Moving.

I am leaving this little space of internet for a different location.

check me out at www.notanemergency.tumblr.com for random rambles and awesome photos and also www.shutterpunk35mmphotography.tumblr.com for all my roller derby greatness.

thanks for reading
and continue at my new and improved blogs.
Painter

"I don't like you"
"Well, Sir. They don't like me either" I pointed to my partners and the police officers that were standing around me. Apparently, my patient did not like me because I represented everything he hated about The Socialist Healthcare Machine....and I was there to take him away to his "Obama Death Panel" This was not my only difficult patient of the night. They seemed to all try my patience. Either they wanted to argue with me. ie; "I'm not going with you...but what happened?" You hit your head on that wall "Well, I'm still not going with you, but can you tell me why I'm bleeding?" or we were told about the call in a fucked up way ie; "Medic, MVA at the corner of Ghetto and Dirt Streets...but stand-by there, possible shooting involved." 10-4, Stand by at the Corner of Ghetto and Dirt for the MVA with the shooting?? "That's affirmative, 10-12 for 90 (Stand by for police) to secure the scene." Um...so you want me to stand-by at the CORNER WHERE THE FUCKING GUNS ARE?? I DON'T THINK SO DISPATCHER. I want you to repeat back what you just told me and ask yourself if that made any goddamn sense to you. Then after this exchange we get cancelled by The Police only to be sent to an MVA at 432 Ghetto St. WHICH IS THE SAME CORNER THAT THE MVA WITH THE SHOOTING WAS. Can they not see the map? I call attention to this by saying 10-4 MVA corner of Ghetto and Dirt St. with a response of "Negative Medic the numerics are 432 Ghetto." At this point I threw my hands up and just asked if police were on scene...to which I get a nasty "Affirmative" I'm not the one being the dumbass here, so you can quit with the attitude. Seriously.

I'm just hoping to make in a couple more weeks. Then I get a short break from The City. I will be going out to The Islands for a bit. "I need a rest" or so I was told. WHatever, if they think I need a rest, so be it. I'll go out there for a little and get paid to watch NCIS reruns and sleep.

Okay, seriously. I'm sitting here at a quarter to six in the morning tapping out a post in the front of an ambulance on an iPhone, mostly because I want to get up on my soapbox for two reasons.
Reason #1 Full Arrests should have an age limit.
There is no goddamn good reason to put 98 year old granny on an AutoPulse machine, shove ET tubes down her throat and drill fucking holes in her tibia. NO FUCKING REASON! Let me say it again, NO FUCKING REASON! There is atime and a place to work like hell to save a life and there is a time to let go and let them die with dignity and peace. That means not with a bunch od paramedics and firefighter pumping and blowing, desicrating the hell out of a corpse. So say your goodbyes and let your elderly go.
Okay
Reason #2 Consolidated Dispatch.
Fuck off.
This shit isn't working, bitches. You are not sending the closest units and apparently have no idea even where your units even are. I do not sit at my station all the time, mostly because I am a social creature. I like to talk, socialize with my other street walkers. I either am sitting at the hospital chatting with the staff or I'm sitting on some street corner with the cops, shooting the shit with them... Because really what else am I going to do? Watch reruns of Law and Order on TNT? When I'm sitting in my district, 10-8, don;t sent another unit to a non emergent bullshit call just because they are four damn feet closer. They are getting supplies or writting a report or whatever. It's my district, let me handle it. Unless it is a dying baby or someone trapped under a building and those four feet are gonna matter for whatever reason, let them finish whatever they are doing because it is much more pressing than that finger laceration that needs a damn band-aid and a blessing before he can go to jail. Or the complete oppisite, people sending me 45 fucking miles to a call when you have a unit sitting 2 damn feet from it. Are you seriously forgeting where you put your trucks? You have a GIANT fucking map up at dispatch that updates every 1 goddamn second that showes you where every single unit in the county is. It's in real time. Just fucking look at the damn thing and figure this out. You get mad when we dispatch from the street, but we get pissed when we pass each other going to calls. So do your job. There is One person up there who sole job it is to watch that map. and figure out who needs to go where. Thats all you do, so Fucking do it.

Okay, that is all.

Im getting down.

