Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Baby...oh Baby

After this week, after having my hand wrapped around a heart and now last night, having delivered a baby, finding the slope of a line seems pretty insignifigant. mx+b=I don't give a damn. As long as I can calculate the correct dose of dopamine, the inequality doesn't really matter. But anyways, thats another post.

A baby was delivered last night. Now when we got there baby was already out, the cord just needed to be cut. I think God looks out for me and my partner when we work, because, knock on wood, I have never had a newborn in distress. I whole-heartly believe in the statement "God never puts anything in front of us that we cannot handle" and a dying baby is something I don't know if I could handle, at least not on the streets. Maybe in the hospital where I am responsible for nothing and we have whole teams that come down to help with the catching of the babies. But this child was pink, active, not quite crying as strongly as I would hope, but still in no obvious distress, other than being a bit on the cold side. We dod our best in the field with what we have. And of course the heart monitor leads and SPO2 wouldn't stick to the little thing. But I just reverted back to actually physicaly laying my hands and stethescope on the babe. Good strong HR and respiratory effort. APGAR of, well honestly I couldn't remember how to score, but the kid looked good, and I remembered from Paramedic school, nobody gets afull ten at the five minute score, so I gave him a 8. sometaken off for not crying much, and blue finger tips. But he scored much better the second go 'round. He got a 10 then, he was pink, loud, perfect. Even though he was a month early accoding to mom, still 5lbs 9oz and pretty healty.

This is why I love my job. Where else could I touch a heart on night and bear witness to a birth all within 46 hours. This really is the coolest job on earth.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Saving Humanity from itself

Well, I am home now. I am back reeking havok in the moonlight with my fellow ditch doctors. Loving it again. I guess sometime you gotta let things go for a bit before you relize just how much you miss it. Yes, EMS is hard back breaking (Literally) work. But even though those steel-toed boots are ucomfortable as hell and sometimes the patients are a pain in the ass and sometime your partner sucks, all those bad things are not as bad as all the good things that make this job rewarding.

The night was uneventful. Nothing real serious or out of the ordinary. Just simple hypoglycimia, Afib, and SOB. All of the patients were patients because they had not been educated by thier primary care physican about the medications they were given or even about the disease that they had. The first guy took two doses of his insulin because he felt bad, telling up he got all dizzy and sweaty so he took a double dose of his insulin, then felt his heart "get fast up" so he took a dose or four of his Nitroglycerin spray. So when we got there his BGL was 45 and he had a BP of 80 systolic. We fixed him up with some sug'r and fluids and suprise, suprise the CHest pain and PVCscleared right up. This all could have been avoided if the prescribing doc would take the time to sit and explain in plain english when the meds should be taken. This is frustrating. In this fast-paced world can we not take the time to just explain to these people how all this medical shit owrks? But then we have patients like my last one of the night who was given a Prdnisone script for her COPD and she wont take it becasue it makes her "feel bad". Then gets Short of Breath calls us, and then asks "well, miss medic, if I took my pills whould it help?" YES, YES it will. Arg. this is my life. saving humanity from its own stupidity.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Blood on the floor

Well my last weekend at Miracle Hospital and I went out with a bang...and bang...and bang. Four GSWs in all. One Chest cracking. I have found the single most coolest things that one can witness in the ER is an emergent open thorocotomy. Its messy, bloody, raw medicine. Almost primitive, with all the breaking and slicing and and tugging. The surgeon tears open the left side of the chest to expose the heart. This little bundle of muscle, nerves, blood vessels. Its alive all on it own. Without being wound, plugged in, without batteries. It just beats. Keeping time. and I had my hands literally.inside.a.mans.chest. Now that, is fucking cool. I just wanted to stand there and watch it beat. Of course I could not I had other things to do besides just standing there. But if just standing was an option, I can be very good at that. I can get distracted by things sometimes, like a gaping hole in the side of a human. With everything exposed and opened up we all look the same.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

So tired my hair hurts

To say I'm tired is a major understatement. Like calling Mt Everest a rock. I have been working every single day since last Monday and My next day off is Friday night. But the two weeks straight is my own damn fault so I can't bitch. I shot my self in my own foot, per say. My anger with the staff at Miricle Hospital made me lose my fucking head. When I quit, I was convinced that I would never work for them again. Then after cooling off for a day or three, I came to relize Miracle Hospital is a great refereance in the medical field. I worked at one of the busiest ER in the city with the sickest, most screwed up patients...and if I just walked out I would have been black-balled from the busiest hospitals and my otherwise glowing reference would be gone. So I decided to work a two week notice. But of course I told my EMS agency I was through so for this two week period I am full time at both. I havent spend a night in my own bed for a week and a half. I think my legs are going to fall off. But on a plus side I have lost 10 lbs because Im on the Miracle Hospital diet...the no stop to eat, run my ass off diet.

But EMS is happy to have me back, as I am happy to be back. Its like that bad-boy ex that is really, really bad for you, but you still love him anyways despite all the pain and grief he causes. So Im running back, back to my first love. To practice my street medicine or as I was told, practice "without a net"

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Dear Miracle Hospital...

Dear Administrator at Miracle Hospital,

I fucking quit.

signed
BPC

As of last night, Im officially done being somebody's bitch. No two weeks notice, no party. I fucking done with that place. I am taking my toys and going the fuck home. Im am going to burn bridges and never look back. It sounds llike a great deal, on paper. get paid 13 bucks and hour to haul patients upstairs, and recheck vitals. You get prime seating during life saveing (or ending) trauma. You are responsible for getting the correct intramnet in the surgeons hands before the surgeon even knows he needs it.
Whe the don't tell you is...
even though you were trained as a CA years ago you can't actually get CA pay (thats the 10.00 even), you get PCT pay (9.15) until you take the CA test over agian, and they only offer that like once a month...then to get the big 13 bucks you have to take another test, pass that to get your EDT cred. Are you funcking serious? Ive had my Paremedic for two years, I can Intubate and put EJs in without a direct MD order, how many fucking nurses can say that. Then last night, well first thing I felt like shit, I got this sinus,cold, SARS, bird flu thing thats going around so thats was cool. Then I had a very needy gruop of nurses to take care of. Ones who I guess, were absent the day they taught "How not to obliderate a room" because every room was trashed and everybody seemed to think the clean-up fucking fairy was gonna come it and clean it. Well, people, the fuck clean-up fairy was me. and she is tired of picking up your shit. (this rant in not directed at nurse M. who knows better, she is not on my list) But this, my freinds, is not the end of the story. Being that I was the only Tech on, I had to cleans up after the RNs, which could have been donw if I didn't have 8 patients ready to be transported upstairs, a trauma coming in, and a ultrasound tech to babysit. and of course, ALL of the patients had to be taken up, RIGHT FUCKING THEN. I wouldn't even have gotten the first one off the elevator when I would get called (that fucking phone) to ask where I was and how long I would be because bed 6 needs to be taken upstairs before she asked one more time to have a bedpan and another glass of apple juice and another dose of pain meds becasuse the 6 mgs of diludid isnt quite doing the trick. Well, FUCK, lets me just leave this unstable chest pain pt thats on all kinds of drips here in the middle of the fucking hallway so that right now I can come down a help you with your needy drug seeking patient. If she's driving you that crazy, heres a novel idea..YOU FUCKING TAKE HER TO HER ROOM. that way I dont keep the evil looks from the RNs upstairs who look at me like I got six heads.

Then in rolls the sick as shit GSW. Inwhich I nurse procedded to ask me "when would I be able to take a patient to ultrasound because they are ready for her, oh and you have to stay because its a pelvic" I just looked at her whilts covered in blood and said "it will be a while" and walked off. It was like she wasn't even aware of the bloody mess going on behind me. then this resident is standing in my spot fiddling with an empty IV bad and says to me "there's blood inthe line" I just look at him and go "I know that theres blood in the line, its because he is recieving blood in that IV, now if you are not doing anything could you please take a few steps backwards, because your in my fucking way"

Then after hitting the repeat button, I felt like bill murray in goundhogday. The day shift comes in I'm halfed stocked and sstill running around cleaninf rooms left over from the 9 people I just took up. And the day techs don;t even listen to me when I try and tell them what was going on. One even walked off. Then I heard him bitching about how I never do anything and can't stock. well FUCK OFFF. I fucking quit.Im going back to EMS, where at least I have my family.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Math is to Calvin Ball as....

I always leave my math class feeling like I just played a fucked-up game of CalvinBall and nobody explained the rules.

Fpr those of you that don't know what "CalvinBall is here ae the rules http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=6907
Its from the awsome discontinued comic "Calvin and Hobbes"

Also I was called a "sellout" last night by a medic who was introducing me to an FNG. Boy. was I pissed. My comeback was, "Im not a sellout, I just play for both teams by my own rules, much like CalvinBall" What really funny is he actually got the CBall referance. So there you have it to Calvin referances in less than 24 hours. Damn Im good.

Now Let's play.

Monday, September 11, 2006

All Work and No Play

Work has been work. The ER is still kicking my ass and the nights Im not there Im in the back of an ambulance saving humanity. But last night, last night I was off. Out of the ER, off the ambulance. I enjoyed a night with my best friend LB and the Violent Femmes. Oh yeah baby, I leaped around till the wee hours to American Music. It was the best damn show Ive been to since Rilo Kiley graced the east coast last year. Now if Tool and Snow Patrol would just come out here I could die happy.

Life otherwise uneventful. Failing my reject math class with grace. My sister, who turns 19 this week and who is much smarter than I, will be tutoring me in the coming week. If the damn equation isn't attched to weight conversions or drugs I'm clueless. I can save you life with a straw and an avacado, but just dont ask me to tell you what the absolute power of "x" is.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006


Im having issues with flickr and blogger so if the posts double up I will go back a delete one of them.

This is my grandfathers Rolleiflex. I shoot with it occasionally. My father gave this to me when I was in High School and was just really getting into photography. My graddaddy, Popeye, was a photographer back in the day and I have inherited several of his old cameras, and my aunt in in the process of digging out his old 8x10 field camera for me.

When I got this old Rollie, there was a roll of film in it. Color film and I can't find anywhere that proessess the type of film. So I have no idea what is on it