My life

Travolta Firefighter Detox Program

2011-08-22T19:45:00.000-04:00

I have to make this short and sweet. I need my beauty sleep and I work tomorrow. I went back on 8/11/11 for those of you not following me on Twitter. Sorry, I'm finding it harder and harder to find time to do the blog! I was pretty sure you didn't give a damn about how much I've been knitting because I was bored as shit during my "injury induced vacation".

Today I started the process for the Travolta Firefighter Detox Program highlighted in the linked article. I'm told there are several across the country so if you're interested look it up! So far I'm the first to go through the initial interview. The sticking point for a lot of guys is the fact that you cannot drink alcohol or take many meds while on the program. The time it takes to complete the program varies for each individual because of the different levels of toxins in each person's body. Some go three weeks, some more. You go every day for about three hours a day until you're done. It's a journey. So far I've heard nothing but good things. They do offer this program to civilians, but there is a charge for you. For firefighters it's free!

OK kids, I'm off to read before bed. I'll post more as it comes!

I Broke

2011-06-23T15:05:00.000-04:00

Well, dear readers, all ten of you... I'm broken. About six weeks ago while trying to access a seizure patient (who turned out to be a dummy who tried to bike 10 miles without eating or drinking water on a HOT and humid day) I slipped. By the time I got to the patient the bottom of my left foot was numb. By the time I drove the medic unit to the hospital the whole left side of my foot was numb. By the end of the day - my left asscheek. Here are my insides:

All that grey stuff in the llight area is supposed to be in between the vertebrae. It's bad enough that it's compressing nerves and it SHOULD be affecting my bladder (thank god for small favors). Now if it wasn't for my employer getting fed up and asking me to get an MRI, we'd still be dicking around with muscle relaxers. They were convinced this was a "bruised" sciatic nerve. That look like it's going to be fixed with muscle relaxers? I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on TV, and no I did not sleep at a Holiday Inn last night, but damn. And now that we've come to conclusion I need epidural injections (oh joy) that probably won't help, I can't even get the next consult appointment for THREE WEEKS. Then I might be able to start treatment which probably won't work so they'll have to operate.

RED TAPE SUCKS. I figure if maybe I pass that along to the Chief, he might be able to light a fire under someone and get an appointment sooner. I'm bored as hell and want to go back to work!

Et tu Kim Kardashian?

2011-02-15T17:26:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let you know that Ms. Kim Kardashian is no longer following my Tweets. It took her all of two days to drop me. Of course, I was being my gross, charming self. I'm also not a hot, muscle-bound MALE firefighter, sooooo. Yeah. And I'm really not into the vacuous Hollywood types. But she held on for two days thinking maybe I wouldn't notice.

And hell yeah, I noticed. Maybe it was the tweet about how my partner thought she was hot...

Lessons on the Digital Age

2011-02-11T16:00:00.000-05:00

So Old Lady that I am, sometimes I trick myself into thinking that I'm alone in my living room writing this stuff to myself and nobody is reading it. Well, except for that one guy who keeps telling me to quit my job. I mean, he keeps conveniently IGNORING the places where I say I love my work and focusing on the parts where I blow off the steam. But that's not what this post is about. Once again, I digress.

Last night I Twittered (SARCASTIC as HELL) that "Yeah, I'm going to buy weight loss drugs recommended by one of the Jersey Shore kids.". All of a sudden the number of people following my Tweets shot up. Well I'll be a son of a... THAT'S all it took? One mention of those steroid-ridden, hairspray-addicted excuse for reality "stars"? So that started my not-so-subtle rant on Twitter which promted another Twitterer I follow (a very cool doctor) to reply to me wherein we started throwing out celebrity names on Twitter. So I guess there are celebrities out there who troll Twitter to see who mentions their name and then starts to follow those people. Guess who follows me now?

Kim Kardashian.

I wonder how long before I totally gross her out. Maybe she'll hang in there with me. I doubt it.

To my furry children:

2011-02-07T06:55:00.000-05:00

Look, I know you hate being left alone for 24+ hours. I know it's HILARIOUS to watch Mommy's face when I come in and you've rearranged the carpets/furniture/decorative items. I know it causes great concern when your royal selves don't get fed at the "right" time, which is whatever time YOU deem to be. I know you get lonely - which is why I have provided you with each other because god knows having two cats was NOT my idea.

But what, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, could you want with the CTRL key on my laptop?!?!?

FD/EMS Squee!

2011-02-06T08:02:00.000-05:00

A present from my part time. They're so COOL.

The Old-Man Whisperer

2011-02-05T13:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was minor trauma and weird call day. I should have known when the student showed up. I like that I work in a station where we get students that ride along. It's so refreshing to see the job through their eyes. A cardiac arrest isn't the OH NO NOT AGAIN call for them that it is for us. I remember those days we prayed for something "good". Though I also remember when I used to work in this neck of the woods and I had a student ask me if we "needed the monitor" on a cardiac arrest. Ummmmm. Geez, only if you WANT to shock and give drugs, yeah. Oh, excuse my sarcasm. I'm from New England originally. Incidentally, we did get sent on a cardiac arrest yesterday, but it was in a neighboring jurisdiction and we were cancelled. Killjoys.

So our student needed trauma. We complied. It wasn't end of the world, knock down, drag out broken limbs and Armageddon but it'll count. You know, people being hit by chairs, a 14 year old injured in a wrestling match, etc. But my all-time favorite was just your average abdominal pain (due to constipation x 1 week). Took us a hot minute to get there and there was a crew waiting on us crowded into the room. We found an elderly man cowering on his bed with a non-rebreather mask hissing on his face. I asked what his sats were RA. 97%. Another disturbing trend. Why, for the love of god, is everyone being put on a non-rebreather mask regardless of their sats? And this goes DOUBLE for this guy. He has massive panic issues, is obviously hyperventilating and is on 12L, surrounded by people talking loudly, with a very aggressive female firefighter yelling three inches from his face "CALM DOWN". Huh. The first thing I did was clear out the extraneous extra people. That still left the loud female, an elderly PO (older than our 69 year old patient - he said so) and me. After observing them get in his face for another five minutes and forcibly put the oxygen on his face at least twice (after I told the patient it was OK if he didn't want to keep it on) the patient was sobbing. I finally walked up behind the female and touched her shoulder and said "This is not working, c'mon." I had everyone leave but me and the patient, removed the oxygen and sat on the bed with him.

Two minutes later we were walking downstairs and out to the unit.

Just as the loud female firefighter was telling my partner how I'd "tossed them out of the room".

I'm AWESOME. I'ts OK. You can tell me.

STRESSED

2011-02-03T09:17:00.002-05:00

I work at a fairly busy station, which I'm grateful for, but I get A LOT less sleep now. My call volume has increased tenfold. I guess I should have seen it coming, but in three years at the slow station I didn't have one complaint. I've been here for a month and I've had a complaint from a volunteer and now a complaint from a patient's mother who stated that I treated her son like "a dirtbag alcoholic and drug addict". By the way, she was never present when I treated her son, so I have no idea where she gets off making that accusation.

I got my first paycheck of the year. The amount I pay for my health insurance has increased, so my paycheck shrank. The amount I pay my union has increased, so my paycheck shrank. The amount I have to contribute to my pension increased, so my paycheck shrank. The county executive took away our physical fitness allowance, so my paycheck shrank. The county executive is now trying to get legislation passed that will make it illegal for us to send our fight for a cost of living increase in our paychecks to arbitration.

I bought my house based on the salary I WAS making. I am no longer making that salary. I was forced to get an FHA loan which makes me pay a Mortgage Insurance Premium. This increases my mortgage by a ridiculous amount for 10 years until I pay off about 20% of my mortgage. Can't get a regular mortgage just yet. Overtime is practically impossible to get.

And then I got a bill for heating oil for $916.06. I keep my house between 55-60 degrees.

I have three weeks to pay it.

Limping through

2011-01-26T14:37:00.000-05:00

Still hacking and coughing. Living on cough drops and antibiotics. Just got home from my rescheduled dental appointment where I was shot up with HUGE needles and can't feel the right side of my face. I'm such a wimp when it comes to my own health. My dentist did a fabulous job and the chip on the front tooth looks like it was never there. I'm sore and FREEZING cold. Why am I cold? Because the automatic delivery on my heating oil has left me on EMPTY and I'm rationing. They gave me a 48 hour ETA. The weatherman royally F'ed up and we got more snow than we thought, the roads are a mess because they haven't been sanded, salted or plowed and how the big 'ole oil truck is going to get here is a mystery. Oh, and we're getting more right about rush hour time.

JOY.

Revelations

2011-01-16T18:50:00.000-05:00

I made it through my shift yesterday by a wing and a prayer. Sick as a dog. And I still have no idea where that saying comes from. Are dogs sick a lot? Anyway, I found myself trying to lie down and rest anytime I wasn't running a call. I could barely climb stairs without feeling winded. I had a ricola in my mouth every second. I'm a walking germ.

The EMS officer stopped by to give me all sorts of great news yesterday. I wasn't really surprised.

The first was my very first complaint. Apparently the little volunteer complained about our man that rolled out of bed. I'm not exactly sure why she complained since I did upgrade her unit because she "wasn't comfortable". Every time I asked her if she was OK on a call she'd look at someone else. I found that quite annoying. By the time we ran this call I was getting ticked off. So this guy rolled over in the middle of the night and hit his head on a night stand. It took us 30 minutes to get in the house while he yelled at us through the locked window. We gave him the full shebang spinal immobilization and his mentation, vitals and motion were fine. He had a good knot on his head though and his pupils were unequal. Now giving that this man is 82 years old and has MULTIPLE falls on his record and pretty extensive medical history, unequal pupils should not be taken it's own merit. We were with him for over an hour. Nothing about his condition changed. But giving that the BLS crew did not feel comfortable I went with them. And she still complained. Go figure.

The second issue was the fact that I did not start an IV on my patient. I wrote in the report that it was due to length of transport. He told me that due to the fact that the patient was located in Town A, I had plenty of time. Huh. I asked if he looked at the transport time. He had not. Turns out the time from the lady's house to the hospital was exactly four minutes. Since she was in severe distress, I elected to do the monitor and the combivent and attempt the IV last. I had the stuff out but saw the ER doors by the time I was ready. Sooooo, I was chastized for writing down the incorrect town (but correct zip code). Wow.

And the piece-de-resistance... I arrived on scene for an unconscious behind a bar and who do I see? My former Lieutenant. Well that explained why my new EMS Lieutenant had said RIGHT before I walked out the door that some of the problems I'd had previously had followed me. Seems my big-mouthed El-Tee has been talking smack. Although this does not surprise me in the least, I do know that more often than not people in the fire department will gossip behind your back rather than ask you direcctly if something is true. So anything he might have said may travel around for years before getting back to me. *sigh* And his word carries more weight because of his rank and time in. Lying, gossiping bastard. My former partner said this morning they've decided not to speak in front of him unless they want everyone to know their busniness.

Just great.

Update from The Pit

2011-01-13T19:56:00.000-05:00

Good Partner called me today. Apparently things are not going well for my replacement down in The Boonies. I feel for the poor guy. I really do.

The guy who took my place used to be our PO. He made the mistake of getting his Paramedic cert on his own. The department decided to take all of the people "hiding" in suppression positions and place them on EMS apparatus so they can "pay their dues". Please understand that EMS is treated like a punishment here so this is why I have felt devalued as an employee. Get it yet? So this poor guy signed a contract when he was hired (in his 50s with a huge amount of suppression experience) and figured instead of having to commute to take his ALS certification, he'd take it at home since he thought they would make him take it sooner or later. He's giving himself an ulcer already not feeling very confident and having to ride with an EMT-B as his partner. Good Partner rocks but is still not an ALS provider. There's a limit to the help he can give and the nearest help might be twenty minutes away. Now he's on his own and scared. To top it off, the Lieutenant is LAZY and just a pain in the ass. This last shift he finally got to see it from our point of view.

Up to this point the PO has pretty much been tied to the engine and truck. He busted his ass cleaning, fixing, checking off and generally keeping up with all of the suppression equipment in the station. He spent the majority of the day focused on that so he wasn't aware what was going on with us. Last shift he finally got it. The Lieutenant had them doing fire inspections, fire hazard surveys, shopping for lunch and dinner and running three calls (which take on average two hours per call). And all the while he sat on his ass on the computer or talking on the phone with his wife. At one point the engine was sent on a cold response while the medic unit was on their way back from an out of county hospital and he called the dispatcher on the air and asked if the medic unit could take it. He asked Good Partner why he wasn't angry. He responded that we had been so used to being used as the Lieutenant's errand boys. I would get so pissed off, but what do you say when he says "Do you mind?" He's our boss. Hell yeah we mind but you keep your mouth shut and you do it. We were the ones running the calls. As a matter of fact, we have to run the fire calls AND the medical calls. You do nothing all day and expect us to run your errands, do your job for you (all of the other shifts the officer does the fire hazard surveys) and cook your meals. Good Partner and I agree, PO is headed for one of two things. A nervous breakdown or a heart attack.

And all of that stuff wasn't even the worst of what he did that shift... I can't go into the sneaky ass, drama creating, potentially career ending thing he did to a friend of mine. I can tell you that he sent Good Partner a text the night before the shift "We're working out tomorrow. Bring it Bitch." GP found that a little...offensive. So my 6' 4" former college football, then professional basketball playing partner BROUGHT IT. He made the Lieutenant PUKE and ask for an IV. Juuuuuust as the Boy Scouts showed up for a tour.

MWWWWAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH! KARMA BABY.

19 Years Later...Same Story

2011-01-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

I don't think that I can be more disgusted with nursing homes. I'm horrified that we need such things, but once again we have become so focused on keeping humans alive that we've lost sight of what it means when we do so. What are we doing? Keeping the body "alive" technically, but the quality of life is, well...not quality at all. What kind of life does a blind, quadriplegic in kidney failure have in a nursing home? She lies there day after day, week after week, year after year. No one visits, the staff doesn't even brush her teeth and the only time she leaves is for dialysis. Is it any wonder she's mean as a snake? I'm surprised she has the will to keep as quiet as she does. Me? I'd be cussing out anyone who came close enough to hear me. It's people like her that make me want that giant DNR tattoo on my left boob and Dr. Kevorkian's phone number.

What prompted this, you ask? Two trips to nursing homes this shift. On trip one I am absolutely sure that my displeasure was quite evident even though I kept my mouth SHUT. 93 year old woman with severe dementia who is usually quite active. She tried to pick-pocket both me and the doctor. I swear these people pull out a script when they see us coming:

"We just got on shift. We have no idea what happened. Usually she's up and walking around, but today she won't get out of bed. When you touch her, she screams."

I've been at this job as a volunteer since 1992 and as a "paid guy" since 2004. This script never changes. My all-time favorite is "He/She was just breathing a minute ago" when they're stiff and cold or severe respiratory distress and they have the patient on a cannula with 2 liters of oxygen. Anyway, this poor lady is bruised (and not recently so) all over, guarding the right side of her body and her right leg is drawn up and she won't move it. So you want me to believe she may have fallen and put herself back in bed? Somebody knows what happened. These people are criminal. And this poor woman cannot tell us herself. I hate these jerks.

But wait... There are worse places. We get a call around dinner time (of course) for hip pain. Doctor wants patient admitted. Cold response, blah, blah. Apparently these people don't understand the freaking concept of EMERGENCY. They want to call us and they tell us where to take a patient. Um, no. That's why you call a PRIVATE transport service. We get there, totally oblivious because it's a private residence. Turns out these people turned their house into a "assisted living" facility a month ago. Our patient, recovering from hip replacement, fell SATURDAY and has been lying in his own filth for three days in pain. We had to wait while a care provider who was more interested in telling me why she was not at fault changed his adult diaper. this man was lucid, and very talkative. Told me they'd been feeding him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oh, hell no. I told him since he had a cell phone he should have called 9-1-1 himself. We would have broken the door down to get him out of there when he fell. He should have never lain there for three days. I checked up on him and found out his hip is broken. I called my supervisor and I know the nurse called Social Services on this place.

Vultures.