Rant over

SNOW DAY!!! er...night. This is just crazy talk for my little coastal town. If the roads weren't still wicked icy, I would drive out the the beach and get photos of the snow on the sand. So just because it snowed, didn;t mean that people were any less retarded about calling EMS. Middle of the freaking blizzard (By beach people standard) "Medic One respond to such and such address in the ghetto for a sick person, no further 43 (information) this came from a 3rd party caller. We will send 90 (police), however they are also extremely 10-6 (busy) dealing with...well...you know what it's like out there" First problem with this transmission the address they gave us does not exist. I know this from working The City for a lifetime and a day. There are two streets in The City one is a Street and one is a Court. They dispatched us to the Court, however, I did know that it was in fact the Street. Second problem with this was 3rd party caller, unknown why we were going and we were not getting police? I know they were just as busy as us, but hell, the last time I got sent on something like this we were sent into an unsecured, violent scene. I call dispatch, knowing full well how busy they were, but I needed to know what the Fuck I was getting into. Turns out it was a house with a call history, and a nonviolent dude living there. So okay, we went along. Pulled up, I slipped on the ice a few times and made it up to the door. knocked several times, no answer. "County, Medic One, no answer at the door any more 43?" "Neg Medic One, go ahead and get 10-8 (back in service) if they need us they will call back and you have three more calls in your district" Okey-dokey. We got called to a psych, psych, assault, psych and a chick with her period. I had one guy ask me "What took you so long?" after he called because he had non traumatic leg pain times three days. "Sir, have you looked outside your window? " "Yeah, I looked...thats why I called, I can't drive myself, it's snowing." "Well, then you should know I can only drive this top heavy 3 ton skid machine only about 20MPH right now, you are lucky we even made it here, so get into the ambulance" We had 12 calls last night, not one needed a trip to the hospital, but all of them called EMS to take them for there perceived "EMERGENCY" I heard at one point another truck go out for a "depressed person at the pay phone at the KMART" And another go to some "my power is out and I need you to check my baby's feeding tube" Last I check a PEG Tube does not require electrify to work. I think out of the hundreds of calls we ran last night, maybe a handful needed EMS, several MVAs, and a couple of significant SHortness of breaths. But all and all I think people were just sitting around thinking of reasons to call 911.

WHen the snow finally quit and turned to sleet, the roads got all slushy and slick, people running in the guardrails, other cars, mailboxes. For as many Yankees as we have in this town you would think they would at least know how to drive in the snow. But no, its like they cross the Mason Dixon and forget about the white stuff.

I did get to do one thing though...Make a snow angel...OF DEATH!!!

CSPINE

Oh man. So You know that little voice in your head that tells you things, no not those voices, but the voices on scenes that tell you "Why don't you do that 12 lead" or "Take a deeper look at that laceration" or "CSPINE!!!!!" Listen to them. Especially the Cspine one. You will never ever get questioned for cspining a patient, but you can always get question as to why you did not cspine one. For those of my blog followers who are not EMS or healthcare workers cspining is when we put a hard collar around the patient's neck and then log roll them or slide them without manipulating the spine (or as little as possible) onto a long boars. This acts as a large splint as sorts to keep the neck and spine in line. This is to minimize further injury and hopefully if done correctly or if the spine isn't already too injured to minimize the risk of paralysis. Okay teaching over.

Okay. So we come across patients all the time that enter that grey area of "to cspine or not to cspine" all the time. Drunk, fell down, answers some questions, but slurring a bit, has a lac above the eye, not c/o neck or back pain. or How about got into a foot pursuit with police, collapse, unresponsive on your arrival, but "didn't really fall that hard" or Found down, no idea how he got there, no idea where he is, no trauma noted. or Seizure pt sitting on floor, still kinda postical, but can't tell you if he fell on the floor or was already sitting. I say ALL of these need Cspine considered if not just done. It takes five minutes. Yeah, its' kinda a pain in the ass, but it's five minutes that can totally save your ass later. You have no idea if that fall caused a C4 fracture to that drunk kid because he's too drunk to know his neck hurts. So you board and collar him and there's nothing that can come back on you when it shows up on his CT scan that he has a broken neck. And you will never have an ER doc fault you for putting your patient in Cspine precautions, if you do, that ER doc should have his head scanned right along with your patient's. So until they start putting Xray machines and CT scanners in the meat wagons, keep on listening to that little voice that screams at you to put that patient ON THE DAMN BOARD. Because it may mean the difference between having a job as a medic or having one as a taxi driver. And I'm talking a real taxi, like little yellow and black ones, not Cabulance that we sometimes are.

