as long as my arm. Apparently she had coded and they brought her to IMH where they got her back. We load her up and drive over to Metro to drop her off."
"When we get to Metro, the hallway is full of every doctor, nurse , and tech that can be corralled. We transfer her over, and I'm standing down at the end of the board. I don't know why what happened next happened, but I'm so thankful it happened."
"I'm down at the end of the board and step to the side a little bit. I don't know why I stepped to the the side, I just did. There was no reason for me to. "
"All of a sudden, the most rotten, disgusting, and vile stench that has ever passed these nostrils invades my sinuses and will NOT GET OUT. I look at where I was just standing and there is a brown waterfall spewing from between her legs, flowing down the board, splattering onto the floor. "
"Everyone starts gagging. The room is silent except for retches and a doctor at the head of the bed who says 'Um, I believe that is feces!' (at this point I want to yell 'no shit, Sherlock'! but I'm gagging too hard)."
She looks nauseous at this point. "One of the nurses was hunched over a trash can vomiting and crying, crying and vomiting."
"It smelled like every single piece of bacteria and rot that had been lodged in this woman's body in the past 60 years all of a sudden exited her bowels...explosively. It was the worse thing ever."
* * *
Apparently here People start leaving the room in droves, but the Critical room at Metropolitan is really crowded, so a bottle neck forms at the exit. People could not leave fast enough to escape the poo.
* * *
"Swingy comes out of the ER later and sits down. He's all sweaty and kind of pale. 'Izzy,' he goes, 'that is the worst thing I have ever smelled. Worse than any decubitis, any GI bleed, anything. Ever."
Izzy looks a little green around the gills.
"Horrible. It was a brown waterfall of death." She swallows heavily.
"Glad I was in Lake City!"
"Asshole."
-MM
Friday, March 6, 2009
- Close Calls
Getting up at my girlfriend's house this morning, I scratched myself and walked into the bathroom, about to do my morning duty when all of a sudd-
HOLY SHIT THAT THING ON THE COUNTER LOOKS LIKE A PREGNANCY TEST
OH MY GOD OH GOD GOD OH MYGOD CRAP CRAP CRAP
MY MOMS ARE GOING TO KILL ME
OH SHIT MY GIRLFRIEND'S MOM IS GOING TO KILL ME
OH MY GOD MY GIRLFRIEND'S GOING TO KILL ME
OH GOD HOW IS MY GIRLFRIEND
I'm not smart enough to be a dad! I'm No Ambulance Driver! I can't even beat pre-k students at Wii bowling and now I have to raise a whole baby?!
Holy crap what if it's all hairy like me! Oh god.
OK, MM. Just relax. Just take a deep breath and press the button and check it...just press the button.
You've picked up people's body parts from the side of the road, this is nothing, simple, just a little button to press.
::a minute passes::
You Can do this, March. C'mon.
::another minute passes::
C'mon. Knowing is better than not knowing.
::another minute passes::
At this point, my girlfriend walks in, and I love her, but she looks like hell, all sweaty and puffy. Oh, god, I think. This is real. Well, she's a solid chick. If she's the mother of my child, OK. Let's do it. I just hope the kid takes after her side.
"Baby, I-"
She doesn't stop, heading directly for the pregnancy test. Uh-oh.
She picks it up and waves it at me. "DID YOU SEE THIS? IT'S HORRIBLE"
"Well, baby, I don't think so, I th-"
"It's bad, MM! I already feel like throwing up!"
"Well, that's part of it, I think." I don't know, the only thing I have to go off of is Father Of The Bride movies!
With that, she slides the pregnancy test into her mouth. Hmm, that's new. I didn't know you excreted hormones into your saliva, but fuck, technology is amazing.
It beeps after about twenty seconds - holy crap, that was fast. Technology IS amazing.
"Look!" She extends the pregnancy test out to me, so I can read the results. And there, in the little window that says "Pregnant or Not Pregnant" it says "SZOI"
"'SZOI'? What the fuck is 'SZOI'?"
CRAP. Is this bullshit in Russian or something? GODDAMIT I NEED TO KNOW IF I AM A FATHER, NOT WHAT YOU'RE NAMING YOUR FUCKING SPACE ROCKETS.
"Oh, wait, sorry babe, it's upside down." And with that she flips the test to show that it reads:
102.5
What the fuck?
Wait.
Oh.
It's a thermometer. Oh. Wow. Wow.
Girlfriend looks at me. "Baby, you're kind've pale yourself. Are you getting sick too?"
"Nope! I'm Good!"
