Stormy Weather is a'coming

This is a view from my "happy place" Everyone needs a place to escape. This is mine.

Emergency, NOT Emergency

My mother is a nurse in the Pediatric ER at the local University hospital. She too has to deal with stupidity on a daily basis, and not just her patients. Normally in her line of work, the patients are fine, too young to realize that their parents are dumbasses. People really should have to have a license to have kids...Complete with an IQ test. The licensing center should have a sign out side of it like the signs outside of amusement park rides "You must score this high to breed" I get phone calls from my mother all the time with her starting them out with the statement "you will never believe what this mom (or dad, or auntie...ect) dragged this poor kid in for at 4am..." We all the time get summonded in the middle of the night for "my child is sleepy" I realize that said child is tired, but it is normal for a 2 year old to be tired at 4am...Hell I'm tired at 4am. I think people think that if they wait until the middle of the night that they will get seen faster and not have to wait as long, however everyone in the greater metropolitan area has the same idea. I don't know about everyone else but when I was growing up we had a stash of Tylenol, neosporin, band-aids, and benadryl...And you did not call an ambulance unless someone was dead, dying or missing a limb. Growing up slightly accident prone, I fell off of my share of trees, bicycles, and/or roller blades causing all kinds of injuries. Hell I even ruptured two discs in my back trying to play volleyball with my cousin (an injury my mother did not believe me about at first because I also had 2nd degree sunburn on my face and she thought I was faking to get out of going to school looking like a burn victim). My mother would just clean the gravel out of my face give it a good rub down with Neoporin and tell me not to try a pop a wheelie over that skateboard again.

I don't think some of the people who call EMS know that everytime they call they are putting OUR lives at risk while we rush across town with sirens blaring and breaking all kinds of traffic laws to respond to a "sick party". Then when we do get there we have to listen to them bitch that we didn't get there fast enough. (I made it clear across town in rush hour traffic in less than ten minutes) Even though they have had general body pain for three days. And Drunk does not count as an emergency. Drunk with a Gun Shot Wound...Emergency. Crushing Chest pain...Emergency. Fever times two hours...NOT Emergency. See how this works, there will be a quiz later.

The artist in the ambulance

So I had breakfast yesterday morning with someone who means so much to me, but he didn't even know me. While I was in paramedic school last year I was working a 24hr shift on one of the small barrier islands that surrounds the city I live in. Normally a slow truck, referred to lovingly as "the vacation station" I worked a call that almost made me forget about being a paramedic.

He had been hit by a car while riding his bicycle down a normally deserted road on J.Island. We thought his tire blew and pushed him into a truck that was driving by. His friend that was with him didn't even see the truck. He hit the grill of the truck with his face and toppled over the roof and landed behind the truck, we never did find out what he caught his arm on, but it had been amputated. When we pulled up and Heard my patient before I saw him, I will never forget that sound. I got nauseated but continued toward him. He was awake and screaming. His face below his eyes was basically gone, just an open mess of flesh, teeth and blood. I have never seen such a fighter. We loaded him up and worked for a airway for this man. We got one and he was flown out by a helicopter. For three days he bothered me, until called one of my mentors who was on scene with us and she told me to go see him in the ICU. I went the next night after clinicals. His room was empty except for an RT who I knew from my days in the ER at this same hospital. "Go on talk to him, he can hear you" the RT said. I went up to him, not really knowing what to say and just said his name. Although highly sedated, when I said his name, his eyes moved toward my voice. His face was what it should look like and his arm was reattached, pink and he was able to move his fingers. As I spoke to him, he moved his hand to mine and squeezed. After seeing him put back together I knew his was fine and was going to do very well. We, my fellow sisters of the streets and I did a good thing. He is alive because of us.

So here it is a year later. I am now finished with school. I can call myself Paramedic. So a week ago my mentor called me while she was having breakfast with the cyclist. I had sent him a letter a few weeks after the accident and while they were having breakfast he asked for my new address . He had attempted to send a Christmas card to me and it got sent back to him for we had moved. My mentor called me while there,however I was working and was not able to take the call. So when I called back she told me about him and that he and his family have breakfast almost every weekend together. And he wanted to meet me. So Today I went and met this man who changed my life as much as I changed his.