So I'm having a bit of a life crisis as such. As some of you may know...or not know I turned 30 last November. I also started Art School studying Photography and had a bit of breakdown at work (mostly because of lack of sleep) I am now looking to relocate to a new city. As the lyrics of the Modest Mouse song The World At Largesay "Gonna find another place, maybe one I can stand. I move on to another day, to a whole new town with a whole new way" So I'm in a bit of a spinning panic. Looking for a job, a place to live, and new school to finish my degree. Then when I get done, what will I do? Photography is not exactly the best paying job. And weddings aren't exactly my favorite thing to do, mostly because I think brides are a bunch of whiney bitches. But I don't want to be a Paramedic for the rest of my life and my spine isn't going to let me be a paramedic forever. I don;t want to be a drug addicted 40 year old cripple because my spine has turned to dust. Should I study graphic design too? Should I study Art Management? Should I scrap the whole thing and study squidfish in Borneo? WHen did I wake up 30 and all my friends develop a life but me? When did they get settled into their lives and I'm still figuring mine out like some 19 year old.

Things I have Learned Working Nights in The City

I love working nights downtown. I have now been in The City for about two years now. I have gotten to know my cops, my firefighters all by name, they have gotten to know me, even if most of them know me by Angel and not by my actual name. They know that I am afraid of the horse cops and that I although the drunks can cuss at me the minute they start swinging or worse spitting is the minute the lose the ride in my truck and they earn a pair of bracelets and a free trip county jail. They also know how I take my coffee (soy or cream depending on who's buying, lotta sugar) So in the two years working in The City of Dixie I have learned :
1) The statement "Fuck You" will earn you a beat down, a tasing and most likely a public drunk and disorderly. And the cops don't like when that statement is aimed at either them or us.
2) Crazy is not illegal nor does it mean you need to go to the hospital. Unless you are a threat to yourself or others there is no need to go anywhere. Just because you put tinfoil in your hair to keep the aliens from stealing your thoughts or that you talk to your dead cousin that lives in your shopping cart does not mean you need to go anywhere, sometimes you need to explain this to the officers or the people that run the shelter.
3) Drunk is NOT a medical complaint, I was drunk two nights ago, woke up with a terrible hangover. Took advil, drank gadorade and plowed through it. The college kids can do the same. Unless they are unconscious and can't hold their own head up, they can sleep it off in their dorm room, not in an ER.
4) The projects are a safer place to park an ambulance than outside of the dorms
5) It's Sugar not diabetes. It's High Blood, not Hypertension, It's Water Pill, not Lasix. It's fluid on the heart or failure, not CHF. "Sticky Pain" is a legitimate description of chest pain and a 12 lead needs to be done. "Shortness" requires O2, Skesures require Ativan
6) Sometimes it's just easier to take them than it is to argue with them.
7) Cspine EVERYONE who in laying on the sidewalk and smells even a little like alcohol
8) When the COPS say he's dead...Fucker is D-E-A-D
9) On shooting scenes, look for tiny things like business cards marking the shell casings, especially if the crime scene unit isn't on scene yet.
10) They all lie.

It's like the EMS gods knew I needed that. A shock, a wake-up, a little thing to keep me going, Something to tell me why I do what I do. Why I deal with the bullshit, why I listen to the lies my patients tell me. They gave me a magled car with a twisted up patient and didn't kill him. They let me care for him, let me get an impossible IV, let me administer drugs that are so powerful I literally take away the patients ablity to breath on him own...just so I can turn around, put a tube in his throat and breath for him. And though he tried, he did not arrest on me. I got him to the hospital. I saved this person at 60MPH. I needed that. The Gods just know...that on the verge of burning out compleatly,that they need to give me some reason to put on the uniform and go to work.

When you pull up to a scene like that and see all the lights and then the twisted up metal, and after your first thought of "What the fuck now? How did that person get in the situation he is now trapped in?" something just turns on and you are ready to go. I just threw on my little blue helmet and dove in. Really...what the hell makes a person do something like that? Most people try to GET OUT of the mangled vehicle, not get in while the Fire Depatment cuts and bends the mess off and around you. Instead, we climb in cover ourselves and the person we are trying to get out with a fire blanket and wait to be rescued. It's sort of a wierd logic. But we do it, we don;t (hopefully) know whoever this is that we now share a small cramped space with, trying to figure out the best way to clear the airway, check a pulse and then get them out. We blindly jump in and hope for the best. Sometimes, like last night it works. Others, not so much. And then later you relize that EVERY scene is like this...You are going on blind faith that who ever just summonded you at 4 in the morning is not going to answer the door with a shotgun. What makes a girl come roll up in a huge flashing box on wheels into the projects to find a GSW laying there, surrounded by cops and bystanders, and go well, just another day at the office, better get to work. This is my office. The streets are where I do my paperwork. and it sure as hell beats sitting in front of a computer all day everyday. And then there is Naptime. yeah, If I'm not doing anything, I get to sleep...on the job...or watch episode after episode of 30 Rock and NCIS.

So yeah I have a pretty cool job. I drive a 3 ton truck with sirens and lights. I show up and can actually bring someone back From DEATH. Which is sweet. How many people can say that their job is helping people and driving fast.

I have been neglecting my little space of the interwebs. I don't know if has been writer's block or school or work but It's been to long. I had a bit of a breakdown at work. I think it was a mix of lack of sleep and taking on too much schoolwise. Art school, contrary to what you might think, is not easy. Creativity is something you either have or you don't and you can't switch it on and off. When it's on, baby it's on, but when it's off...it's off. So I had two weeks off from work, concentrated on my art for two weeks, cleaned my apartment, uncluttered my mind and started over.

I came back to work much better. Back to The City. I love The City at night. The characters, I have my regulars, like one who calls because "the shadows are smoking crack and makes me short of breath" I know which addresses are sick, which are not sick, which are crazy, which just want someone to talk to, which need the police to come with me. I love walking up and even though we were called to a nosebleed I hear, "Man just shut up and let EMS look at you, You got a stab wound in you damn chest..." So I am back, back to work. Both medically and creatively.

http://digg.com/people/EMT_Fired_Over_Facebook_Photo_of_Murder_Victim


I read this was sickened by it. How could anyone is my line of work think this was okay? Not only was he violating all kinds of HIPPA laws, but that poor family. Now, I know I blog about my experiences as a paramedic. But I like to think I keep it light, I want people to understand that I love what I do, even when I'm up to my eyes in alligators, I still enjoy the little world I live in.

Now...

I have a real paying gig. The Derby team that I have been working with (pro bono, portfolio work) is having me shoot during thier promo night out. This little Medic is excited.

I had a friend of mine demand I post, I told her I have about 7 unfinished posted saved, So I'm gonna try and finish this one becuase it's been quite a while since I've posted. School has kept me quite busy. Im living on Starbucks and very little sleep. But I creating some of the best work I have in a long time. I forgot what it was like to truley love photography and taking photos. Along with working, I have hooked up with the local Roller derby team and have become thier photographer. They have taught me alot, not just about photography, but about being part of a team. And it's a great release and change from the work on the ambulance.

I also got a phone call from my cyclist yesterday, he is doing well and it was good to hear from him. He is speaking to group of graduating class of paramedics today and needed me to fill in some missing gaps from his accident. He is my reason I put on my uniform every shift and to be honest, that phone call came at a good time. I needed that reminder right now.

So this was just a quick post, just to let everyone know I'm still around, I'm still on the ambulance. School is keeping me busy (I made Dean's List too!) I'll try and do better about posting.

I ain't that normal

I ain't that normal
Originally uploaded by artist in the ambulance 190.

The Pineapple

The Pineapple
Originally uploaded by artist in the ambulance 190.

Chasing after it

Chasing after it
Originally uploaded by artist in the ambulance 190.

Life has gotten a bit easier. No less busy, but easier. All this in spite of having a difficult partner and school keeping me running around, with a camera most of the time. I'm am on a truck I enjoy in a district I love. Though I do occasionally have the urge to duct take my partner to the the stretcher and sent her down the ramp at the Old County Hospital. But the Firefighers and police are cool in The City. We are busy enough that the night goes by at a decent speed. We also have more of our "frequent flyers" in this area. The ones when you hear the address, you know exactly what you are walking into, whether its a bad CHFer, the dialysis crackwhore who is fine when you get there and within seconds of arrival goes downhill, or the crazy old lady with all the cats and vodka. You just know them, you know their names, you know thier allergies, you know that NTG doesn't touch the pulmonary edema and the only thing that will save them is a fast ride and CPAP. There are always suprises, like pulling up to the Stretch Limo that was involved in a minor MVA, with 22 drunks piled into it. You know it's bad when I yell, I had to yell on that call. "You. Yeah you, go stand over there. Unless you legally make this patient's medical descions for her, your input is no longer needed"

And why is it that Overdoses ALWAYS lie to you. Even when you just brought them back from the brink of Death with the "wake-up medicine" Even when you pulled the needle out of their arm so you could start your IV.
"How much Herion did you use"
"Dude, I don't use that fucking shit"
"I'm gonna ask you again, slower because maybe you misunderstood me and don't lie to me How...Much...Herion...Did...You...Use? And don't call me Dude, I'm not your buddy. I'm the medic that just brought your dumbass back to life, show some respect"
"Dude...I mean Ma'am, I don;t use herion"
"so that was just...what?...insulin in the needle I just pulled out of your arm."
They truly think I'm stupid.