-MM
HOLY SHIT THAT THING ON THE COUNTER LOOKS LIKE A PREGNANCY TEST
OH MY GOD OH GOD GOD OH MYGOD CRAP CRAP CRAP
MY MOMS ARE GOING TO KILL ME
OH SHIT MY GIRLFRIEND'S MOM IS GOING TO KILL ME
OH MY GOD MY GIRLFRIEND'S GOING TO KILL ME
OH GOD HOW IS MY GIRLFRIEND
I'm not smart enough to be a dad! I'm No Ambulance Driver! I can't even beat pre-k students at Wii bowling and now I have to raise a whole baby?!
Holy crap what if it's all hairy like me! Oh god.
OK, MM. Just relax. Just take a deep breath and press the button and check it...just press the button.
You've picked up people's body parts from the side of the road, this is nothing, simple, just a little button to press.
::a minute passes::
You Can do this, March. C'mon.
::another minute passes::
C'mon. Knowing is better than not knowing.
::another minute passes::
At this point, my girlfriend walks in, and I love her, but she looks like hell, all sweaty and puffy. Oh, god, I think. This is real. Well, she's a solid chick. If she's the mother of my child, OK. Let's do it. I just hope the kid takes after her side.
"Baby, I-"
She doesn't stop, heading directly for the pregnancy test. Uh-oh.
She picks it up and waves it at me. "DID YOU SEE THIS? IT'S HORRIBLE"
"Well, baby, I don't think so, I th-"
"It's bad, MM! I already feel like throwing up!"
"Well, that's part of it, I think." I don't know, the only thing I have to go off of is Father Of The Bride movies!
With that, she slides the pregnancy test into her mouth. Hmm, that's new. I didn't know you excreted hormones into your saliva, but fuck, technology is amazing.
It beeps after about twenty seconds - holy crap, that was fast. Technology IS amazing.
"Look!" She extends the pregnancy test out to me, so I can read the results. And there, in the little window that says "Pregnant or Not Pregnant" it says "SZOI"
"'SZOI'? What the fuck is 'SZOI'?"
CRAP. Is this bullshit in Russian or something? GODDAMIT I NEED TO KNOW IF I AM A FATHER, NOT WHAT YOU'RE NAMING YOUR FUCKING SPACE ROCKETS.
"Oh, wait, sorry babe, it's upside down." And with that she flips the test to show that it reads:
102.5
What the fuck?
Wait.
Oh.
It's a thermometer. Oh. Wow. Wow.
Girlfriend looks at me. "Baby, you're kind've pale yourself. Are you getting sick too?"
"Nope! I'm Good!"
-MM
Monday, February 16, 2009
- A bit of a detour...
Ok, for those of you who don't know I'm a fan of coffee. Was perusing Keep Breathing's blog and caught a link here to Tom Bibey, MD's bluegrass-and-medicine page.
Seems ole Doc Bibey composed some lyrics, and I felt the musical bug bite me on the ass, so I went ahead and laid it down on my laptop.
EDIT: Here is the working link to COFFEE SONG. Check it out!
And now he's got a song writing contest going! Check it out!
-MM
Seems ole Doc Bibey composed some lyrics, and I felt the musical bug bite me on the ass, so I went ahead and laid it down on my laptop.
EDIT: Here is the working link to COFFEE SONG. Check it out!
And now he's got a song writing contest going! Check it out!
-MM
Thursday, February 12, 2009
- For everyone who wanted to see what I really look like...
...it's like this. Coming to a newsstand near you!
-MM
Saturday, February 7, 2009
- Lies
Izzy and I were in the unit one day last year. It was a beautiful sunset, the kind that makes cinematographers have to adjust their underwear, and we were deciding on what we wanted for dinner. In our small town, this consists of three options.
1) Wal-mart
2) Chinese
3) Fast Food
I believe we had decided on Chinese when we get a page for an overdose...at a dentist's office?
"A dentists office? Too much toothpaste? What the hell?"
Traffic parts in front of our siren as we speed over. We arrive 2 minutes later (small town, remember?) and get out, ready for action.A cop is standing outside, and as we walk through an open door, we see three large women clustered around the door to a patient care room. It smells like a dentists office, and my teeth ache slightly. I step past the ladies at the doorway to find a perhaps forty year-old female curled, fetus like, around a nitrous tank. A firefighter is poking her in the stomach.
"Look out, bud. You're doing it wrong." I kneel down to the lady, and poke continuously on her forehead.
"Hey. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey. Hey. Wake up."
My technique works, and our little nitrousnaut's eyes flutter open.
"Wh....where's...Tooktook? Where's...bali??"
I shoot a sidelong glance at the firefighter and Izzy, who's trying to suppress a smile. Bali? Wow.
"Ma'am, I'm a paramedic with XXXX, my name's March, what happened?"
She's starting to come around now, and looks at the tank she's wrapped herself around.
"Oh, uh....I...was....um. I work here."
"Oh, ok. Izz, can you get some vitals?" I turn around and look at the three pack of women at the door to the office. They can barley fit all of their faces inside. "Do any of ya'll know what happened?"