Treating the Monitor

2011-01-09T19:08:00.000-05:00

I seem to be talking to myself a lot so I'm finding it really hard to find the will to blog. Been that way for about a year or so. But then I didn't start this for anyone but myself so who cares? I started losing the will to write when I started getting a bunch of nasty comments because I dared comment about the quality of our volunteer system. Let's be clear. I was once proud to be one of them. It's changed here. I don't know YOU or YOUR system so I'm obviously not talking about you. So if you're not spending your time lying on the couch lifting your feet so I can vacuum under them, trashing the kitchen and then calling me your "paid maid", only showing up for the "good calls" or picking and choosing which calls you want to go on, and bitching because the equipment is dirty/broken/missing something but you've never lifted a finger - then you don't volunteer here. I'm really sorry these people are making you look bad. YOU I treat like gold. I love my good volunteers and take the time to give them the help they ask for because one day they'll be working along side of me. The rest can go screw themselves. I don't need their "help". *END OF TODAY'S RANT*

Lately I've noticed a trend that's kind of disturbing. As a credit to the people who trained me, I was always told to NEVER treat the monitor. You treat the signs and sumptoms of the person sitting in front of you. So here are two patients I was presented with in the same night:

Patient 1: 87 years old, long time smoker. She's been sick for about a week and has seen her doctor TWICE this week. It's 23:30 and she's chipper as all get-out but decides it might be nice to go to the hospital to be seen because she thinks she has the flu. Her doctor gave her antibiotics the day before (she's had one dose) but she doesn't really seem too keen on taking the rest. She's one of those people that calls all of her relatives right before she calls the ambulance so that everone arrives about the same time. She walked out to the ambulance and we gave her a ride. Her oxygen sats were 87% RA. Weird. She was in no distress whatsover. The charge nurse freaked out. I was pretty much thinking it could have been her 1. arthritic hands, 2. poor circulation 3. the fact that it was 23 degrees outside and she did not have gloves on.

Patient 2: 70 y/o female, triple bypass four weeks ago, long time smoker, COPD and asthma. You could tell she had been fighting the COPD for a long time because she had clubbed fingernails. She presented with SEVERE respiratory distress but a sat RA of 92%. 100% on 15L by NRB but still in severe distress. After a combivent she improved a great deal but she was still pretty junky in the lungs. At a four minute transport time I only had time for so much. It's strange not having that 30 minutes in the back of the medic anymore!

I heard a nurse tell a patient that she was "not breathing right". It wasn't that her sats were low. The nurse wasn't even in the room. Apparently the patient had set off an alarm because she was breathing shallowly. It's the way she breathes. In the EMS room at the hospital a medic was talking about how he had a patient that "went to crap" in his ambulance. Then he described how the patient's pacemaker wasn't working and pacemaker was misfiring. Turns out the patient was asymptomatic but was throwing all sorts of different rythyms on the monitor. So, OK. You can deactivate the device, right? But if the patient is asymptomatic why do you say they're going to crap? Sounds like you're the one freaking out son.

OK, so if I'm not talking to myself here... Am I being silly? Am I missing something? I haven't been a medic for more than a few years, but I've been a provider since 1992. I pretty much make a decision without really consciously doing so. Lately I've started second-guessing my descisions. It's always been my opinion that we rely too heavily on machines to make a diagnosis and seem to be relying on one piece of information rather than a host of them. Am I wrong? Should I reconsider?

Sad Honors

2010-11-30T22:28:00.000-05:00

For those of you wo do not follow me on Twitter, our department lost a Lieutenant on Thanksgiving Day. It was not an LODD. Thanksgiving was not her shift and she lives in a neighboring state. The part of this state that she lives in is very rural, with long winding two-lane roads. The weather was misty and cold. The best assessment they can provide is that she was on her way to her mother's house when she hit a patch of black ice, lost control of her jeep and crossed the path of an oncoming tractor trailer who had nowhere to go. She did not survive the impact. Her ten month old Saint Bernard puppy was in the jeep with her and could not be located after the accident.

El-Tee was a forever happy person with an infectious smile and upbeat attitude. They say only the good die young, but in this case it's true. I can't find one person with anything bad to say about her. I worked with her about a month ago when we were both working overtime.She was easy to talk to and ALWAYS willing to listen. She left behind a lot of friends. She was an animal lover. A Saint Bernard rescuer. So here's the chiller. The pup she had with her the day she died had been missing since the accident Thursday afternoon. El-Tee's friends arranged a search party to try to find him but could not. Early Saturday morning a very close friend said El-Tee came to her in a a dream and told her where the pup could be found. She didn't want his remains left there. The friend immediately went out to the accident scene and the pup was found exactly where she said he would be.

I didn't find out about the accident until I was just about to go to bed at around 23:30. They didn't put the word out because there were guys in the department working who had been very close to her. They shut one station down and sent the Captain over to tell one of her best friends the news in person. I couldn't sleep. Everyone else in my station had gone to bed and I was left there essentially alone not knowing what to do. I fell asleep at about 02:00 and was up again at 05:00. I didn't fall asleep again for a few hours again until about 13:00. It's been a daze ever since.

Monday was the wake. 15:00 to 17:30. 19:00 to 21:00. We did casket vigil in 20 minute intervals. But then, I was a little surprised that there was no casket. By monday El-Tee had been cremated and put in a little cherry-wood box. First of all, and let me just say that she would find this funny, I have a hard time believing her hair alone would fit in that box. There was A LOT of that. I think if there had been a casket many of us would have been unable to hold ourselves together. And there is NO CRYING IN HONOR GUARD. Well. That is, until the man that will be my Captain come the first of the year spoke at the funeral today. Thank god the guard keep their caps on indoors because I lost it for a minute.

We've decided to get together and make a list of what each of us wants in case something happens to us. There will be a recording secretary, a notary public and alcohol involved. It will be necessary since the guys picked out what turned out to be a sparkly pink vase as my final resting place and a matronly polyester white gown for me to wear into the afterlife. Oh, yes. There WILL be haunting. God bless the El-Tee for spelling it out in her will. It made things so much easier on her family.

RIP beautiful girl. We'll remember you.

Standards

2010-11-19T19:13:00.001-05:00

The more I ponder, the more pissed off I'm getting. I should just let it go. I should walk away from my current officer and let him hang himself with the rope he's braiding with his big FAT mouth. I mean, how the #&$^ are you going to tell me that I need to watch what I say when you CONTINUE to offend at every FREAKING turn?
I'm sorry, I should tell you of what I bitch.

The other day, as we sat in the day room, the EMS officer came to visit. I suspect the department is a little nervous about last shift's potentially career ending beat-down. After all, I was left in the back of a medic unit without the ability to call for help. But I digress. So as we're sitting there my officer begins to talk about another officer's reluctance to pay for lunch and dinner. He refers to him trying to negotiate the price down as "Jewing" it down. Without looking up from my work, I said "Please don't use that terminology". It's not the first time I've said that to him either. I find that terminology offensive and he knows it. My African American partner (Good Partner) was sitting next to me raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He gets on the PO's ass for the good-natured bantering that goes back and forth between the PO and my partner (Why the hell does the chicken always have to be WHITE meat?) but sees no problem with a cultural slur? So to deflect the UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE he starts to gossip about the love life of another friend of mine. Good Partner looks and me and says, "Hey, isn't that..." and I said "Yes, yes it is." I believe that Good Partner was trying to give a subtle hint to the Lieutenant that maybe he should SHUT THE F UP. He did not get the hint and continued to talk smack. Geeze Louise but I don't think my opinion couldn't gotten much lower, but there it is.

So. On a lighter note. Found out that the chick that punched me in the face (No, I'm fine thanks for asking.) has called EMS seven times in the last nine days. Seems she's going to be a bit of a problem. I got a text this morning saying they took her this morning. Then I got "She's crazy. She likes chicks." Er. Yes. I was propositioned by her in between her punching me in the face and kicking me in the abdomen. We visited her house at 0300 last shift but she was (thankfully) not there. God I hope she goes away. My Captain said I f-ed up. I should have gone to see Dr. Winteroff (he shares an office with Dr. Summeroff) for treatment. Riiiight. SIR. That would make me a big 'ole wuss. Now I'm wondering why I care about what I look like...

And now I have a question for you. This is purely logistical. I'm trying to solve a problem before it becomes a problem. Last year we had three major snow storms that crippled our less-than-equipped area. My city didn't plow AT ALL. It took me five hours to get to work for the first storm (a 45 minute drive in normal weather) and the next two storms I left my car in a white "bump" in front of my house. Massive trucks with lift kits had trouble but they picked me up. I got the party line from the officer "You're essential personnel, you have to come to work. Those who call in sick will get written up." I had no intention of calling in sick and told him so. I wasn't sick. But damn if my Volkswagen which is 6" off the ground is going to make it in 3' of snow! It was 6" deep at 10am when I called him the first time! As far as I'm concerned, my drive to work on CLOSED interstate where the National Guard was patrolling wasn't exactly a wise decision. I've decided to park my car in a church parking lot just off of a main road that will be plowed. It's within walking distance though if it snows THAT much I'll have to make sure all of my stuff is in the trunk and it will still be a challenge. The transfer will be a huge relief. So how does your department handle these things? Do most of you just own trucks?

Thank you ma'am, can I have another?

2010-11-13T19:34:00.000-05:00

So I'm home from work already. I made it 8.5 hours before they sent me home. Here I was, looking forward to judging a pulled-pork cook-off when I was rudely interrupted by my job. Here's what happened:

The call came out as a 9-1-1 hangup. We were about 15 minutes from the address so they dispatched a closer engine. When we got there we found a 36 year old woman who was having abdominal cramps which she attributed to "having to poop", miscarrying a 2-day old pregnancy, or menstrual cramping. She admitted to having done a dipper (marajuana dipped in PCP) about three days ago. She apparently told others she'd done drugs today, but she denied it to me. She was acting strangely, but nothing I thought I couldn't handle. The Rookie didn't feel comfortable taking the call since she'd said she'd done drugs, so I rode in the back. This is what happened about five minutes from the hospital. Up to this point she's just been asking questions, but was fine.

Big Girl: I need to use your cell phone.
Detail Medic: No ma'am, can't let you use the phone.
BG: But we could all die in here and I need to talk to my maybe husband!
DM: MAYBE husband? You don't know if you're married?
BG: Mumble, mumble, mumble. You're a BITCH.
DM: OK. (silence for a minute)
BG: I need a drink of water.
DM: I'm sorry ma'am but I don't have any. You'll have to wait until we get to the hospital.
BG: Is there a bathroom in here?
DM: No, there's not.
BG: What if I have to shit myself?
DM: Well let's try not to do that, OK? (silence for a minute)
BG: Let me use your cell phone NOW.
DM: I told you, no.

Pt unbuckles the stretcher straps and gets up off the stretcher screaming at me that I'm a bitch and that I don't know how to drive an f-ing ambulance. I pointed out that I was not driving and told her to sit her ass down in the stretcher. I buckled her back in and told The Rookie to call the hospital and have security waiting for us. Big Girl unbuckles the straps again and comes off the stretcher. She punched me right in the face. I got her to sit down AGAIN, and while she's kicking me in the abdomen, I buckle her in again. In the meantime she's alternately screaming at me, telling me we should have sex right there in the back of the unit and asking me if I'm going to heaven. Then she started kicking me again. I told The Rookie to upgrade to a priority one response (lights and sirens) and haul ass so mine got a minimal beating. I'd grabbed a portable radio and tried to call the dispatcher to have police enroute too but the radio was out of range down there. By that time we pulled into the ER parking lot and I was yelling at my parter to get the F in the back with me and help. By this time I was lying on top of her feet so she couldn't kick me anymore. When he yanked open the back doors, the security guard supermanned into the back of the unit and started yelling at the patient. She got real quiet real quick.

So after filling out paperwork, talking to police officers from two jurisdictions and eating lunch I started to get sore. My right shoulder and neck are sore. I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Well she was big girl and I didn't fight back - mostly because I want to keep my job. The Lieutenant told me to go home for the rest of the shift and sleep it off. I decided not to press charges. Mostly because I'd have to go to the courthouse and file myself because the cops wouldn't do it. Since they didn't witness it, so they can't charge her. They will be charging her with possession of crack, drug accessories and whatever other illegal stuff he found in the house. Her 90 something year old grandmother was clueless. And apparently she has quite a record. Charming girl. She's done enough bad stuff to herself, I don't need to throw my hat in the ring.

I just can't make this stuff up. Really.

I am The Harbinger

2010-11-10T10:38:00.000-05:00

I don't know what the hell is going on, but I seem to be the Queen of DOAs. I did a quick count and I can remember at least eight in the last three years off the top of my head. Mostly elderly people who have passed on more or less peacefully. And I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few. And I'm not talking about working cardiac arrests, just DOAs. I'm beginning to think that they wait for me to start my shift.

Yesterday I had two DOAs. The first one had obviously passed a couple of days ago. She lived alone and had friends that looked in on her and brought her groceries. It was Meals-On-Wheels that raised the alarm. That was an easy one. Multiple health problems, a stack of prescription on the kitchen table, and a history of depression. She had no family so there was no one to call. Friends had control of her funeral arrangements. It was the second one that was FAR more tricky.

88 year old female with chronic CHF, kidney failure, heart disease and recently diagnosed with AAA. She was all of about 85lbs soaking wet. She had apparently been failing all day and finally took her last breath about 20 minutes before we were called. According to the new state protocols, we are supposed to work this as a full arrest. I ask you WHY? The family produced two living wills but not a DNR. They begged me to not start CPR. I cannot in all good consciousness work this as an arrest. But according to the guidelines, the ONLY reason to call it is lividity, rigor or injuries incompatible with sustaining life. I understand there are people out there that are incapable of telling a dead person from a live one. I am not one of them. Besides, I used the 20 minutes as my guideline. That's a done deal. I can defend this one. I made sure everyone (including the police officer) was good with my decision. Anyone not good, we work it.

Maybe there's some unknown force that makes those who don't want to go through the trauma of "life saving measures" that do nothing but give the medic practice, wait for me. We've all heard of "skills drill" patients. I think that's an absolutely barbaric thing to do. Why would you work grandpa under the Christmas tree (yes, I have done it) when the poor guy died peacefully napping while watching his grandkids open presents? They won't be traumatized enough? I'm not talking about someone in their 50s with no history. I'm talking about people with terminal illnesses who have been ill for a long time. This lady already had made funeral arrangements and the family had called the funeral home to find out what the procedure would be when she did pass. I left them with two pieces of advice:

1. Get a DNR order.
2. In lieu of #1, wait at least a half hour before calling EMS.

RIP Old Blog Posts

2010-11-08T06:49:00.000-05:00

I'm really bummed. I realized the other day that I no longer have the first few years of my blog that included my volunteer days and my entire academy. It was amusing (for me anyway) to look back on what I was doing "this time six years ago". Our class motto was "If you don't pass this you're going to get fired". Fun, fun. It also was an eye-opener for those who think that the volunteers here get the same training as the paid people. Oh holy jebus, no. I wouldn't have have eight months of STRESS and TERROR if that were true. They also don't boil down ALS training, which should take two years, into one. That means going to class all day, every day, while being scrutinized and yelled at. I'm sorry, cardiology isn't stressful enough??

I was lucky to get hired for this job, damn lucky to have survived training, and by god, LUCKY to get to work at this job!

Short Memories

2010-11-07T08:53:00.004-05:00

I'd like to encourage you to go back and read this post. Last night I was in that same exact spot. Same time of night, though not the same time of year. I watched a young African American male in dark clothing run across the same stretch of road where there are still no street lights and he was apparently too lazy to use the crosswalk just yards from where he crossed.

You know, it's strange. I can pick out several places on that street where people have lost their lives in traffic accidents and even one 33 year old cardiac arrest due to weather. There are areas where several people have died in the same exact place. It amuses me that people get skeeved out in cemeteries. You might want to start paying attention to where they lost their lives in the first place.