As soon as I walked in he came up to me and gave me a huge hug and just kept saying "thank you" He looked great, Spoke very fast and very clearly. He wanted to know everything about his accident, what we saw, why we did what we did, and what we were thinking during the call. He wanted all the gory details. Things that you normally would not tell. Sometime the things you see and the pain you feel for these people you keep inside they are not meant to be shared with the outside world. They just would not understand. However with this man He were able to share what happened and our feelings during and after the accident. I think of the three of us I was the one who was changed the most. I am fairly new to EMS and was not sure how to deal with all the feelings I had. And meeting this man, who's airway I held open with my hands, who's life had been saved by us, the 3 women medics, I realized that I had been part of something good. He is back to competing in triathalons. "The only thing," he said to me, "I don't really swim as fast as I used to." He has about 80% back in his reattached arm. My current partner, also a triathleate, saw him at one of the local competitions. He told me that he looked good, however I didn't think he would look as good as he did. He is a little self conscious about his scars on his face and he was telling us that he has to have several more surgeries to rebuild his jaw and nose. We stayed and talked for several hours, he had questions and we had the answers he craved. It was close to noon when we left. He promised to keep in touch with all of us. We promised the same.

Pay no attention to the unconscious man in the corner

The human race never ceases to amaze me. Mt first call this morning was to a trailer for an overdose. We get there and the police meet us out side both were shaking their heads they greet us with "We don't know if these people are cracked out of their minds or just idiots, but they apparently they have an unconscious man in the middle of the living room for an hour who apparently took 40 benadryl" So we walk into this dark trailer with about nine ten people sitting around this room with an man laying in the middle of the floor barely breathing. "What happened?" we asking thinking we might get a reactions, instead we get ten blank stares, then one woman, who I guess they all got together and voted who would be the speaker of the group, spoke up and in her cracked out haze stated "Well...uh...I think he took some of this pills...
" I turned to her "What pills?"
"These Pills" and she hands me one lone pink and white pill
And I dare to ask what it is. "well...I...uh...The bottle said BENA...BENAD...allergy medicine, he took like...40 of um"
Great. So we carry this limp unconscious man to the stretcher and head to the unit. I try and get some sort of info on this man, like maybe a name or age or something, however I get four different names all with the same last name so by process of elimination we decide that that was is last name. And he's possibly 43 years old. So I pass on this information to my partner and jump in the driver's seat to drive to the hospital. As I'm about to take off, the speaker of the house Walks up to the window of the ambulance and asks "So..like...like...uh whatcha doing with him?'"
"I'm taking him to the hospital"
"So like why?"
Because he barely fucking breathing you crack whore...well that what I want to say.."Because he took to many pills and needs to go"
"oh" and then she walks off.
crackhead.

OH MY GOD who are these people!

Sign at Mardi Gras

Sign at Mardi Gras
Originally uploaded by strange little girl 190.

I took this photo at Mardi Gras. Apparently we are all bound for hell.

What is this handbasket? And where are we going?

a life less boring...or not

Life is good. Spent most of my day napping while my partner trained a new hire. It always a good to have a slow day when you can just relax nad well, nap. I love my job...Until I have to deal with the HIV+ pt that has gotten their ass kicked and they are bleeding all over the damn place.

So this weekend I get to meet one of my former patients that was involved in a horrible cycling accident. That was one of my hardest calls I have worked since I began this job three years ago. It not often that a medic gets to know what happens to the people that we drop off at the hospital. Not a lot of closure with my line of work. But you get over it and move on the the next call.

I came home from work to find that my roommates 20 year old cat has been pissing on my bathmat...Again. I hate that damn cat. Eh what can I do. Just quit getting mad I guess, however Im truly tired of doing my laundry because I live with a cat who thinks that the entire house is her litter box. So gross... If anyone has any ideas I open to just about anything.

Other that the cat pisssing on my stuff, I had a good day. I walked into my empty apartment after work. Roommates gone, Just me and the cats. I enjoy an empty house, it means I can listen to the stereo as loud as I want and jump around in my underwear.

i should be on night shift

I can't sleep. And my ADD has kicked in, shit. And TV at 0130 sucks. I just keep thinking how I have to work tomorrow at O'dark thirty and it will be raining...and steaming hot outside. It really should be against the law for people in fender-benders to summon an ambulance in the rain. Call me when you really need a paramedic, not when you need a reason to call a lawyer. But I will go on with my work without whining.

This weekend is my weekend off and I already have plans to do nothing and lay on the beach for three days. Maybe I'll take my camera out and snap some shots, or maybe I will just watch CSI. Depends on the weather I guess.

okay pardon me

Okay I new this idea of blogging, so be patient with me. I guess you use this space as an online journal and ramblings of thoughts, or at least that's what I 'm going to use it as. So I spent most of my day off doing laundry and chain smoking. What a boring life I lead. I kept thinking today that I should get off my lazy ass and do somthing and then I remember that I will be back at work tommorow geting cussed at or spit on and trying not to wreck the ambulance. The drivers in this town seem to forget their car is not a phone booth and that when an emergency vehcile is right behind them with the lights, sirens and airhorn blaring that they need to get out of the way: and not by moving into oncoming traffic (move to the right, people). Get off the phone and turn down the Britney Spears.