Art school is harder than you think. It's not just drawing and taking pretty pictures.

Hello friends. Yes, again I am sorry about the long breaks between posts. I have been suffering a severe case of burn-out and haven't flt much like writing. But alas, maybe it will make me feel better just to let the word flow...good or bad, without a real care on who reads this. I'm not gonna speak about any strange or twisted calls, because really, I havent had any. They all have been your normal Shortnesses, Chest pains, catching seizures and "I gots the Sugar". Oh wait, I did help with the delivering of a baby. That was cool. Death (AKA, me) bringing life into the world. Nice change of pace. Got to tuck those Wings of Darkness back into the uniform for the night. But really other than that, been pretty uneventful on the call front. I'm back on nights with partner who frankly...sigh. Yep, I think my Senior Crew Chief is afraid he gonna come into work and find that I have strung 'em up from the ceiling with my technical rescue harness, refusing to let her down. I promised him that I wouldn't do that but I could not promise that the words Fucking and Idiot would not cross my lips. Especially now since I'm going back to school and I will be running on Nicotine and Coffee instead of real actual sleep. My fuse was gonna be a little shorter than normal.

So here I am, 29 years old, on the eve of my first day back to College, well Art College, I mean my first class is entirely dedicated to the View Camera, working towards a goal to get me the heck out of EMS. To go be creative. Away from the Death. To make pretty things.

Well people, two things today. Did you know that one can shear the ENTIRE IV cath off? Not a peice, the WHOLE DAMN THING. Me neither. But it happened. I saw it, I was witness to it. My trainee for the day did it. I was on the radio, encoding, forgeting that I still had the radio keyed up, when he told me what happened, I went over the channel "You did what...fuck." Then cussed again when I relized that I had dropped the F-bomb over the radio. I apologized, then told the hospital they were not gonna believe what happed and I will explain when we get there. That was impressive. I have never seen anything like that, and apparently, it has never happened before with a peripheral INT; at least not where we could find over the internets. Centeral lines, sure. But not peripheral sites. But everything worked out, and the pt was turned over to the hospitals staff with a slightly brusied arm and a missing Cath tip. The hospital is still trying to find it.

2nd thing...I got my acceptance letter to school....and my loan approved. So I am now $27000 in debt. But I'm gonna learn me somthing. I am still working full time for a while at least. So I will still be posting as my paramedic self. With school updates thrown in. And more photography, of course.

Well I have decised to go back to school. These past few weeks at work have made me rethinking paramedicine and the reason I'm in it. The cincher was after I got moved out of a district I love, away from a partner I get along with, and am not longer under the supervison of Supervisors that have grown to trust me. And they did it at the holidays, which has me working on every holiday but Thanksgiving day. I had my whole holidays planned. But because I am single with no kids, the holidays apparently mean nothing to me. The move was caused by something that didn't even involve me either. This among many other things have been leading me to this conclusion of going back to school to finish my BFA in photography. This job has gone away from Emergency Medicine and has turned into a "let us hold your hand and sing fucking Kumbaya" with the so called sick and dying. I am now forced to be nice. If I don't coddle my patients I may get a complaint and then I'm called into the principle's office for an ass chewing. Now I am normally kind to my patients, but then I have a patient throw a stack of Medicaid cards at my feet telling me "If you want it, you can pick it up and find it" I have a hard time biting my tounge and continuting to play nice. It's the ones that demand respect, but refuse to give it to me that piss me off. They feel that I am there to service them, not care for them. They talk down to me. That I am below them on the social ladders. So to them I say "I am here to save your ass, not kiss it"

I have grown tired of this. I am burned out and all thats left is a broken medic with a broken spirit. So When I walked into Art School, I could feel the energy in the halls. The creativity came back. I walkedd the halls of that place and I felt alive again, amoung the creative misfits. I had forgotton that feeling. I used to get it getting on the ambulance and running the lights. Not anymore, so I now think my lifespan as a medic is coming to an end. Art is calling me home. So now, a year shy of 30. I am going back to school. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Today's horoscope

I'm not one to put a whole lot of thought into horoscopes, but this was mine for today

Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
11/13/2008
You may not be willing to accept the advice of someone else today if you don't think that he or she has enough information to form a clear opinion. It seems to you that others are willing to oversimplify the situation for the sake of expediency while you would rather delve into the complexity, even if you can't decide what to do. Be patient; solutions will continue to surface over the days ahead.

I'm dealing with a problem at work right now that I don't really have a solution for. Well, I do...but it includes explitive ladden phone call and a possible day off without pay. Not really a solution. I want a REAL answer. A fix. So I shall be patient. Let some of the feelings settle. Form actual thoughts, and maybe get something done

Lesson learned

So I along with most of America voted yesterday. I am not stating here on my blog who I did or did not vote, nor my veiws on, well anything, as this is not a political blog. If you want that go read Slate or something. I am just a paramedic and this is my blog. So Back to my adventures in voting. I had just got off work, after working all night. I didn't even go home to change out of my uniform. My back hurt from lifting patients up off the floor. I had been puked on and had just gotten off the phone with the coroner 20 mins prior. (I had a woke-up dead) I was tired. I was ready to just go to bed. But I am an American, and this is just something I had to do. So I drive to my voting place ( a local Elementary school) and the parking lot was packed. I had to park a few blocks away in someones front yard. I walk in and get into the line. I'm there for an hour. I'm playing a game on my iPhone, listening to music. Blurring out the maddness, the bitching about the lines, the politcal bickering. I'm in my own world. until I feel a tap on my shoulder. I pull the ear buds out of my ears just in time to hear "She's done caught herself a seizure!"

Sure enough, next to my, across the hall, an elderly woman had passed out in line. Her neice thought she had a seizure. So I go over, and see if I could be an assistance. (I'm still in uniform, remember) The woman was out cold for a few seconds but was coming back around by the time i got down on the floor to her level. Someone screaming about Seizures and "Sugar". I block them out for a minute
"You Okay?"
"Yes. I think so."
You hurting anywhere?"
"No."
"You have Sugar?"
"No, but I didn't eat breakfast."
"Well you fell out, Sit here for a second, Whats your name and how old are you?" She told me and I called my dispatchers. As I'm doing that I get pushed out of the way by some woman screaming about "Is there a doctor in the house!" and "Does any one have a BGL machine" I get off the phone. And in my head...Who is this woman ( she never idenified herself as any sort of medical person) and what the fuck, Lady, you are in an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, who do you think has a freaking BGL machine? I lean back down and continue speaking with my now patient. and this woman continues to yell. "she has no radial pulses!. She severaly hypotensive!" she has no radials" Good Greif. "Mrs. M? do you think If I get some helf you can make it over to that bench so we can get you up off this floor?" She said "I can, I'm just a little weak"
"Well lets get you up."
Screaming lady-"You can't get her up she has no radial pulse she will pass out again, she is severly hypotensive"
Me-"Then we will deal with that, But I would like to get her up off the dirty floor, out of the crowd. I already called an ambulance. I work for EMS."
Screaming lady-"Well I ..." and she walked off. well damn if I knew it was that easy I would have said that 10 mins ago. I got some help to get her up and we when to sit down. We got her taken care of. She got to vote. When I went back in I had lost my place in line. I stood there for a second, contemplating what to do. The people running the polls were no help. I didn't want to get back in line a wait 4 more hours, but I still wanted to vote. It wasn;t until a young woman about my age holding a 6 month old infant said "You missed the riot".
"Did I? was there Bloodshed, I hate it when I miss bloodshed."
"Na, you helped that woman?"
"Yep, and now I've lost my place in line"
"Here jump in front of me, you were here at least as long as I have if not longer I saw you." Now she had been holding this kid for god knows how long
"I can't do that, you have you son with you and have been waiting too."
"Don't worry about it, jump in."
So I did. We talked for a few minutes and her little one kept babbling at me and pulling at my hair. I asked her if he would let me hold him. Since she let my cut the line. I held the little one for a while. we had a very deep conversation about the economy ( a little one sided) and health care. Then he napped on my shoulder. Mom and I chatted with the others in line. The rest of the voting was uneventful. No more falling out or seizures.

So I voted. My patient voted. And I learned not to wear my uniform to the voting booth if you have been up all night.