I always wear a seat belt. Even in a parking lot where I'm only driving a few feet. I never drive drunk or with someone who is drunk. I don't ride a motorcycle with someone who is reckless. You can laugh, you can call me a dork, you can roll your eyes at me because I won't start my car until you are using available safety equipment. I don't give a flying hoot. But my brothers won't be scraping my body parts off of the road because I was being stupid.

Pondering a Long Life

2010-11-06T11:55:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was BLS Wonderland. Since I'm sans good Partner and saddled up with Naughty Rookie, He has to ride the BLS calls. Usually I ride with all patients (just because I hate to drive and love my partner) but Rookie is detailed back for ten shifts for "retraining" so he has to do five EMS reports. Well if I didn't get through to him with his rookie book, I'm not sure what I can do with him now. Well, that's not really fair to him. He's a weird little boy. And by that I mean he's barely 21 despite the wife and child at home and he has some, well, INTERESTING hobbies. Venomous reptiles, scaly, cold blooded animals and stuff that kills. Am I friends with him outside of work? Um, no. But he is who he is and I try to celebrate diversity. I told him not to take the fact that he isn't like everyone else personally. Not everyone is going to like him - get over it, live your life and be happy outside of the 25% of the time you're here. Because after all, what it comes down to is that he's a *unique* individual that doesn't quite fit in and he's getting the shit kicked out of him for it. So every time Lt. All-About-Me asks, I tell him he's doing a really good job. And I never lie about stuff that impacts peoples lives. OK, now that I'm totally off track, BACK TO THE TOPIC.

It was Geriatric Day yesterday. Our first patient, a 98 year old lady with high blood pressure (not new) and a headache (also not new) wanted to go to the hospital. Hypertension and arthritis were her only previous history notes. I drove and about halfway there I hit a curb with one of the back wheels. My bad. As I've already established, I do not drive. When we got to the hospital and moved her over, I asked "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" and she answers "No way. Nothing is as bad as that ride was!" OUCH. Well that's a fine how-de-do! But then, at 98 years of age you pretty much get to say anything you want to and I get to shut the hell up. After all, I did hit the curb. But that made me think. 98 years old. Ninety eight. Holy crap. Think about how old you are. How many years do you have left before you're that old? What do you have left to accomplish in your life? How long do you think you'll live? How many health problems do you think you'll face in your advancing age? How do you think you'll deal with them? I haven't even begun to think of those things. I mean, I've pretty much done everything I wanted to. What do I want to do next? I have no idea how old I'll be when I die, so I don't know when I'll be middle-aged. I have no idea what my family history is, so I have no idea what to expect health-wise. Food for thought...

Then came the call for the 700lb woman having trouble breathing. Well NO F-ING KIDDING. So we're sent to go get the bariatric equipment 15 miles away to drive back 20 miles to the call to come 25 miles back to the hospital. No F-ING WAY. And seriously, I have no concept what 700 pounds looks like. I was not to have a concept it seems. We didn't make it to the scene. They sent a BLS unit to deliver the equipment.

Have I lost my compassion gene? Did I ever have one? Am I starting to sound like an episode of "Soap"?

If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, F-You. And I can say that because I'm a hell of a lot closer to 98 years old than you are. (And just for the record, I want to be this old lady when I grow up.)

Photographing the Dead

2010-10-30T08:11:00.003-04:00

So this isn't the first time I'm writing about this and sadly, it probably won't be the last. What possessed a Georgia firefighter to video the body of Dayna Kempson-Schacht and share it with others? He will lose his job because if his actions, and rightly so.

We as first responders are a macabre bunch. I get that. I have a pretty cavalier attitude toward death and dying myself. It's not like I haven't had my moments. If you've read this blog then you know exactly what I'm referring to. I've shared a lot of things with you that I never shared with people right here in my life. At this point I've been doing this job long enough that the EMPATHY switch is officially in the O-F-F position. Every once in a while I let it flip to ON, and it's days, weeks or even years before I'm "right" again. It's never fully off for children and that can be a disaster. You can't expect us to do this job day in and day out and FEEL for you. If I did, I'd be in a straight jacket somewhere drooling on myself and being force-fed antidepressant meds. Those of us who have been doing this for a good length of time live with images that horror movies can't recreate. And what's worse is that being there means you aren't limited to seeing the horror. You also get to smell, touch and hear everything that goes with it.

I don't know if it should be blamed on the media. We are desensitized at a very early age by what we see on the news and then by games and movies. Where do we draw the line? I'm not ready to hand out a "boys will be boys" argument. Please. We're adults here. At what point are you going to man-up and say "Hey, this is someone's child, sibling or spouse. Maybe we should have some respect." So let me put it into a scenario even we can understand.

Let's think about 9-11. 343 of our Brothers died in the towers trying to save the people in danger there. I want you to imagine bystanders filming and photographing the bodies of YOUR Brothers all the while commenting on where a piece of skull is missing or how messed up they are. How would YOU feel about that?

EXACTLY.

It's a Full Moon and People are F-ing Crazy

2010-10-25T18:32:00.003-04:00

Don't ever let anyone tell you that nothing odd happens on a full moon. What a crock. Where are you getting your statistics? The hospital ER? Not scientific, to be sure. What about all the stuff that doesn't make it there?

I decided to pick up 12 hours of overtime this weekend. I neglected to take into consideration that it was A) Saturday night and B) a full moon. And then I did the stupid thing of all stupid things. I said "Bring on the weirdness!!" Oh....wow.

Call #1: "Woman trying to get on an invisible motorcycle and keeps falling down."

Really? Did Wonder Woman lose the keys to the invisible jet and take the motorcycle instead? As it was, the call was pretty far from us, so it took a few minutes to get down to the area. We were cancelled by PD. Methinks the lady did leave the scene because I believe we found her walking down an unlit, heavily wooded road and stepping into traffic. As we passed her (she was on the opposite side of the road and we couldn't stop in time) I noted the front zipper of her jeans was down and she was wet. As in she peed her pants. It takes a special level of drunk for that. We turned around and I put the window down.

DM: What's going on?
Princess Pee Pants: Help.
DM: What happened?
PPP: Help.
DM: What do you need help with? What happened?
PPP: BITCH!

Aaaaaaand, she storms off behind us and steps in front of a police officer's unmarked car. Turns out he wasn't on duty and was the shift commander heading to work. She starts yelling at him and telling him she "ain't your trash" because he doesn't want her to sit in his car. She calls me a bitch again and starts screaming that I left her because I was too busy.... how do I describe this? She motioned a curled hand in front of her face while she stuck her tongue in her cheek. Got it? Apparently I was improperly giving attention to my partner while she was having a crisis. I burst out laughing. Didn't make her think any better of me. We left her with po-po, screaming "F-you! Take me home!!". Charming lass.

Call #2: "Sick person in the barn, vomiting blood."

OK, so now it's about 23:45 and we're headed to the barn. On the second floor we find a 47 year old man lying on an air mattress. He's drunk as hell and wet. You got it my lovelies! SOAKED in piss and his own feces. Been there for three days drinking any alcohol he can find and marinating. And can you guess? Yes, he was out of alcohol. So, I thought that god-awful stench was coming from the horses below in the barn. Nope. I was in the back of a WAY TOO SMALL medic unit for 25 minutes with what was the worst smelling live human being I have ever met. And that's saying something. He handed me his wallet which was covered in his solid waste. Thank god in heaven for latex gloves. Now, if only they made them for the whole body. We walked into the ER and the nurse says "AGAIN?!?" Oh, so you've met my aromatic patient, have you? And just for the record, there was no sign he'd vomited at all. He told us he did it outside. OK, so you want me to believe that you ran down a flight of stairs to vomit, but couldn't be bothered to step over to the hay loft door and pee outside? Right.

I finally got to bed at 0300. Of course, I was back up at 0600 to work the rest of my regular 24 hour shift and it was pretty busy for us. I'm going to have to make up that sleep tonight. And as a side note, as I opened the medic door on the second call, I realize that the guy I relieved neglected to retrieve the aid bag and oxygen from his last call.

It was a hell of a day at sea, sir.

The Glorious World of Home Ownership

2010-10-18T07:48:00.004-04:00

I don't know if I mentioned this, but our department got a pay cut. That's not to say that when our county executive says that he did not cut salaries he will be lying. Semantics. Is there less money in my paycheck? Absolutely. I pay more toward my retirement and the county pays less. They did not honor our contracted cost of living increase last year and we will get none this year. OK. And they took away our physical fitness allowance. OK again. I still have a great job and my benefits are pretty good. I voted to accept the lack of pay increase because I find it really difficult to stand in a picket line demanding a pay raise when there are people in our county losing their jobs and homes. I'm doing OK.

So now I have to come up with $800 for tree trimming and removal. To be honest, this should have been done years ago and I never should have been allowed to get approved for an FHA loan. Their rules are pretty strict. There was some creative stuff going on and by a wing an a prayer (and a crappy housing market) I bought my house. I love this house with all of my heart. And despite the fact that I purchased it based on my salary which is now lower than last year, I am making it. But now I have to fix the problems that were brought to my attention during inspection.

This house was neglected for years. I have to have four trees removed. Two are pretty much dead and the other two are so close to the house they have left deep dents in my gutters. The ones close to the house have to be over 70 feet tall. The two dead ones maybe 50 feet tall. The enormous 100 year old beech and oak on the property need to be properly trimmed. The beech is just awful. Every time the wind blows there are dead limbs in the yard. You can tell someone just took a chain saw to it a few times. That one will be a dramatic improvement done. The last is a maple in the front yard that just needs a little trim. I'd say that $800 is a freakin' BARGAIN. But the reason I got such a good price is that my neighbor is also getting work done so the tree guy only has to rent the truck and crew once. Three properties with one crew is a good deal for him too.

So today I'm inspired to get out there and rev up the power tools. Time to take the next step in the never-ending battle to get some shape back into the shrubbery on the property. Maybe saying my house was neglected is too mild a term.

Lieutenant?

2010-10-16T07:46:00.002-04:00

So here are some updates.

I've decided to take the Lieutenant exam. I have six years on the job and normally I would jump at the chance to promote, but..... this isn't your average, everyday job. Even after six years I still haven't quite grasped the dynamic. It's also REALLY hard to get any fire experience when all you do all day is ride a medic unit. But lets face it. Do I see this situation changing so that I get the experience? No way. I either jump in the deep end of the pool or I sit around and whine about it. I think my biggest motivator was listening to a guy about 15 years junior to me say that he wanted to promote so that he could stop working on the medic unit. It's exactly those kinds of guys that I don't want to be my supervisor. If you can't take this job seriously and understand that NOT taking it seriously could mean someones life, PLEASE don't do it. Your apathy might mean my life, your life or the public's life. Geez, you idiot. Let's get some perspective here! I love working on the medic unit, so that is not a motivator. I also wouldn't mind working in EMS training, EMS Supervisor (I'd have to take RSI training - yay!), dispatch center, whatever. And I think that our department need to wake the hell up and be responsible. And that leads me to my other topic.

Recently I heard a story. God I hope that it has been embelished, but I can only hope. So here it is. A paramedic, a recent graduate, took a man to the hospital. I have no idea what his complaint was but the nurse complained about the paramedic because the patient's blood sugar was over 500 and the medic reported it as about 120. The paramedic, who had apparently falsified the report, knew that they could get the glucometer and download the blood sugars taken over a period of time. He went to the supply shop and requested a NEW glucometer and threw away the old one, thinking they would be none the wiser. Well, our supervisors are not that dumb. They dumpster-dove and got the old glucometer which pretty much proved he did not take the man's sugar. So his head is on the block. His partner, who refused to say anything, is also up on the block. I have a problem with an EMT taking the blame for a paramedic's laziness when the EMT is driving and has no influence over what's done in the back of that unit. And shame on that paramedic. Stop being such a lazy, lying prick. You didn't do your job, lied about it multiple times, tried to cover it up and now you're going to drag your partner down with you.

You, sir, are no man. I hope you don't have kids that look up to you.

Checking In

2010-10-07T08:33:00.002-04:00

I know I've been MIA lately. I just haven't felt up to posting. Things have been disheartening at work and I find myself just hating it. All the joy of the job has been sucked right the hell out. My only consolation is that I'm expecting a transfer by the end of the year. I have a plan B if that doesn't happen. I'm pretty sure I'll get moved since my Lieutenant and I do NOT get along. That's a long story.... Let's just say every time he brings me in his office for one of his "talks", I end up a crying mess (not at ALL like me) wondering if I made the right career choice or even if I deserve to live. But apparently, I'M the one who "doesn't get it". Okey dokey.

I have every intention of taking the Lieutenant's exam next year. I really don't think I'll get anywhere with it, but I'd like the experience. I've heard horror stories, but I think my hesitation to take the exam and get promoted is outweighed by my shock at the people that have been promoted lately. We're at the bottom of the list and it shows. When a guy gets a 20% on his interview... Well, do I really need to tell you what kind of a supervisor he is? It's time for me to start prepping for a step up. I have no idea what this department expects from it's employees anymore. Especially when I hear my very own supervisor say "We don't do that because it's not required". Oh, ok. I can guarantee that I do not have the reputation for being a lazy medic. Quite the contrary. I have a reputation for being a dragon lady about my unit and being prepared for duty. And I wear that designation proudly.

That's right bitches. Maybe I should change my name to DragonMedic?

Nothing...

2010-09-08T20:27:00.002-04:00

Oh my god I'd LOVE to tell you I'm livin' the exciting life of a fire extinguishin' firefighter...but I'm not even earing my paycheck. Good lord. I haven't done a damn thing in a week. Last shift we got cancelled twice and went out for ice cream once. The shift before that we got skunked. And I was off the week before that. I SHOULD hear about my transfer SOON. Then maybe I'll have something to write about.

*SIGH*

It's a heat wave!

2010-07-07T06:56:00.003-04:00

It seems so odd to post after reading my own post about freezing to death on the interstate waiting for my flat tire to be fixed. It was 105 degrees yesterday and that was NOT a heat index. Today the projected temperature will be "lower" at a balmy 99 degrees. I bet we beat that. It's 06:58 and its 79 degrees already. That's the lowest its been all night. I hate the heat. What happened to Spring? And where the hell is Fall? I'm ready for a cool-down!

Last shift was uneventful personally. 'Course my Lt was off and will be off again tomorrow. I'm not keen on working with him right now. I don't feel like he's a deliberately mean person, but that he's clueless about anything but what's important to him. I anticipate a meeting with the Chief tomorrow regarding my oral reprimand. I've been told by another Chief to grieve it - I'll win. We'll see.

As for calls, I've had some really...unusual ones. A 19 year old GI bleed vomiting blood. Very odd. And for someone so young, getting an IV in him was awful. I did not succeed and he really needed one. Syncopal episode at the picnic. She appeared to be fine - maybe a little dehydrated and that IV was a success. MVC where both occupants of the vehicle were high on PCP and fentanyl. Great combo people! Lucky you didn't kill someone. 62 year old with a roken arm from tripping over a suitcase. 4mg morphine didn't even TOUCH that pain. I felt so bad for her!

Never a dull moment in podunk. At least no one called with a toe infection. Should be cooler tomorrow! Only a high of 92 degrees. Woo hoo!

Punishment

2010-07-02T18:35:00.002-04:00

So my last post talked about a little tiff I had with the oncoming medic about expired equipment and supplies on the unit. I passed on the expirations and then told him that if he had any problems with me that he needed to have the balls to say something right then and there rather than wait until I leave and tell everyone else. Voices were raised, yes. In his passive-aggressive way, he replied "Well I didn't want to start and arguement, but it seems that you do." Nope. No argument at all, just be a man and say what you have to say. At that point the Captain came out with my Lieutentant and proceeded to tell me that we will not be getting any new supplies "end of discussion". Well, thank you for treating me like your three year old child, asshole.

Sooooo anyway. I got a verbal reprimand (which ironically was in writing and I had to sign it). I made sure my union rep was there with me when he handed it down. Let's just say it went pretty bad. First of all, since when are there NOT arguments in firehouses? 2. It wasn't an arguement so much as me finally telling him to grow the hell up. 3. Would we be having this discussion if I were a man?

To make matters worse, my Lieutenant told me he's failed me because he'd been meaning to talk to me for a couple of months now about my "harshness". WTF. Since when do you f-ing people treat me like an errant three year old? I'm a grown woman for gods sake. He then went on to say that I do it to my partner and the rest of the shift. Oh, but you're great in every other aspect. Just your personality sucks. Well I had myself quite a moment. I told him to send me home for the rest of the shift. How the hell do you expect me to go back to working with a group of guys who clearly don't like my personality? I decided not to punk out and stayed. I refused to eat lunch and went out to wash the unit. My partner came out and I just burst into tears. He told me that the Lt is full of shit. Everything that needs to be said between us is said in the front of the medic unit. Later the PO told me that the Lt "misinterprets alot of stuff". So this tells me that HE has an issue with me and projects how he feels on the rest of the crew and spoke for them when he clearly had no right to. I've been working with the other guys for a couple of years and with the Lt for a few months. He doesn't know me well and has a tendency to assume he understands whats going on.

I finished the shift and then I had to face the ULTIMATE humiliation. I had been ORDERED to apologize to the lame pansy whose feelings I apparently hurt when I did turnover that morning. I told him that it had been brought to my attention I'd been harsh with him ("You? Noooooo." he says) and that I was to apologize. I offered my apology to which he said "Apology accepted." It was said in a very patronizing tone. I wanted to punch him in the face. I high-tailed it out of there before I could do something stupid.

Right now I love my job - I just hate the people.

I'm BACK!

2010-06-16T08:53:00.003-04:00

So I just checked and I haven't posted since Little Man's birth in JANUARY. You might be thinking I've fallen off the face of the earth. Ahhh, no. Wishful thinking. I'm here and holding on. So what's been happening, you ask? Let me give you the Reader's Digest version.

SNOW. Lots and lots of it. It sucked. Just when you've cleared three feet from your driveway and sidewalks, a couple of more feet fell. It was compounded with the "No excuses, get your ass to work because you're essential personnel" emails. Yeah, I don't drive a truck, I drive a sedan. One morning it took me 5 1/2 hours to get to work. It was a stressful couple of months there. And I have had a hard time picturing the house with 3' of snow since it's been 95 degrees here some days. But with every shovelful of snow I cleared, I swore I would never complain about mowing my lawn again. It also bears telling that while my crew and I were clearing snow from a 1 mile long driveway for a "rotator cuff pain", a man died clearing snow. Another paramedic had to come from much further away and he didn't make it. Nice going, eh?

BACK PAIN. Yep - I had a bout. You know what really sucked about it? I didn't even get it in a cool "saving lives" kind of way. I just checked off my medic unit and sat down for lunch. Good Partner asked me why I was walking funny and my back was just killing me. Turns out I sprained my back. What kind of silly bullshit is that? I was off the rest of that shift and three more. The best part was the doctor asking me "So when do you want to go back to work?" Ummmmm. September first? How about you tell me when I'll be able to stand upright doc. They didn't even touch me, x-ray or MRI me. Just talked to me and handed over a prescription for muscle relaxers and oxycodone. It's just that easy. No wonder we're a nation of addicts. I was off for two and a half weeks and now I'm back to work. I did contact a lawyer for all of you who are members of the fire department family. It's widely known you'll get NO support from your local department unless you do. Sad, isn't it?

FRUSTRATION. And in that same vein... It's no secret that departments everywhere are being hit with money woes. Ours is no different. But despite the police department getting a RAISE this year, we're going to be making around 2% less. And, as I found out last shift, they have taken other steps. It took me around 11 hours to do my regular Monday morning check off of the unit only to discover a very large amount of expired items. That makes me crazy. I'm the only medic who fills out the Monday morning sheets and apparently the only one who pays attention to expiration dates? The Braselow bag was expired in its ENTIRETY. A fact that took the medic who relieves me in the morning by surprise even though he now does the supply ordering. Hmmm. So after laying into him, the Captain comes in and tells me that "the department has decided to leave items on the unit "slightly" past their expiration date in order to save money". End of discussion. Ummmm, WHAT?! So when one of us gets sued when a patient dies and we were found to be using expired equipment, who has my back? TAHT'S RIGHT ladies and gents, there's nothing in writing so therefore I'm to blame for not checking my equipment. And what's "slightly"? One month? Two? The Braselow bag expired in April. Once again we are reminded that EMS gets NO respect. A notion that was clearly underscored when I watched my Lieutenant throw away the engine BLS bags Monday morning check off sheets because "the Captain doesn't care about that stuff". Well I do. I'm covering my damn ass at every turn now.

Where is the love of my job now? Pretty much in the toilet.

Close call

2010-01-23T07:41:00.002-05:00

We got really lucky. It could have been a really bad day for our department. A REALLY bad day. My first notice came by, as much as I HATE to admit it, Facebook. A friend of mine was dispatching and posted something to the effect of:

"Praying that our firefighters are OK. 2-alarm fire in the XX-XX, floor collapse. Mayday called and firefighters trapped."

The follow-up notes stated that one firefighter was being flown out by helicopter and two more were taken by ground. At that point the world stopped for a couple of reasons. For one, the fire was in my first-due area and would have involved firefighters that I relieve in the morning. As we all know, rumor runs rampant in the fire service, so whatever information we get is suspect. I figured a dispatcher getting the info first hand was pretty reliable. I then got a phone call that the firefighter being flown to the burn unit is the paramedic I relieve at my station and that he was not expected to make it. The source is extremely suspect, so I hung up and called the commander of our honor guard. Since we have a system in place if we have a firefighter gravely injured, he would know. He confirmed the name of the injured, but he said the firefighter had two cracked ribs and smoke inhalation. I waited until I got to work the next morning to get the rest from the mouths of those that were actually there.

As you know if you've read anything I've posted, I really don't like the neighboring volunteer departments. They're reckless, aggressive and have no respect for our department's rules and regulations. Some of them are professional firefighters in other departments, but most of the ones we have trouble with are the young kids. They have a reputation for rushing into a residence, breaking all the windows without regard to the location of other firefighters or even the fire. They don't listen to directions or orders. They take advantage of officers in our county who are unfamiliar with their "tactics" and run wild. Those who are familiar try to stage them and keep them away. Well apparently there were a large compliment of them on this particular fire. If you read their web page, they were practically there alone and did everything. Heroes all. Well apparently they took liberties with the truth. The offgoing Lieutentant told a very different story.

When our firefighters arrived at the residence it was a mess. It's at the end of a long dirt driveway. There is a pond behind the house, but you'd have to turbodraft to get water out of them. With all of the snow and rain we've had the ground was too soft for heavy equipment. The units were getting stuck. From what the Chief told me, the units went in the front door, there was a loud noise and the Chief, who was at the front door, ordered all out. Firefighters from the neighboring department pushed our firefighter back in in their haste to get in the door despite the oder to clear out. The floor collapsed and our firefighter went through the floor. Our units on scene put a ladder into the hole (to the basement) and pulled him out. He went to the hospital with smoke inhalation.

Good job heroes. Hope you sleep well at night.

Little Man's entrance

2010-01-19T15:16:00.002-05:00

I didn't get much sleep yesterday. Well, between 0400 Sunday morning and 2230 Monday night I didn't get much sleep. But I had the honor of witnessing the birth of my god child. And DAMN was it worth the sleepless wait.

Momma Girl went in to be induced at 1900 on Sunday night. She's an unwed mother and someone I "adopted". She's being raised by her grandmother and grandfather but she calls them Mom and Dad. Her mother had her young too. She just turned 18 eleven days ago. She has a good head on her shoulders despite the little indiscretion with the f-tard that left her in the family way. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming him by a long shot. She knew what she was doing - AND KNEW BETTER. But hey, we warned her and what's the point of yelling at her now? The baby is a reality we cannot ignore.

I went to the hospital as soon as I was relieved at work at 0700. MG had gotten the cervadel (a medication placed on the cervix to assist with effacing and get things jump started) at 2000 and was only 2cm by 0630. She was given pitocin (in a drip to get things moving) then and was 90% effaced but only moved to 3cm by 1100. The L&D nurse was a bit abrasive. She was nice enough, but started MG's IV without the nuisance of using gloves (which irked me) and infiltrated the IV. The pitocin had been increased twice in the time the IV had infiltrated, so once SG's IV was fixed the pitocin level made her contractions strong pretty quickly. That nurse refused to give her any meds. The new nurse, a previous midwife from the middle east would have none of that. She got MG an epidural and then did things that made me wince just a bit. Let's just say that any man that sticks by his wife in the delivery room and manages to see her as a sex symbol afterwards is a real trooper!! Good god in heaven. You see, I've delivered two babies in the field and seen one C-section, but I'm there when birth is imminent. I've never been there through the whole labor process. There was stretching and manipulation and.... ugh. Anyway, by 1815 midwife/nurse decided it was time to push. She got into the doctor's place and started giving orders. I got into position and coached. MG was fantastic! Pretty soon I could see the baby's hair, then the wrinkly little head getting squeezed through. Midwife/nurse called for the doc and he came in and she started ordering him around. It was hilarious. Never doubt who is in charge people. We were having that baby before she went home, that's for sure! I never knew I could get so excited to see a little person. He started moving out, they moved his head to the side, then there was meconium. They called for a pediatrician immediately. Then, wham bam, a little boy was born. He cried for about ten seconds as they suctioned him out. And that was the last time he cried. He looked around, he stretched his arms and legs. Neither me or his mom could take our eyes off of him. What a beautiful baby. And I'm not just saying that. I took a few (hundred) pictures. He's amazing. I'm in love with him already.

Little Man
8lbs. 7oz.
21.5"
18:38pm

WELCOME TO THE WORLD BABY CAKES!!!

Don't worry, we got this one too

2010-01-10T11:53:00.003-05:00

So last shift the engine got a flat tire, right? It went to the shop. I got to work yesterday and I happened to notice it was in the bay, but I kind of breezed right by it because I was in the middle of a conversation with someone. Here's how the conversation went a few minutes later around the kitchen table:

DM: So I see the pumper tanker is here. Is it ok?

PO (offgoing): Sorta.

DM: Okaaaay. What does that mean? Is it in service?

PO (og): Well, kind of.

DM: That's like saying you're kind of pregnant. Is it in service or not?

PO (og): We it came back REAL late last night. Like ten or ten thirty.

DM: Um...ok? (Thinking: This is the first line unit and a special unit because there are no fire hydrants in the area. It's been back for about 9 hours and you didn't put it back in service?!?!? It would have taken you, who knows where everything belongs, about a half hour to put it back together. Today we have a guest Lieutenant and a detailed PO who have no idea where anything is kept!)

PO (og): Oh, by the way...it doesn't have any water on it either.

The hits just keep on coming. The straw on this camel's back is that they had two calls for the station for the full 24 hours. The said they washed the truck - they did not. We washed all of the equipment after putting it back in service. We were finally done with everything around 1500. We took a lunch break in there. And the pumper tanker had to go get a few hundred gallons of water of course.

I got a phone call this morning asking how I would feel about moving to a station further north. It's not where I want to go, but still a better place then where I am. I know the Lieutenant pretty well. His medic had what could loosely called a nervous breakdown after her first 24 hours there. She wants to come back to my current station. It would be an even swap. Unfortunately, she would make my current partner MISERABLE. She is....SPECIAL.

But that is a story for another day....

Mom said there'd be days like this

2010-01-07T08:18:00.003-05:00

If this is how the year is starting out, I'm scared.

02:45: Power goes out. I'm assured it will be back on by 04:30. I have to be up for work by 04:00. Great.

03:52: Power back on which means all the lights in the house come on. I have them set on remotes or timers - which means all the timers are now reset. Great. Oh. And the house is now 59 degrees because even though it's oil, it's still electrically run. I get up, turn off the lights and turn on the heat.

04:00: Get up for work. It's snowing. Freaking A. Now 60 degrees in the house.

04:15: Get in the shower. The water hasn't had time to reheat so it's barely lukewarm. Well, that's better than cold!

05:35: Out the door. Bullet dodged. I'm going to get to work on time.

06:00: Flat tire on a MAJOR highway. Are you kidding me?!?! Triple A called - they will be there within 30 minutes due to my proximity to death. I'm not getting out of the car to change a tire. AND I'm on the left side of the highway, and the flat is on the passenger side of the car.

06:06: The transit authority pulls up behind me and tells me to cancel Triple A. They can have me back on the road in a jiffy. I have a full size spare, not a donut!

06:07: Spare is flat.

06:08: TA has air! WOO HOO!!!

06:23: Back on the road. God bless those guys. I'm frozen to the bone, but I wasn't going to let us get hit, so I kept watch while this awesome guy changed my flat. I love them. I get to work about 10 minutes late but it's the first time I've been late in five years and five months.

Otherwise it was an OK day. We had a walk-in chest pain. I've had quite a few women lately who have been having on and off chest pain for the last six months. Most of the time they're in denial, sometimes they don't have insurance. I have to refrain from telling them they can't afford to die and leave their children without mothers either. This last one's daughter died of heart disease at age 27 and her mother died of heart disease at age 45. Hello? She's 47!

And as many of you may know, it's tradition in the fire department to send your long time partner or officer off with a "bang" when they're transferred. Usually it's a pie in the face. They expect it, so it's hard to sneak up on them. We made our Lieutenant sweat it out all day. We never mentioned it, I kept the cool whip in the car (it was freaking cold enough) and stuck in a compartment in the truck to thaw it out. We got him good. I was the photographer, my partner was the hit man.

Sooooo good. It was full up in his ears. And as a parting gift, the fire engine got a flat tire while assisting us on a BS medical call in the middle of nowhere. They waited for a special tow truck until 02:00. You can't just get your generic tow truck for a pumper tanker full of water. They didn't get back to the firehouse until 03:30.

Like I said. Mom said there would be days like this.

Resolution

2009-12-31T08:20:00.003-05:00

It's New year's Eve and time for the annual review of the resolutions. How well did I do? Let's see...

1) Save money.

That depends on how you look at it. I saved a lot of money. And then I spent it on resolution number two...

2) Buy a house.

SUCCESS!!! Finally. Now I need to keep it!

3) When buying new stuff, get "used" whenever possible. Utilize Goodwill!

Um. I forgot about this one. Carry over. I did go to Goodwill more often than I ever have before. I need to find one close to me here.

4) Get healthy, lose a few more pounds.

This will show up every year. Whatever.

5) Spend more time with friends.

Success. And always a carry over!

6) Get overtime as an instructor, acting Lieutenant.

FAIL. Not ready for this yet. Next step is to take the pump operator course so I feel more comfortable as a lieutenant. My greatest fear is that they will make me a paramedic/PO - and that is a terrifying possibility!

7) Make good use of down-time at work.

So difficult.

8) Recycle and reuse whenever possible.

Success. I generate one bag of trash a week!

9) Start making your own whenever possible - including jam and pasta sauce.

Success. Have a pantry started and will expand this year! Encouraging friends to start as well so we can swap foods.

Overall not a bad year.

2010:

1) Be smart about spending. Try to plan for house expenses and put the cash where it will save money in the long run.

2) Yard sales, Craigslist, Goodwill and second hand stores! Use them!

3) Health. Focus on healthy and not weight!

4) Cultivate friendships.

5) Recycle and reuse whenever possible.

6) Start making your own whenever possible - including jam and pasta sauce.

7) Find a spiritual balance.

Maybe the resolutions won't be so unattainable...

Still standing!

2009-12-29T20:07:00.004-05:00

It just occurred to me that I hadn't posted in a month. Sorry about that. The days are blurring together. Owning a house is less work in the winter months. That is, if there isn't a blizzard. I have determined that this city does not a.) plow the streets, b.) salt, or c.) sand. If you do not do any of the things listed and leave two feet of snow in the street, those who are determined to be "essential personnel" and drive sedans have trouble getting to work. It may take, say, THREE AND A HALF HOURS to get from the back of the house to the front. These same personnel may lose the use of their brakes driving downhill and land in the snow bank on the end of the street where someone DID plow. It may take said personnel from 0200 until 0645 to get to work. But I'm not bitter that the esteemed mayor of said city is paid $148,000/yr, steals gift cards from the poor (has been convicted of it), refuses to resign, and even though I pay roughly $345/mo in taxes, the most basic of services are NOT being provided while the budgets of police and fire are being cut. Our murder rate is 235 this year and people are dying in fires. Those seem to be the budgets we NEED to be slashing, eh? Just sayin'.

Anyway... Nothing amazing to report. Christmas Eve, true to form for me anyway, delivered me a 400lb DOA. Very hinky stuff. Her husband told me that she "had problems getting around the last couple of days". That decubitus told me otherwise. She'd died a couple of hours before and he "didn't know what to do" or who to call. And he had cleaned her up. Not sure what the hell that meant. I made everyone stay outside and I confirmed she was truly DOA. Didn't need the freakin' idiot Rookie dropping his DNA all over a potential crime scene.

One of the unique things about working in a very small town is that you have the potential to see the same people more than once. A couple of years ago a young woman had a seizure and drove her car into a house. Well, she didn't quite reach the house. The owners had a healthy hedge of bushes that stopped her from doing any damage. She was lucid and had an extensive seizure history. She'd run out of meds. I believe she and her husband refused AMA and they went to their hospital POV. She was seeing a specialist and preferred not to have to go to the closest hospital and then be transferred. Well, last night I saw her again. She'd had three seizures in twenty-four hours. She recovers quickly and has a very good hold of her condition and which meds do and do not work for her. At 0100, she was not happy to go to the hospital in the cold and was being a pain in the butt though. When she was pregnant with her daughter, her AVM ruptured causing her to have a frontal lobe lobotomy. This left her with seizures that cannot be treated with traditional methods because they can't really determine the cause. She's only 31 years old and has two children. It's heartbreaking. She stopped driving after her incident two years ago.

Just when you think you've got it bad...

What about ME?

2009-11-29T06:48:00.004-05:00

I wish that I'd had the experience of being in the position I have now when I'd been in college as a Psych major. I mean, human beings try so hard to be "normal" that they have no idea how absolutely ridiculous it is to try. This job is a jackpot when it comes to the study of human behavior I can almost picture Freud rubbing his hands together in absolute glee. And I'm not just talking about the patients. And god forbid I leave myself out of this little petrie dish of psychological behavior. I just don't have a whole lot of perspective on my own psyche.

Let's start with our Lieutenant for the day on Thanksgiving. I've worked with "Princess" before. I swear if I see her name on scheduling again, I WILL call in sick. Nothing pisses me off more than a woman who expects you to wait on her hand and foot, unless it's a woman who then stands in the middle of your work area and babbles incessantly and expects you to amuse you while she watches you work. At least twice she threw an empty soda bottle at the trash, missed and left it on the floor. The second time I gave my partner the evil eye and silently communicated "If you pick that up I will kill you." He and I were on the same page. The PO is a bit OCD and just could not let it sit there. At one point I went into the bathroom right after her where I found an empty toilet paper holder. It was all I could do not to hand her a roll of toilet paper and tell her to handle it. She was the boss for the day after all. She is 10 years my junior and boy-crazy. It's all she can talk about. Unless it's working out - which she talks about doing, but based on her physique... I don't know. Well, and napping. So her conversations focus on boys, working out and napping. At about 14:30 I went to put in the log that we had washed the equipment and the log was...empty. It's her responsibility to write that. I wrote in my calls but can't fill in the ones I wasn't on. The following morning when I went into the fridge to get the pancakes I'd saved for breakfast because I was working 48 hours...yeah. She was freaking eating them. Before she went home. Son of a...

My patients for the back-to-back shifts were mostly soft-balls. Nothing really major. For some reason I am running a whole lot of alcoholics. I'd say recovering, but they're not really doing that. Lot's of severe DTs. One lady was so bad that if ever I was in danger of being an alcoholic I won't ever be now. But the patient that stands out in my mind wasn't really much of a patient. By that I mean we didn't take him to the hospital and he felt really bad for calling us. He has a history of racing heart and his doctor thinks it's panic attacks. I think it might be, but in the middle of the night and while you're asleep? Don't know and I'm not a doctor. Anyway, the patient said the one time he had one episode while at a football game he was close to a medic who put him on a monitor and saw trigeminy. It's the only time they ever caught it. He does have mitrovalve prolapse but it's never bothered him. All of this started when he was going through his divorce (which is now final). Now let me describe this guy. About 6' tall, 40 years old and about 4% body fat. This man hasn't put anything in his body that's bad for him in a loooooong time. Let's just say doing a 12-lead on him sure beat doing a 12-lead on a 400 lb man. He works out. A lot. He shaves his chest. He had quite a few tattoos. I'm digging it, but also thinking that a man who works out that much is no fun - he spends way more time in the mirror than you do. So then I notice he has a tattoo on his left wrist that is the same as his first name. After we're done and I'm just talking to him I ask him if he has any kids. "Geez, no. I wish!". Uhhhh. So you had your OWN name tattooed on your wrist?

Can we say narcissism? Sorry baby. Had enough of that for the last 48 hours.

36 hours, two calls, both CRAZY

2009-11-16T19:07:00.003-05:00

I went in 12 hours early Friday night to work some very rare overtime. Who turns down overtime when you could (potentially) sleep the night away? Crazy, right? Until your realize it's Friday the 13th. And a new moon. If you think a full moon is crazy, work in EBF when the moon isn't there to light your way where street lights don't grow.

Anyhow...Just as dinner hits the table (two hours late) the tones go off for an overdose. I didn't take it too seriously. It came out as an insulin overdose, 25 units. The patient was 32 years old, conscious and alert. My partner was an EMT-I and I'm not used to having someone at that level working with me. He jumped into getting an IV started and the paramedic EMS officer and Battalion Chief (also a paramedic) were crowded around making him nervous. He just passed paramedic school. He missed the IV and felt awful about it all night. The patient's husband said the patient shot herself up with the insulin (his stepfather's) because she felt "shaky". She'd had gestational diabetes a few years ago and was self-medicating. She kept insisting she hadn't taken anything. Her sugar was 66. The EMS officer got the line and we got an amp of D50 in her and her sugar went up to 292. Just for giggles, I got some fluid in her (her BP was a tad on the low side too and she was still pretty lethargic even after the sugar) and gave her narcan. Nada. No response. She smelled like alcohol, so I wasn't sure if she'd been drinking - she was still denying taking anything. Her vitals were stable and she was rousable so we drove to the hospital and turned her over to the nurse.

The nurse came out and asked us about our procedures. I recounted the blood sugar, treatment, etc. The nurse told me that they had just taken her blood sugar again and it was 63. Um, WHAT? From 25 units of insulin? WTF, over? There is something very fishy going on here... They gave her another amp of D50 and glucagon and her blood sugar went down to 22. They put her on a D20 drip to try to stabilize her. She signed out AMA today and went home.

I just got a call from my partner from that night. He said that he was just talking to that nurse said the family of the woman we brought in arrived at the hospital and immediately requested the police. Apparently the husband took off after we arrived. He found out earlier in the afternoon that his four year old son is not his - it's his stepfather's. His wife slept with his own stepfather. Ugh. Can you say motive? The police are looking at this as an attempted murder.

Bring on the court date!

Anyone up for a cruise late January 2011?

2009-11-09T07:30:00.003-05:00

It's back to reality. Well, I like to think of it as the 11 and 3/4 months that pays for the one week of complete and outrageous fun. And for someone who generally follows a schedule, that's saying something. I'm the kind of person who goes to bed at 2200 and is up at 0600. I found myself going to bed at 0400. Of course, I'm still recovering... I still feel like I'm walking on a moving ship. My whole world still feel a bit "tilted". Twenty years ago I would have been puking my cookies up, but after years of standing up in the back of a moving vehicle with a bad rookie driver? Piece of cake. I guess I should thank them!!

So last October I signed up for this cruise to the Caribbean. Plopped down $25 to hold my spot. I had to pay something like $125 in June 2009. I then got a notice that the price of the cruise had dropped by like $86. I had to pay the balance by August 2009. Easy peasy. I paid less than $100 a day for a five day cruise. Where can you go and get your room, all you can eat food AND entertainment for THAT price? Now there are a few things you need to know. You will be charged $50 per person gratuity for your room for the cruise. It's worth it - your stewards are awesome and cute as hell. Also, your drinks are not included in the cruise price. That means soda, juice and all alcohol. You can get a soda/juice card for about $6 a day (it was $36.60 for me for the week) all you can drink. A gourmet coffee card is about $13 for 5. Sorry, no alcohol cards, though I think they had one you could buy that got you 20% off drinks. Worth it if you're a lush. Alcoholic beverages are about $5-6 apiece and EVERYTHING you buy aboard has a gratuity automatically added. The upside to this is that the person who serves you has their name printed on the receipt. Bad service? You know exactly who to complain about.

Now this cruise was only the first. We had about 24 firefighters or friends and family of firefighters. This year the family of a recently deceased pump operator and their friends attended. I was unable to attend this man's funeral but I heard so many good things about him. He was beloved. I met both his son and daughter (both young) who are volunteers and they were awesome. His wife is still hurting and she kept to herself this trip. Our aim is recruit firefighters, EMS, any friends of both and even anyone who has links to cancer. We ran into a group of hospice workers from Florida and invited them to join us next time. Many of us die from cancer and hey - we need those hospice workers too! We loved those ladies. One morning we had breakfast with them and one of them joked that the only way she could get a man to talk to her is if he had one hour to live.

I'd like to invite everyone to join us next time. We're shooting for late January 2011. It doesn't matter where you live, what system you work for, if you're career or volunteer or even what country you live in. Chances are we'll be leaving from Florida. This time we did not need a passport, only an original copy of a birth certificate. From what I understand, that is getting ready to change - so prepare to get a passport if you want to go. It takes a while so don't wait to the last minute. That should cost about $120.

If you're interested, shoot me an email. As soon as the president of the cancer foundation lets me know when and where, I'll forward the flyer to you. The more people we get to go, the better!! Let's fill the ship with, well, US!!

The TV show "Trauma", just my opinion

2009-10-26T20:10:00.003-04:00

I finally got to listen to Jamie Davis' podcast on the TV show "Trauma" on my way to work yesterday. I participated in the listen and comment (chat room) portion held by Jamie et al. for the premiere and finally listened to the portion that followed that included a call in from the actress that plays Marisa Benez (Aimee Garcia).

I have to say that the show pretty much lost me early on. I have NO LOVE for the character of Nancy Carnahan (Anastasia Griffith). Her uniform is spray-painted on and she wears her hair for fashion, not professionalism. And then. And THEN. They show her having SEX with her partner in the back of her medic unit. LISTEN UP NBC. It's freakin' hard enough working as a firefighter/paramedic and not getting respected as a professional by your coworkers because they see you as a whore and plaything in their firehouse. Much to my dismay, this was demonstrated in the very chat room I was in. A fellow chatter responded to my comment about why the female medic had to be portrayed like a whore with a cheeky "Is there any other type of female medic?" My heart sank and to say I was highly offended would be like saying Ghandi was a little hungry. I didn't go through 4 1/2 years of college, another two years of college to get my paramedic and then spend nine years in EMS and now five in the fire department to sleep with men in the back of my medic unit. I've worked hard to try to get my male coworkers to see me as an equal. Must I now fight the public's perception of me just as hard? Miss Griffith just slides right into that ugly stereotype of the poor little 'ole female medic who just can't get taken seriously. Geez, lady. Wonder what the HELL you're doing wrong.

DAMMIT.

I was impressed with Miss Garcia's interview on the podcast and she may have sucked me back in. She spoke of the cast's attempts at EMS training and their realization of how hard our job really is. I MAY be willing to give it another shot for her sake. Look. I know this is supposed to be for entertainment purposes. I know there's a certain amount of liberty taken. I was willing to overlook that. NBC, there is a way to introduce the personal lives of those you are trying to represent without making us look...well, awful. It has been done before. Third Watch, ER... Entertaining, right? I remember anxiously waiting for those shows to come on - even threatening bodily harm if anyone bothered me during those show times.

*sigh* Oh, hell.

Chest pain conundrum

2009-10-19T07:13:00.003-04:00

It's still dark outside despite the fact that it's well past the time my body says I'm supposed to be awake. I've spent the better part of the last 24-hours resting and sleeping, so I'm doing better. Good Partner, who I am re-naming Super-Sized Partner or SSP gave me a whopper of a cold. Oh, and I'm not naming him that because he's fat - far from it. He's just about a foot taller and, well, built like a football player.

I worked Saturday and even though we had back-to-back N'or Easters, we were still busy for us. I took a very nice elderly woman with cancer early in the morning. I tried to inventory the EMS closet and kept getting interrupted. I got a frequent flyer on PCP who SWORE he wasn't on drugs. So. You chose to sit outside in the cold, pouring rain until your body temperature dropped 10 degrees after the cops arrested your cousin with PCP two hours ago? By the way, your blood pressure is through the roof. And that huge swollen black eye you have. Any idea where that came from? No? Hmmm. You might want to re-think your position here.

The real puzzler came in the middle of the night. I had a relatively young guy with chest pain. He was only 48 years old and had obscenely high blood pressure. He's supposed to be on medication, but hasn't taken it in a while. He also had a history of irritable bowel, nothing else. I did the usual, oxygen, 12-lead (unconfirmed normal, no obvious ectopy), IV access. He got the 324 ASA with no relief. I gave him 0.4 mg of nitro and about 3 minutes later he said he felt a little dizzy. His appearance did not change, but WOW did his vitals. His BP dropped about 78 points systolic and his pulse dropped by about 40 beats. He never stopped chatting and I hung a bag and let it rip. Ten minutes later He was back up 35 points systolic. Now I have a hard time believing that 0.4 nitro has that much of an effect, and that 200 ml of fluid can turn it around THAT fast. I'm inclined to think something else is going on here. I may never know.

Anyone have any ideas?

Without Murphy, I'd have nuthin'

2009-10-16T17:07:00.003-04:00

It's been a busy few days. I had a pretty busy shift last shift and was looking forward to taking a nice long nap on the couch with Klepto-kitty. It was not to be. But I digress.

I had a couple of cancels, which was...odd, but nice. I don't know if the neighboring jurisdiction has gotten some young go-getters lately, but I'll not complain. The kicker came at 0530. Man on boat with breathing difficulty. The good news? It wasn't a breathing difficulty. The bad news? It was an exacerbated back pain due to a bulging disk. He was on a sail boat on the last dock with no close parking lot. It was a hike on a cold blustery morning. I'd only been asleep for about an hour since our last call and it figures... He was stuck in the front, buck naked and hurting. On a sailboat. Where space is a premium. Yep. Murphy rides AGAIN. Poor guy. I really felt for him. How do you get a guy in that much pain off of a boat without causing him more pain? If you answered "You don't", you win first prize! He chose to get himself off of the boat with our help. He said the vibration of the medic actually felt good on his back.

The last couple of days I've been busy trying to get a truck lined up and some free outdoor furniture picked up. I got two cast iron benches, a fire pit, an outdoor couch, a coffee table and a table with four matching chairs. I won't need for party chairs for a long, long time. I'm sorry my friend is getting divorced, but her soon to be ex-husband's back yard is now empty.

Did I mention he's one of our Chiefs? Awkward...

Still trying to recover

2009-10-07T17:06:00.003-04:00

These old bones just don't recover as fast as they once did. And I'm not old. Really. But I now remember all those days I said I'll "sleep when I'm dead". Yeah. Maybe there isn't an infinite amount of energy to be had even if you do "recharge". Maybe, just like the contents of our ovaries, the glass just isn't mysteriously always refilling itself. Huh. I thought we could "catch up" on sleep and such. I may have been misinformed!

The first weekend of October is family weekend at the National Fallen Firefighter's Memorial. It begins with greeting the families at the airport on Thursday and Friday. We used to just greet them on Friday, but last year we added Thursday too. The wives of some of the Honor Guard members make food (chili, meatballs, pulled beef and desserts) and we set up in a hospitality room at the airport. We greet them at the gate, pick up their luggage and then take them back to the room. Then volunteers pick them up and take them for the hour drive to their hotel. This year was challenging. Many families did not notify the foundation of their arrangements, did not let them know they were coming at all or changed their arrangements. Some arrived with more people than they told them they were bringing or brought children that needed car seats we did not have. One guy who was video production crew and NOT with a family had the nerve to help himself to some chili at 9:30 in the morning and then complain that it was cold. Um, yeah. Because the ladies JUST put it in the crock pot to heat up you moron. It's 9 freaking 30 in the morning! It was a ROUGH weekend for some of us.

We went up to the campus Friday night and those of us with Honor Guard duty split off and spent Saturday practicing for the ceremony on Sunday. Saturday night was dinner and drinks in town along with a little pipes and drums. I was good and in bed by 23:00. Sunday started early with the ceremony, then lunch, assisting with loading luggage into the buses for the drive back to the airports and then the LONG drive back to headquarters. Fuel up the vehicles, return the keys to dispatch and THEN I got to go home. But the BEST part of the whole weekend? I had one of the rookies from the last class with me. He's a good guy, but sometimes I wonder where his head is. Case in point:

Rookie: ...and then I got this really cool lawn ornament at the gift shop and...

DM: Um. Rook...are you SURE that's not a grave marker?

Rookie: ?!?!

DM: Rook, I don't think they sell lawn ornaments over there, but you can use that thing for whatever you want.

Rookie: Aw, hell.

Nuff said.

Goodbye you big jerk

2009-09-19T08:32:00.004-04:00

I got a call this morning that someone in the academy at the same time I was hung himself yesterday. He couldn't have been older than in his early 30s. He knew that our paramedics would be called to the scene. I don't know if he felt better knowing that we would be there to take care of him after his final moments. He made sure no one would find him in time to save him. I'm pretty sure I know why he did it. I'm pretty mad at him. Asshole.

I'm REALLY glad I called in sick today.

It all becomes clear now...

2009-09-17T09:18:00.002-04:00

So if you wait long enough, information comes to you. I'll catch you up since my call volume has been WAY down. I ran one call last shift and it was totally BLS. Poor girl getting married in two weeks took one last ditch effort at taking oral birth control meds even though she has nasty reactions to them. Didn't work this time either. Nothing the hospital can do for her. She just needs to ride it out and let her body get rid of the chemicals just like every other time.

So anyway... The jackass that relieves me in the morning has apparently had quite a bit to say about me. I'd heard a bit here and there, but blew it off. Most notably I'd heard things from his EMS supervisor who regularly tells me he hates me because he's the one who has to hear him bitch. I have NO idea what he's bitching about. The little bitch doesn't have the balls to say anything to me. When I would do the pass on in the morning, he would give me the usual "no big deal" and then bitch to the Captain (his shift station supervisor) and his EMS supervisor. Hence the negative number on my annual evaluation for teamwork. I always restock my medic unit, I wash it every shift and scrub the floor. It's far more than is done for me. Two years ago I was put in charge of stocking the EMS storeroom. Once a month I inventory it and order any supplies we need. I have kept a spreadsheet that I implemented two years ago so that I can track how much we have had on hand and how much we use monthly. In general I can tell you how much of each item we have and where it is. I found out this week that Jackass has been complaining to the Captain regularly that I'm not doing my job. As a matter of fact, last week I mentioned to him that after my Monday morning check-off I needed to restock the Ascherman chest seals and could not find any. I knew we had four of them last month, but now I have none? Jackass promptly went into the closet and came back with them and started waving them in my face, stating that the drawer was "clearly marked". Well, I about lost it. I told him to stop moving my shit around. (Turns out he went in to the stockroom and reorganized and relabeled everything while also misspelling everything too. He put the chest seals in the airway drawer. Oh, and it wasn't labeled.) It was quitting time for me and I told him I was going home. I did this, of course, to prevent from committing homicide. It was 06:57. Friday I arrived at work and mentioned the incident to my Lieutenant and he told me that the Captain had him on the phone right after the incident happened. He told me we were having a meeting Saturday morning at 06:30 to discuss how the Captain wanted the EMS inventory handled. Apparently Jackass went in and started whining immediately to him when I left. Of course I expected that. What surprised us all is that the Captain said "There is no list detailing what has to be on the medic unit." Um, WHAT? How does an EMS system survive without one?!? That's what you get for listening to Jackass. There absolutely is one! As a matter of fact, last year I brought the list out, which was posted several years ago in the departmental orders as something to be used by medics as a Monday morning check off list by EVERY MEDIC IN THE DEPARTMENT. Jackass, who has been working here for 17 years says to me "What's that? Is it new?" WTF? So I brought it to his attention a year ago. And he ignored it. I am the ONLY medic who uses that check off every Monday I work. Tuesday I got a call from the EMS supervisor (who happens to be Jackass' supervisor) to tell me I was right and Jackass is going to be hot water with the Captain. Along with all of the other ALS providers not doing the check off correctly.

Saturday morning arrived and we all went somewhere fairly private and the Captain handed out a memo detailing the procedure which stated that our shift would be handling the inventory. In other words, his medic needs to keep his hands OFF. So far, so good. Jackass pipes up about how much more room we're going to need in the closet because of all of the stuff we're (who is this "WE" you're speaking of?) going to have to order. I disagree, of course, because I already know EXACTLY how much of this stuff we already have because I inventoried it the day before. I also know that in 5 years of career service and 13 years of volunteer service I've used Haldol once and don't need to keep five vials on hand. I also know that 1 1/2 pages of the list the Captain provided (that was provided by another station) is stock that is supposed to be a one to one exchange from the hospital. If we have a fly-out, cardiac arrest or diabetic and do not transport we keep these supplies on hand as an EMERGENCY. It's not meant to be a regular stock. The paramedic on duty should be replacing it immediately as soon as they can for the next emergency. But these lazy jerks are using the supplies as primary stock. The EMS supervisors are awesome and have been five-finger-discounting large amounts of this stuff for me DESPITE the fact that they have been ordered NOT TO by the white wave. There are supervisors who will not because it really isn't their responsibility. So I'm being tasked with getting supplies that are the responsibility of the individual medic.

So when I brought out the Monday morning check off book in the meeting I thought Jackass was going to pee himself. The Captain was not pleased. He was not aware of it because Jackass told him it didn't exist. This is why I find 9 full D-cylinders and 13 bottles of sterile water on the medic unit instead of whats supposed to be there. Jackass made the Captain look bad. If Jackass didn't hate me before, he sure does now. And his EMS supervisor told me he was going to tell him "You got beat up by a girl!!!"

I ask you. How the hell does a guy who has 17 years in not know that generally a professional department will want there to be a standard amount of stock on a medic unit? Um, duh? And you want to tell me how to do MY job? I know what flavor my kool-aid is. How about you keep track of your own?

My little convict

2009-09-09T21:10:00.003-04:00

Meet the newest member of my family. I'll be springing him from kitty jail on Saturday. He definitely cannot keep that name - any suggestions?

Need your feedback here

2009-09-06T15:25:00.004-04:00

Almost a week of antibiotics and I'm finally getting back to what I loving refer to as "normal for me". I'm not bursting into spontaneous lung donation at a constant rate any more. Now it's just a nagging, annoying tickle. I took a little vacation day yesterday and concentrated on holding down the couch and beating some serious a** in Bejeweled on FB yesterday. Such a teenage-waste-of-time thing for me to do, but effective.

Today I spent outside listening to Jamie Davis The iPod Medic's podcasts while I massacred a couple of shrubberies. I discovered that there is a sidewalk next to my house. Whaddya know. I also discovered that someone had tossed a cut bike lock under one of the shrubs many seasons ago. It was rusted under layers of leaves. I fear that if I clear one of the bushes so that the rest of the sidewalk (still under a 2" layer of what has now degraded into dirt) is exposed, I will lose it altogether. It's an azalea and I don't especially like them, but it'd be a shame to lose it. These poor things haven't been taken care of in so long they've overgrown to an annoying level. We'll see what they look like in spring. Right now they all look a bit nekkid and I only trimmed them down just enough to be flush with the sidewalk. Four very large construction trash bags of branches. Oi. Good news is I won't have to work THIS hard again next year.

So last shift I had one pretty good call. At about 23:15 we got a call for a possible stroke. The bad news is that the family said she "started acting funny" about 19:00. Ugh. Right eye staring in a different direction than left, no movement in the right arm and leg and they were holding her up into the chair. I've taken her to the hospital before with a similar problem. She's also a diabetic alcoholic with HTN history. Her current BP was 74/56. Unfortunately, the BLS unit on scene gave me a pressure of 138/90. I couldn't figure out what the hell my problem was not getting the IV until I looked up and saw that the monitor was consistently getting a pressure under 88 systolic. She never really "came out of it". And I don't really think she will this time. Her sugar was 261 so it wasn't a factor in her responsiveness.

I'm working tomorrow, so maybe I'll get something. Oh, by the way! Someone brought to my attention a young man on Twitter who says he's a paid paramedic in Maryland who works 12-hours a day, six days a week and runs 20-50 calls a shift. He's a Lieutenant and soon to be a Captain (as of January 2010) and is only 22 years old. He seems to run only the most exciting calls EVER. (I got this info from reading various sources linked from his blogs and from messages he's written on Twitter.) You can find ParamedicDan on Twitter HERE. Tell me what you think.

Sick of being sick

2009-09-01T17:47:00.004-04:00

I'm STILL sick. WTH. I seem to be getting worse instead of better. I did go to work, but regretted it. I mean, coughing and hacking up a lung while trying to take care of a pregnant woman who was in a vehicle that hit a deer is not good. What's worse is I can't seem to stop once I start. The worst tonight was the "back pain" call in the middle of the night where all occupants of the house were puffing on a cancer stick. My partner didn't get out of bed, I had to go wake him up and the dispatcher INSISTED I tell her where I'm going. I sound like a frog going through puberty, so imagine what that sounds like on a radio. My voice goes in and out and is about 10 octaves lower than normal. Sometimes I even squeak. Yeah, yeah. Funny. I've been trying to not let this slow me down, but it's kicking my butt. I've done yard work for the last two days and it leaves me exhausted. Today I have a massive headache on top of the congestion and general malaise. Really trying not to pass this on to patients, but I know Captain Supportive thinks I'm full of crap. Whatever. My doctor writes a note, and there you go.

On the up side, the weather is GORGEOUS. I was cold this morning and shocked to find that my radiators were on. I have the programmable temperature panel set for them to go on when the temp goes below 55. The panel said it was 68 degrees in the house, so.... Not sure what happened there. I was surprised that they made no noise whatsoever. No hissing, clanging or pinging. I don't even have to bleed them. I turned them off immediately and it took them a couple of hours to be completely cool. The weather was so nice I went out and cleaned behind the built in BBQ in the back yard. Years of not removing leaves or weeding out parasitic vines leaves a mess. I even came across a snake. Little itty bitty garter snake. The soil is nice and there are several large rocks buried back there. Since it's mostly shady, that's where the rock garden is going. Maybe some Irish moss and English bluebells? The other side of the garage is where the toad lillies are going. I may plant soemthing up the walk, but haven't decided about that yet. Spring is going to be beautiful here.

How to piss off your trash men and stuff like that...

2009-08-27T21:54:00.002-04:00

So after three hours of waiting for relief, I went home from work sick yesterday. I can't really tell you what I was feeling. I'd bet it was 50% mental and the other half physical. I woke up Tuesday morning with a scratchy throat and it went down hill about 0100 Wednesday morning. I refuse to call in sick at 0100. Most likely the Chief isn't going to find a replacement until 0600 and I didn't want to screw over the paramedic I was relieving, so I dragged my sorry butt into work. I was feeling REALLY run down, coughing and achy all over. It was very weird. I came home and took a good long nap. I was still feeling under the weather today so I took it easy. Looks like I will not be making the drive to Buffalo at 0200 tomorrow morning.

As for my "mentalness", I can't quite figure me out yet. I'm pretty much tired of having to apologize for being me. Seriously, after five years in this department you'd think people would have gotten used to me by now. I had my annual review and got an "unsatisfactory" in teamwork. My first unsatisfactory EVER. This was attributed to my interaction with the paramedics at my station - the one I relieve and the one that relieves me. Apparently they do not like it when I ask them to pretty-please not F up the medic unit. The one I relieve routinely leaves me blood on the bench seat, trash strategically thrown about the cab and expired drugs even AFTER I ask him directly if he checked as he is supposed to when he works on the 1st of the month. The one who relieves me is, well, he's damned idiot. We all know it and openly acknowledge it. So my Lieutenant told Captain Supportive that from now on I would refrain from telling them if I had any problems and would instead be sending their Lieutenants an email with a cc to the Captain. Yeah. 'Cause THAT will make it all better. Seriously, you panty waist little bitches. GROW. THE. F. UP. Things went so much better and people seemed to like me a lot better when I was a doormat. I am absolutely SICK of this.

The weirdness has continued at home too. Yesterday I had to pull myself out of my sick stupor to answer the door. This little old man is standing on my porch and just blurts out, "Did you ever get that window fixed?" Ummm. Who the hell are you? He never did identify himself, by the way. Said his wife is a realtor that worked with the seller's realtor. O-kay.... And? I think he wanted to offer his services (just like a whole lot of other people looking to get some cash out of me) in case my windows needed fixing. Yeah, well, I'm getting the half they for some reason did not replace with vinyl replaced ASAP. And Whack-A-Doodle...sheesh! I mean, how many drugs are you taking for that depression? And here's a tip. You might want to leave the complete disclosure of all of your mental problems for when I know you a little better. I really don't want to hear about all of it on our third meeting. And if she doesn't keep those damn ankle-biters quiet, I'm going to kidnap them and have their vocal cords removed. And the icing on this little cake? My next door neighbor thinks she might still have keys to my house. Yeah, I had to ask her - she never offered up that little tidbit...

So, you ask, how do you piss off your trash men? I left two big bags of yard waste out by my trash can this morning. There's a two-can max here, but unlimited yard waste. These weaklings left the yard waste and just dumped the trash can. Oh no you don't... I chased the garbage truck down the street and (nicely) asked them if there was a problem. They had the *gah* GALL to tell me that the "bags are too heavy" and they can refuse to lift any bag they deem too heavy for them. I then told them I would gladly put the bags in myself. I walked back to my bags, picked one up and hauled that f-er down the street. Yeah. Nothing like being shown up by a blond chick in a dress, right? We made nice though - and they asked me to pack it lighter for them in the future. One of them asked me if I worked out. I should have told him no. I just sit on the couch eating bon-bons all day.

That'd be the truth actually.

Texting while driving: Whales PSA

2009-08-25T19:03:00.001-04:00

This is absolutely brilliant. Wake up people.

Can you BELIEVE it?

2009-08-24T20:18:00.003-04:00

First of all, let me send out my heartfelt and sincere sorrow for the Brothers and Sisters of Buffalo for the loss of two Brothers today. They lost their lives in a flooded basement this morning.

And if you can believe it, the medics at my station today have now wrecked the borrowed medic unit sent to replace our first-line unit that was totalled on Sunday. It will be in the shop for a couple of weeks to repair the body. Again, word has it that it was their fault.

For crying out loud...

Today I would like to thank....

2009-08-21T20:54:00.003-04:00

...the medics at my station today for wrecking our medic unit - only months old. It appears to be totalled. And it was their fault. Good job!

...the volunteers of our friendly neighboring jurisdiction who refused to take the crew to the hospital in our county. Way to go! You guys are real dicks. Good to see you don't just refuse to transport civilians, but us as well. We'll be sure to remember that.

Been a good day all around, eh?

Housewarming party

2009-08-17T07:51:00.001-04:00

I really had a good weekend. Educaitlin and The Samurai came up from Virginia and spent the weekend with me. I didn't realize until then how very much I miss them. Now I regret that I didn't have them bring Thor the Thunderpup with them. It's nice having an animal around the house every once in a while. I've been thinking of getting a kitty but then they wouldn't be able to bring him when they visit. Not that all of his 195 lb glory would EAT a cat, but he's allergic. I don't know why, but I find that amusing. I wonder if they treat dogs for cat allergies.

I had about 15-20 people here for the party. My college roommate even made it from Richmond and brought another classmate I haven't seen in ten years. My next door neighbors came over too. I knew she especially was dying to see what I'd done to the house. I gave them the tour and got approval. Overall the consensus is that the house is very "me". I got great advice from Educait who is my home-repair inspiration. That woman hung her own gutters!

It turns out I have enough beer and food left over for a whole 'nother party. I will be having another on Halloween (my FAVORITE holiday) so if anyone is in town, let me know. We'll be dressing up (costumes are not optional - you must wear one) and handing out candy. My neighbors assure me we get hundreds of trick-or-treaters. Yesterday there was a major sale at the craft store and I scored some cool decorations. I got some window clings that I will be applying to the guest room windows so they look creepy. I also scored some ravens and a nice skull to melt multi-colored candles over. There will definitely be a horror movie fest going on, starting with Rocky Horror. My friend Army Wife will be making the cake, of course! She made a firefighter cake for the party that was incredible! The boots were black so anyone who ate boot ended up with black lips. We're hoping for a dismembered limb for the occasion.

I'm still recovering and glad I'm not working until tomorrow. Today is just going to be minor clean-up and herb transplanting. One of my guests brought me spearmint, peppermint, catnip and stevia plants!

Balls

2009-08-13T09:19:00.002-04:00

I'd like you to take a good look at this picture. This is a panhandler sitting on the side of the road. His shoes are falling off of his feet because they're so worn out. They don't have laces in them. He's got a cardboard sign sitting on his lap and he looks like he hasn't been clean for weeks. And what's that he's doing you ask? he's talking on a cell phone. Now THAT'S balls.

In a black mood

2009-08-09T13:59:00.003-04:00

I know it sounds weird, but I like it!

Before:

After:

Sauce therapy

2009-08-05T08:01:00.005-04:00

Thanks for all of the comments on my last post guys. Oh, and Mr. Fixit, my EMS supervisor has informed me that I am indeed human and have a heart. Dammit. I thought I'd gotten rid of that when I got the Paramedic certification in the mail. I consider myself pretty cold-hearted because of the nature of my work. I'd be a total mess if I wasn't a little detached and you're right. It's a defense mechanism because we would feel too much.

So in the last 48 hours I have:

1. Made and canned 1 gallon of pasta sauce.
2. Raked and bagged 6 LARGE bags of leaves and weeds.
3. Trimmed MORE azaleas. I hate these things.
4. Painted the unfinished french doors in the dining room. Twice.
5. Planted seeds for 12 different herbs and flowers.
6. Planted oregano and basil plants.
7. Started and restrung the damn weed whacker 10 times. &#$%^) Piece of junk!

I tired myself out pretty well but the mind was restless. I was SORE yesterday. It was good for me and the house. I want to go bag a few hundred more pounds of leaves. I swear to god I'm glad these people don't live here any more. I'd be tempted to dump the bags of leaves in their front yard. We're up to 24 construction weight/size bags of leaves and debris. And I haven't tackled the space behind the azaleas in the front where they were also dumping the grass clippings. I'm going to take it easy today. Yesterday I was outside for three hours and managed to stop sweating, get nauseated and almost pass out. I was so weak I could barely make it inside. Heat stroke anyone?? After about a gallon of water, some A/C and a rest I felt MUCH better. I bought a couple of window boxes and would love to plant some bright flowers in it and hang in from the garage window. Hmmm. Maybe a visit to Big Orange Box store today? I want to hang one from the kitchen window and put the herbs in that.

So much to do... Housewarming party next weekend!

Heartbreak

2009-08-02T23:43:00.003-04:00

I'm kind of afraid to go to sleep. It's almost midnight and I don't relish the idea of putting my head on that pillow and closing my eyes. I'm usually unconscious by now because I'm a very early riser. And I have been up since 0400. But my first call today was a 25 year old woman miscarrying her baby of only 12 weeks. And when I said I witnessed it, I REALLY mean that in every sense of the word. On our way to the hospital her BP dropped to 66/35, her pulse dropped to 50 and she went unresponsive. She appeared to be having a seizure. What really scared me was that I almost sent her BLS but decided to give the hospital a hand and start the IV. Besides, she was bleeding so bad you never know. And I was sure she would feel more comfortable having a woman with her rather than the men on the other unit. She told me she'd never even had a male doctor. Her vitals were absolutely normal when we left.

I can tell you that I was witness to two dead bodies on The Fourth, no problem. I can tell you I've witness to countless ruined lives and again, no sweat. But this one got to me. By the time I got to the hospital I'd gotten calls from Good Partner (who was on the call but on a different unit), a Chief and my Lieutenant. I know they were showing their love, and I so appreciate that. But damn if the final straw was the Chief. I hung the phone up and burst into tears.

I'm just really glad it wasn't in front of any of them. If I feel this way, how must the Mom and Dad feel?

Firehouse Expo

2009-07-24T19:13:00.002-04:00

I've been swamped. Really swamped. I'm lucky if my email gets read. I did make it to the Firehouse Expo yesterday. Epi, I texted you but never heard back. I went to the FOOLS party last night and we had a pretty good time. I scored myself a new FOOLS challenge coin. My last one was stolen shortly after passing my paramedic exams and replaced by a friend. I am forever in his debt! I also got to meet Michael Lombardi of Recue Me. Very nice guy, and A LOT smaller than I expected him to be.

Last shift I had a visiting rookie detailed in from another station. About as useful as tits on a bull, he was. He followed my original rookie around while he did all of the work. It took him an hour and a half to write a report. And he had to be spoon fed EVERYTHING. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the rookie's FTO to make sure everything gets done but anyone can sign a book throughout the training period. In my defense, I asked him what he needed to do and pretty much asked all day "Have you done this before?" My reasoning behind asking him that question was two-fold. First, I didn't want to assume he'd been taught something and then yell at him for doing it wrong. Two, he sure as HELL didn't act like he'd been in a firehouse. Ever. He told me he'd done ALL of it before in a tone that read "you crazy bitch" to me. So I left him to write the report and went to get fuel. On my return he had put in the patient's name and address. That's it. And he told me that his FTO, a Captain I know pretty well, told him "not to worry about" his Rookie Book. Not very likely, but I'm damn sure glad he's not my problem.

The house is coming along. I have confirmed that the previous owners never: 1. Washed a window. 2. Raked a leaf. 3. Cleaned out a drain. 4. Washed a bathtub. and 5. Trimmed a hedge. I have been raking up leaves for three weeks now. They are compacted about a foot deep all around the house. There's a strange fungus growing under one section of it and I found a snake in another. Good thing I had gloves on. The gutters are also full and housing a nasty nest of ants. I took a large green trash bag onto the roof and filled it almost half way right before a downpour.I'm guessing the lack of water coming out of the bottom of the drain spout denotes more clogging. *sigh* It also looks like I need a plumber. The shower leaks and I have a replacement set-up, but alas no blowtorch to switch out the pipes. Bummer.

Back to the grind, yo.

Start your day with a DOA

2009-07-08T22:30:00.006-04:00

Fourth of July. Two DOAs and a rescue. I don't even remember the rest. Oh wait, a guy got hit in the head by his son with a clock. You could say he got "clocked". MWAH HA HA HA.... give me a break people, I'm freakin' tired.

DOA number one, 63 years old and massive health problems. Didn't stop the family from gnashing their teeth and renting their garments. DOA number two, 30 years old and probably overdosed. Both in full rigor. Dead is easy to diagnose - well, unless you're an officer in our department. Whoops....did I actually write that? Hells yeah, I did.

So. The apartment is empty, I finally have internet and cable again (I was getting mighty tire of movies) and I'm overwhelmed by how much I have to do. I trimmed the bushes on the right side of my steps out front and came away with 5 bags of yard trash. And that was just ONE SIDE of the front porch. Damn bush had thorns. I attacked it and the thorns and bugs attacked me. I'm riddled with bug bites, bruises and scratches. Joys of home ownership.

My neighbors are busy-bodies. Apparently the elderly lady living next to me filled in the whole damn neighborhood on me. What little she knows anyway. The guy across the street brought me wine. He asked what I preferred and I said whites, then he brought me a red with a twist off cap. The thought counts anyway. He was just buttering me up. He's a house painter and needs work. The freak-a-leak across the street told me all about her alcoholic roommate and her whack-a-doodle dogs. She's got to be in her 60's and does hair out of her home. She's fishing to do mine. After seeing HERS....UM, NO.

I gotta got to bed before I start making sense again.

Thanks all!

2009-06-30T16:17:00.004-04:00

Thanks to everyone who sent me a congrats today! Here are a couple of pics.

Until yesterday I'd never seen the stained glass in the sunshine!

Now THATS resilience!!

The deed is done

2009-06-30T05:33:00.003-04:00

Holy CRAP! I'm a homeowner. For those who have asked, other than the last-minute phone calls regarding the amount my check was supposed to be for, the closing went as smoothly as it could have gone. I met the sellers, a nice young couple and their gorgeous baby girl. They gave me some insight into the house which was nice. They loved the house, but he was transferred for work and they had to go. They were relieved not to have two mortgages anymore. The next couple of weeks I'll be moving the little stuff until I can get some friends to give me a hand with the big stuff I can't move alone. My car's trunk is deceptively big but I'll be borrowing a truck this week.

Be patient guys, I'll be around. I'm working tomorrow and I'll try to update when I can!

Momma always said alcohol and motorcycles don't mix

2009-06-28T19:38:00.002-04:00

It was a wild time in The Republic. Unfortunately, I was dealt the "sick person" cards while others contended with the 450-500 pound drug overdose (unfortunately the "speed balls" this guy loves so much has had little effect on his physique) and the motorcycle fatality. Me? I was trekking the 35 minute drive to the hospital while my first due area exploded. As is par for the course, we sat around all day waiting. I'd even remarked that one of those motorcycle operators was going to kill himself. One of my classmates texted me on her way to the call letting me know she was "going to F me up" because I wasn't available to take it and she was. Payback is a bitch. I'm always getting stuck with her BS calls.

Story has it that the deceased had been drinking heavily and was refused service. He left in a huff on his donorcycle, driving like an idiot. His girlfriend, also intoxicated, followed him. She honked her bike's horn from behind him, he turned to look at her and drifted into oncoming traffic. Head on collision at a high rate of speed. Apparently the air bag stopped him from killing the driver of the car that hit him. Another medic unit, enroute to the hospital with another patient from our first due came up on the accident right after it happened. The driver (EMT) said on the radio that he was going to roll the patient to start CPR. When I saw him at the hospital (after flipping me off, again because he was in my first due - like this is my fault people!) he said the guy's face was broken in two. Injuries incompatible with life. They slowed the responding units' responses and called it. The police shut down the road. We beat the engine back to the station.

*sigh* Anyway....I close on the house tomorrow. Wish me luck. I still haven't gone to the bank to get the certified check because I have no idea how much it needs to be. The title company still hasn't sent in the last piece of paperwork. They're trying to claim they got the paperwork on the 15th (it was sent to them on the 1st) and they haven't had enough time. Lying jerks. I've been assured that all will be there in time. The seller is flying in from Tennessee to attend. Like I need that. Geez just let me sign the damn paperwork.

Less than 24 hours to go.

Cartoon of the Day

2009-06-26T15:02:00.002-04:00

He's dead Jim...

2009-06-24T13:01:00.003-04:00

I just did something amazing. With one two-minute phone call I got a 2% reduction in the interest rate on my credit card. I can't believe it worked. I'm cutting costs wherever I can these days. I also took the $7/month fee for replacing my cell phone off of my bill. Watch, I'll probably drop the damn thing in the toilet now. But I've had the phone for a year and a half and I'm ready for a new one. I'm even shopping around for a new cell provider so.... If it breaks, I'll just have an excuse.

Yesterday's shift was pretty good. Only a few calls, but one of them was almost identical to my diabetic call of Sunday. Blood sugar of 61 and vomiting. The one big difference is that this guy wasn't fighting me. I got the IV and hit him with an amp of D50. He puked all the way to the hospital. But on the up side, he was the quietest puker EVER. I wanted to give him a trophy. Lots of puking this week. I was also offered more OT, but I turned it down. The pay period ends tonight at midnight and I don't want to get too much in one cycle. It's hell in taxes!

I did forget to tell you a monumentally embarrassing story. It's not embarrassing for me personally, but for my department. Last week a call went out for a man in distress with the notes stating that the caller didn't think there was any hope for the man - after all, his arm was "stuck up in the air". A paramedic who also happens to be a captain in our department AND a paramedic who is a lieutenant and heads our EMS Training division tried to RSI him because his jaw was "clenched". He was in full rigor mortis.

These bitches give us a bad name.

How To Piss Off Your Chief 101

2009-06-22T18:24:00.002-04:00

No, it's not as serious as all that. But dude, when a firefighter (I don't care what his rank is) sits at a kitchen table and tells you all of the things that drives him nuts, what do you think other firefighters will do? That's right my little Grasshoppers, they exploit the god livin' heck out of it. So what drives our Chief nuts?

1. Saying "Come all the way to the end of the road."

He maintains that if you're already at the end, why do you feel the need to say "all the way to the end"? He has a point. I mean, what? Do you go ALMOST to the end and say "Sheesh, I don't see them, maybe I should have gone ALL THE WAY to the end"?

2. Saying the word "route" and pronouncing it "root".

He maintains that a root is at one end of a tree. OK, point taken. Never really thought about it. We were DYING to go on a call with him yesterday so we could say "Hey Chief, come all the way to the end of root ##."

There was more but I forget. I'm sure I'll remember at some point. Hey, it's been a LONG 48 hours of overtime and I have to back to work in the morning.

I only got one call Saturday but it was a DOOZIE. MVC into a ditch full of water. We were on our way back from the grocery store with bacon for BLTs (Mmmmm, bacon). Anyway, we hauled butt - it was just down the road from the station. My partner and the PO are both FOGs and were awesome. I ended up with one walking wounded and two priority one patients. The front seat passenger would not respond to me (though his eyes were open and he was breathing) and the back seat passenger behind the driver (unbelted) had a broken left femur and deep lacerations to her face. I told the BLS guys to get the front passenger out first and let the first ALS unit on scene to take him. Meanwhile the driver, our walking wounded, was making a total nuisance of himself. Despite asking PD several times to get him under control, he wandered around and got in our way. Like being knee deep in muddy water and blood everywhere wasn't enough. I took the femur fracture. Unfortunately the helicopters weren't flying so I had to put on the traction splint and transport her by ground. It sucked for her, poor thing. I was sweating like a hooker in church. She was terrified she was never going to walk again. I didn't tell her how bad her face was. It totally changes my attitude about wearing seatbelts in the back seat!

Sunday was BORING. We only had three calls, one of which was a cancellation, and no transports. The second call (right as dinner was placed on the table, of course) was called in as a fainting. The man said to us:

"Get the hell out of my house. I'm just fucking DRUNK."

Oooooookay. No problem mister. I had a ride-along who was in charge of the calls, so I let him deal with it. It was nice, having someone else do all the work while I'm making time and a half, eh? The other call was a diabetic. Combative with a LOW blood sugar. Started at 62 and he was so combative I gave him glucagon because we couldn't hold him down long enough to start an IV and he was puking. It went to 57 and he calmed down when the glucagon started to work so the student started the IV and gave an amp of D50. He did an awesome job, as did the PO (also a PM) and the officer (a former EMT-I). The guys sugar finally came up to 229 and he puked several more times. He had just gotten out of the hospital that day (triple bypass) and sure as hell didn't want to go back. His body is all out of whack due to surgery on top of the fact that they reduced his diabetes meds by HALF in the hospital. It was rough going, but everybody did a bang-up job and we slept for the rest of the night. Rough.

Well, now I'm off to polish my boots so my Rookies don't look better than I do. Back to work again tomorrow. I have to do something while I'm waiting around for news on my settlement. Supposedly six days to go. The repairs were supposed to be done Saturday and the survey should be done soon. Keep your mitts crossed for me my pretties.

Be safe out there my Brothers and Sisters. Hope to see you next month at the Baltimore Expo!

Draining the bank account

2009-06-18T14:32:00.003-04:00

I just got home from the beach. Four days of playing drums and drinking beer/frozen drinks. It's already halfway into June and I gotta tell you - it's COLD. We had accommodations right on the beach and it was so chilly, I didn't really get to enjoy it much. I was mesmerized by the view. Absolutely gorgeous. And as luck would have it my roommate came with her husband, so she stayed with him and I got the place to myself. This annual trip always wears me OUT. I'm getting too old to be partying it up every night and three in a row is just way too much. I need to sleep for a couple of days - in my own bed. We won best appearing pipe and drum band and third place color guard for the parade. We donated our prize money to our brothers in another county whose pipe major suffered massive head trauma in a base jumping accident. He's opening his eyes now, but still not doing the greatest. They've been trying to raise money for his family.

As for me, my car stopped working right after I got through the toll plaza on my way to the beach. $700 fix - alternator went bad. I had them replace the battery too since it's original to the car. But the great part of this drama was the fact that I had the car towed (and for the first time did not accompany it) and they LOST it. When I called my mechanic on Monday morning he told me the car was nowhere to be found in his lot. An hour later and several terrified phone calls, it was located in the parking lot of another business. The driver read the address wrong. Seriously...do NOT do this to me now!!!

House Update: Laid out $787 for the next year's homeowner's insurance. It's the last step I need to make before closing. I got a message from my realtor that he wasn't going to be at the house Wednesday to make the fixes FHA wants because something came up. Ok...but now he's going over Saturday. Well, crap. I just picked up 24 hours of overtime Saturday. And seriously, I need the cash so I can't give it up. A little while later I picked up another 24 on Sunday. So that'll be a nice check! Unfortunately it'll be buying me a new alternator. I hope he's not mad. But he didn't call and ask if I was available to help, so I'm not sure what he expected or even if he expected me to help him. Argh.

I'm exhausted. Time for a nap.

I was due for a rough one

2009-06-08T19:13:00.002-04:00

I got a whole hour of sleep last night. In bed at midnight, back up right after 1am. We started our day at 06:38 by taking a call for the off-going shift, but it was the calls after midnight that really got us. And because the universe punishes all of us equally, even the engine was out all night on a two-banger in our second due. We were coming back from the hospital when that was dispatched so we weren't on the engine. But everything managed to work out so that we had the really good ones. (I know sarcasm is hard to infuse in writing - it's implied here.)

Actually, the first doozie was about 21:30. I've taken this guy to the hospital about five times. He seems to go through spurts of calling EMS several days a week. Last week he went with chest pain and apparently had a 50% occlusion of an artery. That resulted in a cardiac cath last Tuesday. He's had four MIs and is about 400lbs and a diabetic. Last night he was feeling weak, generally ill and "confused". I got him into the back of the unit and he says: "I'm just now starting to talk right again".

LIGHT BULB.

I asked him to smile and damn if he was drooping on the left. You can fake a grip, you can fake a limp, but you can't fake a droopy smile. We hauled butt crack to the ER - but it still took 30 minutes. Oh, and did I mention that this gentleman is 46 years old? And to make it even better, he lives with an elderly man (his mother's boyfriend) who has Alzheimer's. If we're not going there for one, we're going for the other. Most of the time gramps gets in the back and announces "I need help. I need to go to rehab." And he does need it. Fun for everyone...

So the call that came out around 1am was a seizure. It was in a house about a quarter of a mile off the road, the driveway was unpaved, bumpy as hell and badly overhung with tree branches. The engine couldn't make it to the house. When we got there, a man and woman were in the house (with four dogs wandering around) and the man was saying the woman had a seizure. Hmmm. She claimed to be confused when I asked about what day it is and who the president is, but damn if she didn't rattle off her social security number and DOB without hesitating. And then the man let it slip that she's "trying to get off codeine". And she's on multiple pain meds....and so is he. Huh. She refused AMA. We left. Only to be sent to a chest pain right down the road.

Nothing really interesting about the chest pain. NSR on the monitor. We dropped her off and I noticed the engine had been sent to the two-alarm fire. Dammit. ALMOST made it back to the firehouse when.... Freakin'-A. Back to the little house off the beaten path. This time not for the seizure lady. Now we're going for HIM. Breathing problems. he's been congested for two days, already been to the doctor where he said they gave him a breathing treatment and had to give him "50 times the normal dose to make a difference". Riiiight. Ok. He went BLS to the hospital. We'd just seen him two and a half hours before and there was no breathing problems at all. Although I didn't ask he volunteered that he was "trying to hide it while we were there out of concern for his wife's seizure". Oh. I see. And he did not volunteer his laundry list of pain meds to me. His wife did mention them to the nurse. Because yeah, despite having a seizure a couple of hours before, she drove behind us to the hospital. I felt really good about that. Couldn't wait to get out of work this morning. We didn't get back to the house until after 05:00.

House Update: All paperwork is in, the underwriters have it and we're good to go. I might be able to settle a week early. I told them I'm ready when they are. Let's get this show on the road. I had a tense few days because the mortgage broker called to tell me I needed documentation for my student loans that I didn't think I'd get in time. I resolved that today, called them an was told "Oh, that's OK. We had that resolved already." Oh....someone want to tell me so I don't get a damn ULCER??!?!

Is it over yet?

No pressure...

2009-05-31T08:18:00.002-04:00

What a week.

It looks like I'll be a homeowner in four weeks. After consulting with the chimney guy, I decided to have the fireplace blocked off permanently and just the furnace vent repaired. That brings repairs on the chimney from $4000 to $1700. Because he's a firefighter in our department he gave me a really good deal - and the seller's agent knew it. The seller has agreed to all repairs I asked for except one and apparently that one isn't critical. It never mattered to me, but the inspector was worried. I'm relieved. I thought they were going to throw a royal fit and go ballistic. I did find out that an inspection HAD been done on the property in April. the reason an FHA number was never requested was because the previous buyer flipped out before he could request it. He'd already done the inspection. I'm waiting to hear now if he ever got paid for the inspection and if it can be used for me. If he did get paid, it will be transferred to me for a fee of less than $200. Otherwise it'll have to be redone at a price of $425. The fire department is a wonderful thing. Everyone involved in my end of this deal works for our department. The real estate agent, the chimney inspector and the home inspector. Any repairs will be handled by people in the department if I have anything to say about it. All I have to do is call my agent and he can throw out two or three names for me to call. It blows my mind.

Now on the work end of life...

Last shift I had a call come out as a respiratory distress call in the next area over from us. When I got there the guy was laughing and joking, trying to hit on me. He was 91 years old, so he can pretty much do whatever he wants. He said he always breathes like that (COPD) but he was feeling weak. I was uncomfortable with the effort he was putting into breathing though, so I elected to take him ALS. I hooked him up to the monitor and got a heart rate of......24. ^#@$*$(! The BLS provider looked at me as if to say "What?" I pointed at the monitor and asked "Does that look right to YOU?" He shrugged. Yeah. He isn't a real go-getter anyway. After an IV and a couple of rounds of atropine, he was up to about 70. He never stopped hitting on me the whole ride though.

As for things at the station, we gained yet another rookie. Despite what the Captain says, I have to be an RTO. I'm not really a happy camper since I was essentially accused of "hazing" the other rookie. It's bullshit, I know, but sometimes all it takes is someone to accuse you of it. My Lieutenant and I will switch them off so that they get all of the fire and EMS stuff in their book done. I'm ashamed to say that I just couldn't face my Lieutenant yesterday and called out. I'm trying to figure out how to get past my problem with him. I know he's a good guy and I do like him, I just have to get past getting my feelings hurt.

This week just might not be the best time for that...

Supervisor issues and stuff

2009-05-28T17:41:00.003-04:00

Things have been sucking at work. I'm getting to the point where I just don't want to go anymore. And I think I realize that my boss doesn't really have my back. For the second time he pretty much threw me under the bus. And you know what? It hurts.

I worked Tuesday. We had a visiting pump operator who is junior to me and a real pain in the ass. He walked up to a friend of mine pretty early in his career and asked who in the fire department she was f*cking now. She doesn't work for us, she works for the hospital. I arrived shortly after he did this and she was highly upset and asked me to call a battalion chief so she could make a formal complaint. This guy has a nasty habit of just being generally disrespectful to women. I think he's just a sexist and can't help himself. I usually blow him off - I really don't like him at all. He's young too - about 28 maybe?

Anyway, last shift we were doing an inspection of a warehouse FULL of porn. Awesome. I found it kind of amusing and we were laughing at dinner. This asshat said something to the effect of "yeah, I really like the Black Tail. Heh, heh." So as not to sound completely off, I jokingly told him to knock it off. His remarks bordered on sexist as well as racist. He wouldn't let it drop and said "I'm going to keep saying it, I just LOVE the Black Tail." Right about that time my Rookie told him he was crossing the line and I went off. My Lieutenant pulled me aside later and basically told me I'd overreacted. We called the guy in so I could apologize to him for reacting the way I did. He told me he "was sorry I felt that way". So, no apology from him at all. In front of this asshat, my Lt told me that I'd essentially done a 180 and nobody saw it coming. REALLY? So when I told you to knock it off the first time you thought I was just blowing smoke? Seriously, I shouldn't HAVE to get pissed off to get my point across. Even the Rook was having an issue with his remarks. And, what really got me was, he actually told me that I had no authority over him and therefore had no right to tell him what to do. Wow. No backup from the Lt.

After that whole episode I swallowed my freaking pride and went about my business. Only to be told by the Lt that a Lt that had worked for him one day told our Captain that the way I treated my Rookie bordered on "hazing". W. T. F. This guy doesn't like me. I got the vibe from him when I worked for him that day - as little as I actually SAW him. So he's accusing me of something ILLEGAL? Someone I respect in the department told me he avoids talking to this guy at all costs. That tells me a lot. Asshole. So. I had a bad day. And I've lost loyalty to my boss on top of it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

My home inspection went okay. There are a few things FHA is going to require to be fixed and I'm not sure how the seller is going to react. Much of it isn't big. A couple of leaking sinks they've already made arrangements to fix, inspection and service of the oil tank and furnace, a couple of outlets that need to be fixed (they don't trip) and moving some wiring from the house to the garage up higher than 6'. The biggest thing is the big tree to the right of the house. The inspector advised having a couple of limbs removed. I'm assuming the FHA inspector (who is going to cost me about $300 more than my regular inspector) will ask for the same fixes. The chimney is being cleaned and inspected as I write this. I sign the contract tomorrow afternoon. They finally took the house off of the market. I met the seller's agent and she's a real piece of work. She told me the house had already been inspected by an FHA inspector and had been appraised at "full price". When I asked what that was, she stuttered all over herself. I spoke with my lender today and she said no FHA inspection was EVER requested on that property. So. Lying again. I can't wait to get this over with so I never have to deal with her again.

I'm feeling STRESSED OUT right now. Where the hell are my mudslides?

UPDATE: My chimney failed inspection. That's not so bad - I just wanted to know if the fireplace was useable (and I had a feeling the way it looked it wasn't). Unfortunately the REALLY BAD news is that the furnace also vents out of the chimney. I was quoted $4000 to repair it. The seller wanted to cap repairs at $1000 (but it's listed as $500 in the contract) so I'm expecting them to blow up. After all, a chimney inspection was not required and I elected to have it done. If I wasn't stressed out before, I am now! Especially now since my earnest money check has been cashed. Ugh.

Goin' to be movin!

2009-05-23T18:31:00.004-04:00

I have to thank all of you. I mean, you must have been sending good wishes my way. I am ALMOST a homeowner! This is my almost house. I found out the bid on my house was accepted with one caveat. I have to settle on June 29th. The inspection is going to be next week some time. I'm a jumble of excitement and terror with a dash of "Holy crap I have no furniture"! I was at the hospital when I got the text. I did a leaping happy dance. It was awesomely comical, I'm sure. I needed a pick-me-up for the shift I just had.

Our transports take us through four different firehouse areas. It doesn't have any impact for the ride to the hospital except that it takes roughly thirty minutes for a transport. However, when you're returning to our firehouse, it can get sticky. Yesterday we ended up picking up calls in everyone's area but our own. The most notable was the dislocated knee on a boat. Not only was the patient all the way in the back of the property, she was well over 250lbs and actually on the boat. The patient's aunt met us at the main road and told us, so I called for an engine to assist us. The aunt had me flustered because she insisted on getting in with us (she'd run all the way to the road, about 1/2 mile) and yelled directions from the back. All. The. Way. There. I got out and for the first time ever I didn't put gloves on. The engine finally arrived and there were way too many people. What the? Holy CRAP. The Chief of the department decided to pick yesterday to do a ride along on the engine. And here I am, stuck on the friggin' boat, no gloves, no eye protection and no f-ing PFD. *sigh* Welcome to my life. I got ribbed for the rest of the shift. Even got a phone call from a Lieutenant at another station who asked me when we could schedule my BSI retraining. Yuk, yuk. It remains to be seen if the Chief caught it. I mean, It was a really hectic call. And I got to give 4mg morphine. Didn't even touch her pain. Doc says she might have to have surgery - vascular and ortho.

On our way back from the hospital at 03:45 this morning we picked up another call in the same area. And just when I swore I'd never pick anything up in their area again. The call was for a respiratory emergency. The patient actually told me she was diagnosed with pleurisy. Then she said "It's all around my lung, wrapped around my heart and all the way around my liver." Ah. So you have no freakin' idea what pleurisy is then. You, unfortunately, have met someone who does. I let Rookie take the call so I didn't strangle her myself. She complained loudly (and with whiskey on her breath) all the way to the hospital that her doctor wouldn't give her pain meds. Hmmm. The engine company on scene told me she's a frequent flyer who almost always calls at 04:00. I got your number lady.

So I got no sleep. Again. I just took a nap and I'm still pretty groggy. I'm going to work on my wish list for the housewarming. I just can't believe it. I'm going to own a house. Wow.

Will work for Home Despot gift cards...

Is there any job where Monday is a GOOD day?

2009-05-19T20:44:00.005-04:00

It was a hell of a shift. I got minimal sleep and yet, no nap today. Not for lack of trying. Kind of hard to sleep with the additional stresses of home buying right in the forefront. But more about that later.

I hate Mondays. Really hate them. I do a complete and thorough inventory of the medic unit on Mondays. It takes around four hours IF we get no calls. That includes writing down the expiration date of every item that has an expiration date. Drugs, ET tubes, combi-quik pads, etc. It sucks. It sucks even more when you do it alone. Well I was right in the middle of that check when we got our first call.

We were sent out into EBF Egypt for a frequent flyer - this time it was an injury from a fall. This is the same lady who likes to call 9-1-1 at about 03:30 so that I can come help her change her clothes. She has garbage piled all over the house and is usually wearing an adult diaper that's soaked right through. She does not bathe and usually tries to refuse transport. We've reported her home to social services more than once. She can't take care of herself. Response time was about 12 minutes. Our friendly neighborhood bonehead assh*les from the neighboring county were also dispatched - Oh joy. A few minutes into the transport the engine was also dispatched for "forcible entry". Awesome. When we finally got there, my partner and I circled the house looking for a way in. I found an unlocked sliding door and got to her. She was on the phone with dispatch, so I let them know we were in and didn't need the engine for entry. After a couple of minutes trying to get her off of the kitchen floor, I realized that we were going to have trouble lifting her. She can't lie down on a backboard (she was complaining of back pain) and couldn't help us get her up. I was considering getting the engine back when I remembered we still had a BLS unit coming. I asked the dispatcher if they were still enroute - yes, they were. I figured they were closer than the engine by now and we needed the help. In the meantime, we got Ms. Thang into a stair chair (with MUCH effort) when the other county's unit arrived. Both had on gear from a paid system but are volunteers. The female had on sweats that were dragging on the floor (DISGUSTING) and Crocs! The male was the same 'tard that gave me so much trouble in this post. Great. They help us get her out of the house and start to load her on our stretcher.

DM: Um, this patient is yours.

Chief Nobody: You're a one and one unit, right?

DM: Yes.

Chief Nobody: Then you're capable of taking her.

DM: No, she's a BLS transport and wants to go to hospital X.

Chief Nobody: Then you're capable of taking her.

DM: And what's your name so I can report this?

Chief Nobody: I'm "so and so", