Updates continue.

I’ve gone on a few more calls, some trauma but mostly medical. Last week I had my first stroke call. And there is no way to say this without sounding crass and maybe even downright cruel…

It was frigging cool.

Ok, now let me explain. It’s one thing to talk about facial drop and arm drift and weak grips and to see photos in books and to have someone act it out for you. It’s something else entirely to see it happening in front of you. To see someone’s pupils constrict and dilate at different rates. To hear someone talking around a tongue that is half numb. To watch half of their face change in front of your eyes. To hold their hands and see them concentrating to squeeze, and only feel one hand move.

The lady was very calm, and had been through this before. She made every effort to do what we asked and the family was right there with any help we needed. It was almost as if they had done this so many times before, and there was no fear from the patient. Which meant that I was able to see it happening without having to handle the emotional parts as well.

And that also sounds mean – I wasn’t ignoring her, but we were able to talk quietly without there being panic in the mix.

The whole acceptance aspect of this call meant that I was able to see all the signs and symptoms manifesting in front of me. And honestly, there is a lot you just can’t learn from a book.

I’ve done a few serious calls over the past month, again mostly medical, but one trauma stands out. Right after I had surgery, we got a call for a guy who had fallen off a ladder, and there was a lot of back pain. Add to that driving on a dirt road, in Maine, in the spring, over potholes and patches of ice, and this poor guy was just not having the time of his life. And nothing makes a traumatic back pain call more fun than 20 minutes on a backboard… if their back isn’t hurting before we show up, it will be by the time we unload!

The thing that I recall most from that call is not carrying a big guy through a foot of mud, nor learning the joys of self-administrative nitrous.

No, the thing I remember most is telling him to stop apologizing for swearing, and that if he would ever have a free pass to cuss like a sailor, this was it.

Hmmm.

So I got this email today.

The college has accepted my application for their Paramedicine course this coming fall.

Holy shit.

Delays and false starts.

Been a while…

We took Harrison and Merrill to Disney World in March, and much fun was had by all (other than the 24 hours we spent driving each way.)

I’ve enrolled in college for Paramedicine, and am just waiting to hear back from the admissions board.

I had surgery a few weeks ago as well, and am finally on the mend from that.

Been covering a lot of extra shifts to get ready for college, and haven’t been sleeping well. Knitting has slowed to a crawl, just been too tired to do more than a row or two a day.

Protected: Spoilers, Jan ’09 RSC Kit

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FIRST!!!

Can you beleive it?? I’m first to post that I got my Rockin Sock Club kit!!

In order to give folks plenty of spolier alert warning, here is my notice – The password is “spoilit”

A little update.

It’s been a while.

I’ve had some highs – I got in on the Socks That Rock Club, gone on some really good calls, learned there is an actual medical reason for my weight, and so forth.

I’ve had some lows – Crushed my right index finger so I can’t knit, gone on some really tough calls, learned my weight gain is being caused by fibroids and a thyroid issue and what looks like diabetes, and so forth.

More later. Need to go ice my hand.

Dreams and disillusions.

 

Funny how things never work out exactly how you hoped. I know, that’s life, things take the path they are supposed to, yadda yadda. Still rankles you when you are hired for a shift you never work.

Despite that, things are as they are. Work is… not work when it’s what you want to do. Calls come in, I go out, most of the time there is a happy ending. Most of the time.

Recent calls -
A stage 4 cancer patient.This was a very tough call, not a whole hell of a lot that we could do. I held the patients hand, asked over and over if there was any pain we could ease. There wasn’t. Not in the end.

A feisty lady from the local home. We backed in and she walked out to us on the leg that she had fell onto 4 hours previous. She was puffing on a cigarette, and was rather pissed off when I insisted that, no, she could not smoke in the back of the bus. She tried charging one of the (male) nurses in the ER five bucks to “watch her strip” when he asked her to change into a gown.

Another lady from the same home, but a sadder story this time. Called for respiratory distress and general illness. Room O2 was 86% (most people average 99%) Hayes and I responded from home, as the first crew was already out on a call a few towns away. I could hear her breathing from 4 doors away, raspy, gasping. The nurse happily told me how her O2 sat was up to 91% and how, despite being a big chatter, she had been “strangely not very talkative” for the past few days. Hayes was right behind me with the stretcher and O2 bag, and another EMT was pulling into the lot. I walked through the door, and saw they had the patient flat on her back. “Pissed” doesn’t even come close to how mad I was. The second EMT called for a medic when he saw her like that. I got her onto the stretcher, and was putting the straps on. I said her name, told her we were going to get her some help with breathing, and asked her if it hurt anywhere. She turned and looked at me, fully aware, fully there. She knew everything that was happening, and wasn’t able to catch her breath long enough to even gasp out a one-word response. We didn’t even wait for the O2 bag, we ran to the truck and put a mask on as quick as we could.
Finally, we picked up God. This call may have deserved it’s own post, had it not been, honestly, so sad as it turned out to be. We were called for an overdose, PD on scene. I opened my door and was half-way out when the cop came up, and completely dead-pan, asked me if I was ready to meet God. And then he walked away. Yah, I had to blink and pause for a moment there. As he was handcuffed and restrained, there was little cause for concern on the ride in, which went smoothly despite the random outbursts of “I AM God!” and the occasional “I love you!” thrown in. I was ever so happy that I was driving, as he choose the ER report to scream how he loved the medic in back, and how he was going to kill her, but it was ok because we were all going home now. At that point it kind of stopped being funny, hearing someone who was so out of it slipping even farther, and knowing what was in store for him once we got to the hospital. It took 8 of us to move him to the bed and get the restraints on.