One of the pack looks at the other two, "Well, we left the office around two today, and went to have an after work lunch. She said she had to finish some paperwork. We all went home and got dressed, and when we drove back by on the way to the restaurant, I noticed her car was still parked out around the back. I didn't think it was a big deal and we went and ate. When we got done, we were driving by, and her car was still here. We went inside to check her and found her like this, and then we called you."
I check my watch. It's a little after seven. These woman ate "after work" lunch for 3 hours. That's close to my personal record! But, more importantly....a woman has been huffing laughing gas for 4 or 5 hours.
Now, pharmacologists, you may be able to educate me on the particular kinetics of nitrous, but as I recall, it's premixed, and you can't dose yourself too high without dropping the mask. So I'm not to concerned with the potential of this individual to go into respiratory arrest. At worst, she'll have a shit-ass headache. I walk back to the woman, who is now awake enough to communicate effectively.
"Oh, look, I was just feeling...short of breath, so I decided to um...breathe some oxygen. I feel...better."
I bet so.
The dentist shows up, and decides not to press charges.
For dinner, I have chicken on a stick with steamed rice.
It is delicious.
-MM
1) Wal-mart
2) Chinese
3) Fast Food
I believe we had decided on Chinese when we get a page for an overdose...at a dentist's office?
"A dentists office? Too much toothpaste? What the hell?"
Traffic parts in front of our siren as we speed over. We arrive 2 minutes later (small town, remember?) and get out, ready for action.A cop is standing outside, and as we walk through an open door, we see three large women clustered around the door to a patient care room. It smells like a dentists office, and my teeth ache slightly. I step past the ladies at the doorway to find a perhaps forty year-old female curled, fetus like, around a nitrous tank. A firefighter is poking her in the stomach.
"Look out, bud. You're doing it wrong." I kneel down to the lady, and poke continuously on her forehead.
"Hey. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeey. Hey. Wake up."
My technique works, and our little nitrousnaut's eyes flutter open.
"Wh....where's...Tooktook? Where's...bali??"
I shoot a sidelong glance at the firefighter and Izzy, who's trying to suppress a smile. Bali? Wow.
"Ma'am, I'm a paramedic with XXXX, my name's March, what happened?"
She's starting to come around now, and looks at the tank she's wrapped herself around.
"Oh, uh....I...was....um. I work here."
"Oh, ok. Izz, can you get some vitals?" I turn around and look at the three pack of women at the door to the office. They can barley fit all of their faces inside. "Do any of ya'll know what happened?"
One of the pack looks at the other two, "Well, we left the office around two today, and went to have an after work lunch. She said she had to finish some paperwork. We all went home and got dressed, and when we drove back by on the way to the restaurant, I noticed her car was still parked out around the back. I didn't think it was a big deal and we went and ate. When we got done, we were driving by, and her car was still here. We went inside to check her and found her like this, and then we called you."
I check my watch. It's a little after seven. These woman ate "after work" lunch for 3 hours. That's close to my personal record! But, more importantly....a woman has been huffing laughing gas for 4 or 5 hours.
Now, pharmacologists, you may be able to educate me on the particular kinetics of nitrous, but as I recall, it's premixed, and you can't dose yourself too high without dropping the mask. So I'm not to concerned with the potential of this individual to go into respiratory arrest. At worst, she'll have a shit-ass headache. I walk back to the woman, who is now awake enough to communicate effectively.
"Oh, look, I was just feeling...short of breath, so I decided to um...breathe some oxygen. I feel...better."
I bet so.
The dentist shows up, and decides not to press charges.
For dinner, I have chicken on a stick with steamed rice.
It is delicious.
-MM
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
- Holiday Times
For some reason, everytime it's the holiday season, all I can think of is that great Monty Python Song and Dance Number.
Happy New Year, you guys.
Happy New Year, you guys.
Friday, December 26, 2008
- Updates
All my best laid plans to screw with FNG are all screwed up because he turned out to be a sly and crafty learner, sparing him the brunt of my mindgames, but I got moved to the Critical Care unit at our station...
...leading to what has been a 6 week death spiral of every new employee we've hired. I don't mind teaching someone, but having to go through the same stuff every shift was wearing me thin...
...really thin. And even though I only have to see her for twenty minutes a week, tops, the urge to strangle Lazy Paramedic (formerly partner) is so intense my eyeballs bulge 6 or 7 centimeters from their sockets every time I see her. I also was turned down for a promotion...
...which kind of works out though, because I'm enrolling back into school to finish up my little punk-ass associates degree. If I nail straight As, I'll go premed, and if not, on to Nursing...
...and apparently The Higher Power has decided to award me for not going ape-shit on anyone because guess who's coming back to be my partner until she gets into medical school?
That's right. Izzy.
Merry X-mas to me! And Happy holidays to all you guys!
-MM
...leading to what has been a 6 week death spiral of every new employee we've hired. I don't mind teaching someone, but having to go through the same stuff every shift was wearing me thin...
...really thin. And even though I only have to see her for twenty minutes a week, tops, the urge to strangle Lazy Paramedic (formerly partner) is so intense my eyeballs bulge 6 or 7 centimeters from their sockets every time I see her. I also was turned down for a promotion...
...which kind of works out though, because I'm enrolling back into school to finish up my little punk-ass associates degree. If I nail straight As, I'll go premed, and if not, on to Nursing...
...and apparently The Higher Power has decided to award me for not going ape-shit on anyone because guess who's coming back to be my partner until she gets into medical school?
That's right. Izzy.
Merry X-mas to me! And Happy holidays to all you guys!
-MM
Thursday, December 18, 2008
- 2x4
There is a large crown of perhaps forty people clustered around the three cop cars and rescue truck. It is four AM, and we've been, well, we've been getting hammered. No, not hammered, where you wake up with a screaming brain next to some girl who's name you can't remember and oh God you're wearing her underwear again oh God oh God what is wrong with you.
No, we've been dick-scratches favorite nail this evening, and although I would like to try and look interested in this patient, I cannot.
"Why are you crying?"
"I (wuuuuuuuaaahhh) ba...ba...broke my nail! Wuuuah!"
I look at my partner, who looks like shit. He looks at me.
"Wow, yeah. I'll grab the trauma bag."
I turn back to the patient, and squat down to her level, and take a deep breath.
"Wow," she says, "that's a mighty big vein you've got throbbing in your forehead!"
"Yeah," I say. "It comes and goes. How'd you break your nail?"
"Sumdood was swinging a 2x4 around in the club."
"Oh." This, at least, is marginally interesting. I gamely try to engage my brain into full interrogative mode. "What...uh...where...where was this at?"
She points toward the RR tracks. There's a club, not too far away. "Over dere."
"Oh. Ok. You want to go to the hospital. You're hand could be fractured." It wasn't. It wasn't even close to being fractured. Nothing was wrong with her. But they don't let me tell that to people, so instead I lie. "If it's bothering you , you need to see the doctor."
"No, I'm fine."
Silently, I thank providence. Maybe I can get a whole 45 minutes of sleep before waking up to clean the station and wash the truck.
"Uh, March?" says one of the cops. "We've got another one here."
This patient is a young man who's been struck on the head with the 2x4. He has a minor lac, and also does not want to go to the hospital, even when I tell him that he could be seriously injured, slip into a coma, or die, if he does not want to go to the hospital.
"Fo' Real?"
"Yeah, man. Fo Real."
"Well I'm just gonna get my cousin to take me to BackWater Hospital."
I'm too tired to argue. He's awake, alert, oriented, and vitals check out. I'm too tired to argue (although somewhere in the back of my head, a little voice says I should never be to tired to argue.)
"Yeah, man, sumdood was going CRAZY with that shit. Swinging it around like he was fucking Sammy Sosa or shit."
"Sign here." Well, at least I can get thirty minutes of sleep.
A girl walks up, with pain in her shoulder.
"He caught me on the backswing, it don't hurt though."
Then why the fuck are you standing here?
I give her an icepack after assesing CPMS, and get another refusal.
The ink isn't dry before a Firefighter walks up, a young lady in tow.
"What happened?"
"Some guy were swinging, like, a stick! He hit a bottle, and it hit me! He were crazy! He was a meaniac!"
She has some minor lacs to the inside of her right leg. The only thing hurt here is my eyes - I mean, I'm no prize, but she is absurdly too large to be wearing shorts like this. If she would've worn some proper sized and fitted clothing, she would've escaped with no scratches.
I obtain the last refusal, and grab the PA of the ambulance and address the crowd.
"Attention, Attention. If anyone else has been struck by the 2x4 wielding psycho, please report to the back of my ambulance for treatment. "
Forty or fifty pairs of eyes turn and look at me like I'm crazy.
postscript: instead of sleeping for 7 minutes before having to get up again, I watch an infomercial for Shamwow!...that thing is awesome.
-MM
No, we've been dick-scratches favorite nail this evening, and although I would like to try and look interested in this patient, I cannot.
"Why are you crying?"
"I (wuuuuuuuaaahhh) ba...ba...broke my nail! Wuuuah!"
I look at my partner, who looks like shit. He looks at me.
"Wow, yeah. I'll grab the trauma bag."
I turn back to the patient, and squat down to her level, and take a deep breath.
"Wow," she says, "that's a mighty big vein you've got throbbing in your forehead!"
"Yeah," I say. "It comes and goes. How'd you break your nail?"
"Sumdood was swinging a 2x4 around in the club."
"Oh." This, at least, is marginally interesting. I gamely try to engage my brain into full interrogative mode. "What...uh...where...where was this at?"
She points toward the RR tracks. There's a club, not too far away. "Over dere."
"Oh. Ok. You want to go to the hospital. You're hand could be fractured." It wasn't. It wasn't even close to being fractured. Nothing was wrong with her. But they don't let me tell that to people, so instead I lie. "If it's bothering you , you need to see the doctor."
"No, I'm fine."
Silently, I thank providence. Maybe I can get a whole 45 minutes of sleep before waking up to clean the station and wash the truck.
"Uh, March?" says one of the cops. "We've got another one here."
This patient is a young man who's been struck on the head with the 2x4. He has a minor lac, and also does not want to go to the hospital, even when I tell him that he could be seriously injured, slip into a coma, or die, if he does not want to go to the hospital.
"Fo' Real?"
"Yeah, man. Fo Real."
"Well I'm just gonna get my cousin to take me to BackWater Hospital."
I'm too tired to argue. He's awake, alert, oriented, and vitals check out. I'm too tired to argue (although somewhere in the back of my head, a little voice says I should never be to tired to argue.)
"Yeah, man, sumdood was going CRAZY with that shit. Swinging it around like he was fucking Sammy Sosa or shit."
"Sign here." Well, at least I can get thirty minutes of sleep.
A girl walks up, with pain in her shoulder.
"He caught me on the backswing, it don't hurt though."
Then why the fuck are you standing here?
I give her an icepack after assesing CPMS, and get another refusal.
The ink isn't dry before a Firefighter walks up, a young lady in tow.
"What happened?"
"Some guy were swinging, like, a stick! He hit a bottle, and it hit me! He were crazy! He was a meaniac!"
She has some minor lacs to the inside of her right leg. The only thing hurt here is my eyes - I mean, I'm no prize, but she is absurdly too large to be wearing shorts like this. If she would've worn some proper sized and fitted clothing, she would've escaped with no scratches.
I obtain the last refusal, and grab the PA of the ambulance and address the crowd.
"Attention, Attention. If anyone else has been struck by the 2x4 wielding psycho, please report to the back of my ambulance for treatment. "
Forty or fifty pairs of eyes turn and look at me like I'm crazy.
postscript: instead of sleeping for 7 minutes before having to get up again, I watch an infomercial for Shamwow!...that thing is awesome.
-MM
Friday, November 28, 2008
- Gang Bangin' (Holy shit!)
We're paged out for a shooting at around 3 in the morning - not to say this wasn't expected.
There has already been a shooting tonight, and it seems that retaliatory gunfire has been mandatory. This time it's a little different, however - someone has loaded up a shotgun with slugs, and opened up on the supposed shooter's (from the first murder tonight) house.
Well, the shooter wasn't home, but his 61 year old mother was. There are at least three holes in the door and front wall of the house. I can actually see light coming through from inside. Shotgun shells are scattered allover the driveway, circled by little orange hoops of spray paint to mark them as evidence.
"It's kind of messy in there," says one of the cops. "I was like, 'Holy Shit!'"
I walk in and look at the scene on the floor in front of me. "Holy shit!" I whisper to myself.
Apparently when the shooting began, the first slug - the one that punched a hole through the door, also punched a hole through her, entering through the rear of her left calf, through what I can now see is an inch wide ragged hole. If the front of your foot was 0 degrees, and the read of your calf 180, the slug has entered at a 225 degree angle.
Traveling through the lady's calf, it burst out of the front right side of her shin and continued on though the home. The exit wound is about 4 by 5 inches, about as big of the top of my fist, and is bleeding venously. It looks like someone dumped red paint allover the floor, where it has started to clot already.
If this wasn't enough, the whole neighborhood is out to watch. They sound like a whole zoo, packed into a 100 yard area. The cops are running around everywhere, only a wink at crowd control, and We are forced to park about 50 yards back from where we should be due to improperly parked first responders.
And if that wasn't enough, my partner this evening? Why, it's old Cutsy, every one's favorite Goth wannabe. She's a real mess this evening, and I am entirely unsympathetic.
Hey, I'm kind of an asshole sometimes. I've worked pretty hard to try and help her out but it's like trying to get blood from a turnip. On the usefulness scale, she's falling somewhere in between A Monkey Fucking A Football and a Starfish.
At least If I got mad at a starfish and ripped it to shreds, it could regenerate.
Cutsy manages to drag her ass through the door. "Holy shit!" she yelps.
There are no pulses on the foot no matter how I manipulate it. I tell Cutsy to bandage it up. A ragged chunk of bone visible in the wound and NO WAY YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS Cutsy is just starring at it as I'm trying to get this patient squared away.
"Cutsy!" Nothing.
"CUTSY!!!!"
She blinks her self awake. "Huh?"
You need to turn down your fucking Cradle of Filth, you superfluous waste of genetic Material. You're going to blow out the tiny little remnant of brains you barely manage to hold on to if you don't lower the volume, you vacuous fucking mouth-breathing hell-spawn sent here to make my life miserable.
That's what I want to say.
Instead I say "Bandage the Leg."
"How?"
I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting that one. She caught me flatfooted, and now here I am, staring across this old black lady who is bleeding allover the floor, trying to figure out what to say.
Finally I grab the bandage from her, wrap it, and secure it. "Like That," I say gruffly. "Go spike me some bags in the back, please." I look away from her and I can hear her start to cry as she walks outside. It bothers me for nearly a whole second before the anger boils back. How can she not know how to bandage something? She had to have seen that at least once or twice in Basic class. HAD TO. Had to pass it for national registry. All that shit should be fresh in her head.
That's how I used to know you were mad at me, Lazy Partner told me after we stopped working together. You get real polite, and you don't smile at all. That's how I used to know.
Well, I still hate Lazy Partner, and Cutsy is climbing higher on the list.
We transport the lady to the nearest hospital. I can't get a line in her at all - her veins are nonexistent, and if she passes out on me, I can drill her, but I'm betting that the ER might be able to succeed where I've failed.
"Holy shit!" Goes the ER Nurse, when I unwrap the wound. "Call the resident, now!"
"Holy shit!" goes the resident, when he sees the damage. "Call a Trauma alert, now!"
"Holy Shit! Look at the that! The Tibia and Fibula are completed shattered! You can see!" says the Trauma surgeon.
* * *
I walk out to the truck, and sit down next to Cutsy, who is not cleaning, just sitting there shell shocked. "Hey."
"What?"
"Look, I know you know how to bandage someone. You had to have done it at registry, at least."
"Well, yeah," she concedes meekly. "But I didn't want to hurt her."
"Huh?"
"Well, that was a big wound on her leg and she was already hurting. I didn't want to make it worse."
"Sometimes, that part of the fucking job, Cutsy. You need to get used to that. If it's ever just the two of us on scene, I need to know that I can count on you, hopefully as an independent EMT, but barring that, at least as someone who can follow my orders. The lady needed that leg bandaged immediately. You could see how much blood she had lost."
She starts crying again. I whip out a post it and write a phone number on it.
"Here's the number to CISM. Call them right now."
This is the extent to which I will help her.
* * *
So I show up at work the other day and who should I see as part of the off going crew?
Lazy Partner.
Only, now? She's Lazy Paramedic, here to do some ride time to clear as a paramedic in her own right.
It's going to be a long holiday season.
-MM
There has already been a shooting tonight, and it seems that retaliatory gunfire has been mandatory. This time it's a little different, however - someone has loaded up a shotgun with slugs, and opened up on the supposed shooter's (from the first murder tonight) house.
Well, the shooter wasn't home, but his 61 year old mother was. There are at least three holes in the door and front wall of the house. I can actually see light coming through from inside. Shotgun shells are scattered allover the driveway, circled by little orange hoops of spray paint to mark them as evidence.
"It's kind of messy in there," says one of the cops. "I was like, 'Holy Shit!'"
I walk in and look at the scene on the floor in front of me. "Holy shit!" I whisper to myself.
Apparently when the shooting began, the first slug - the one that punched a hole through the door, also punched a hole through her, entering through the rear of her left calf, through what I can now see is an inch wide ragged hole. If the front of your foot was 0 degrees, and the read of your calf 180, the slug has entered at a 225 degree angle.
Traveling through the lady's calf, it burst out of the front right side of her shin and continued on though the home. The exit wound is about 4 by 5 inches, about as big of the top of my fist, and is bleeding venously. It looks like someone dumped red paint allover the floor, where it has started to clot already.
If this wasn't enough, the whole neighborhood is out to watch. They sound like a whole zoo, packed into a 100 yard area. The cops are running around everywhere, only a wink at crowd control, and We are forced to park about 50 yards back from where we should be due to improperly parked first responders.
And if that wasn't enough, my partner this evening? Why, it's old Cutsy, every one's favorite Goth wannabe. She's a real mess this evening, and I am entirely unsympathetic.
Hey, I'm kind of an asshole sometimes. I've worked pretty hard to try and help her out but it's like trying to get blood from a turnip. On the usefulness scale, she's falling somewhere in between A Monkey Fucking A Football and a Starfish.
At least If I got mad at a starfish and ripped it to shreds, it could regenerate.
Cutsy manages to drag her ass through the door. "Holy shit!" she yelps.
There are no pulses on the foot no matter how I manipulate it. I tell Cutsy to bandage it up. A ragged chunk of bone visible in the wound and NO WAY YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS Cutsy is just starring at it as I'm trying to get this patient squared away.
"Cutsy!" Nothing.
"CUTSY!!!!"
She blinks her self awake. "Huh?"
You need to turn down your fucking Cradle of Filth, you superfluous waste of genetic Material. You're going to blow out the tiny little remnant of brains you barely manage to hold on to if you don't lower the volume, you vacuous fucking mouth-breathing hell-spawn sent here to make my life miserable.
That's what I want to say.
Instead I say "Bandage the Leg."
"How?"
I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting that one. She caught me flatfooted, and now here I am, staring across this old black lady who is bleeding allover the floor, trying to figure out what to say.
Finally I grab the bandage from her, wrap it, and secure it. "Like That," I say gruffly. "Go spike me some bags in the back, please." I look away from her and I can hear her start to cry as she walks outside. It bothers me for nearly a whole second before the anger boils back. How can she not know how to bandage something? She had to have seen that at least once or twice in Basic class. HAD TO. Had to pass it for national registry. All that shit should be fresh in her head.
That's how I used to know you were mad at me, Lazy Partner told me after we stopped working together. You get real polite, and you don't smile at all. That's how I used to know.
Well, I still hate Lazy Partner, and Cutsy is climbing higher on the list.
We transport the lady to the nearest hospital. I can't get a line in her at all - her veins are nonexistent, and if she passes out on me, I can drill her, but I'm betting that the ER might be able to succeed where I've failed.
"Holy shit!" Goes the ER Nurse, when I unwrap the wound. "Call the resident, now!"
"Holy shit!" goes the resident, when he sees the damage. "Call a Trauma alert, now!"
"Holy Shit! Look at the that! The Tibia and Fibula are completed shattered! You can see!" says the Trauma surgeon.
* * *
I walk out to the truck, and sit down next to Cutsy, who is not cleaning, just sitting there shell shocked. "Hey."
"What?"
"Look, I know you know how to bandage someone. You had to have done it at registry, at least."
"Well, yeah," she concedes meekly. "But I didn't want to hurt her."
"Huh?"
"Well, that was a big wound on her leg and she was already hurting. I didn't want to make it worse."
"Sometimes, that part of the fucking job, Cutsy. You need to get used to that. If it's ever just the two of us on scene, I need to know that I can count on you, hopefully as an independent EMT, but barring that, at least as someone who can follow my orders. The lady needed that leg bandaged immediately. You could see how much blood she had lost."
She starts crying again. I whip out a post it and write a phone number on it.
"Here's the number to CISM. Call them right now."
This is the extent to which I will help her.
* * *
So I show up at work the other day and who should I see as part of the off going crew?
Lazy Partner.
Only, now? She's Lazy Paramedic, here to do some ride time to clear as a paramedic in her own right.
It's going to be a long holiday season.
-MM
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
- Hey Yall
Coming up - pictures of our new property in Summit, Mississippi, and of me with a chainsaw!
Ladies, prepare your panties for disintegration!
-MM
Ladies, prepare your panties for disintegration!
-MM
Saturday, November 15, 2008
- Headin' Up The Country
Hey ya'll, blog is going to go silent this weekend - heading up north to do some camping!
See ya Monday!
PS - I Got Tagged - Rules:Pass it on to five other bloggers, and tell them to open the nearest book to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences. The CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL!
Yes, Satan?
"Unit Two, go ahead," Bobby awnsers, groaning.
Life, Death, and Everything In Between: A Paramedic's Memoirs, by AD. BUY IT!
Don't have to time to spam it on!
-MM
See ya Monday!
PS - I Got Tagged - Rules:Pass it on to five other bloggers, and tell them to open the nearest book to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences. The CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL!
Yes, Satan?
"Unit Two, go ahead," Bobby awnsers, groaning.
Life, Death, and Everything In Between: A Paramedic's Memoirs, by AD. BUY IT!
Don't have to time to spam it on!
-MM
Monday, November 10, 2008
- Confessions of A Weird Guy
I think I'm weird because I get a lot of pleasure out of these and I don't think other people do. Maybe I can get away with "Delightfully Eccentric" instead of "Full-Blown, Mouth-breathing Whacko":
1. Vacuuming - I like to vacuum the house. I don't know why. I like the way the rug looks after the vacuum runs it over. It may be the noise it makes. (others noises I like - the ambulance siren horn, the sound the phone makes when you call someone and it's ringing)
2. Driving with the window down - I'll even put on a jacket and knit cap in the winter just to drive with the window down. I like the breeze! I always get out with a smile on my big dumb face. I sleep with 2 fans going, even in the winter (yes, I have a CPAP too)
3. Folding My Clothes - I get a little excited when my laundry gets done because that means I get to fold everything! It all gets put away in its neat little box or hung up in the closet!
I know, weird, right?
-MM
1. Vacuuming - I like to vacuum the house. I don't know why. I like the way the rug looks after the vacuum runs it over. It may be the noise it makes. (others noises I like - the ambulance siren horn, the sound the phone makes when you call someone and it's ringing)
2. Driving with the window down - I'll even put on a jacket and knit cap in the winter just to drive with the window down. I like the breeze! I always get out with a smile on my big dumb face. I sleep with 2 fans going, even in the winter (yes, I have a CPAP too)
3. Folding My Clothes - I get a little excited when my laundry gets done because that means I get to fold everything! It all gets put away in its neat little box or hung up in the closet!
I know, weird, right?
-MM
Monday, November 3, 2008
- 007
Well, it was bound to happen sometime. They've finally put a new person in Izzy's spot (insert sad MM face here). It was bound to happen sooner or later - we've gotten a large hire of EMT-Bs since a class just let out.
Our company has a clearing process that new employees have to attend - 3 weeks, roughly, although the first week is purely paper and book work. That leaves the rest of the time for 5 (or 4, if they really need you bad) orientation rides and a clear ride (unless the supervisor is busy) and then the employee is considered "Cleared" - ready to operate as a normal employee.
Yeah.
My new partner shall be referred to as FNG.
Actually, I'm not being fair - he wants to learn. Sure, we had to go to the gas station again last night (wait? There's TWO diesel tanks to fill up?), but hey.
I'm not really much of a teacher - I'll make sure they know how to do basic stuff, like spiking a bag or attaching the heart monitor, and then as things come up in the field I instruct as I go. To me it seems to work better then me telling them fifty things at the beginning of the shift, and then expecting them to just recall everything I said.
So I'm showing FNG how to assemble a prefill syringe and of course, our first call is a cardiac arrest.
Bulldog and Stanky, working the other unit, beat us to the scene, and the fire department and they are working the patient as we walk in. I grab a tube and tell FNG to start compressions.
"Hol up, " says Bulldog. "You don't need it."
I get a good look at the patient. Dead Right There.
"Ok, you want me to call it in?"
Stanky, Bulldog's partner, is doing his last clear ride for his paramedic. "No, no, I got it." He calls it in to dispatch.
FNG has his eyes glued to the body on the floor.
"Hey, FNG."
He does not move. I poke him. He looks up at me, looks a little sick.
"Hey. Good Job."
"Huh?"
"Put a notch in your stethoscope, buddy." Fire, Stanky and Bulldog are suppressing their giggles.
"Huh?"
"You got a kill on your first call. Strong work. Put a notch in your stethoscope." I hand him my pocket knife.
He just stares at it. I walk out of the room, whistling a jaunty tune.
This morning, when I told him he was but a pawn in my master plan, he laughed, but when I didn't, he stopped.
I'm going to have FUN with this one.
-MM
Our company has a clearing process that new employees have to attend - 3 weeks, roughly, although the first week is purely paper and book work. That leaves the rest of the time for 5 (or 4, if they really need you bad) orientation rides and a clear ride (unless the supervisor is busy) and then the employee is considered "Cleared" - ready to operate as a normal employee.
Yeah.
My new partner shall be referred to as FNG.
Actually, I'm not being fair - he wants to learn. Sure, we had to go to the gas station again last night (wait? There's TWO diesel tanks to fill up?), but hey.
I'm not really much of a teacher - I'll make sure they know how to do basic stuff, like spiking a bag or attaching the heart monitor, and then as things come up in the field I instruct as I go. To me it seems to work better then me telling them fifty things at the beginning of the shift, and then expecting them to just recall everything I said.
So I'm showing FNG how to assemble a prefill syringe and of course, our first call is a cardiac arrest.
Bulldog and Stanky, working the other unit, beat us to the scene, and the fire department and they are working the patient as we walk in. I grab a tube and tell FNG to start compressions.
"Hol up, " says Bulldog. "You don't need it."
I get a good look at the patient. Dead Right There.
"Ok, you want me to call it in?"
Stanky, Bulldog's partner, is doing his last clear ride for his paramedic. "No, no, I got it." He calls it in to dispatch.
FNG has his eyes glued to the body on the floor.
"Hey, FNG."
He does not move. I poke him. He looks up at me, looks a little sick.
"Hey. Good Job."
"Huh?"
"Put a notch in your stethoscope, buddy." Fire, Stanky and Bulldog are suppressing their giggles.
"Huh?"
"You got a kill on your first call. Strong work. Put a notch in your stethoscope." I hand him my pocket knife.
He just stares at it. I walk out of the room, whistling a jaunty tune.
This morning, when I told him he was but a pawn in my master plan, he laughed, but when I didn't, he stopped.
I'm going to have FUN with this one.
-MM
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
- Gol Damn
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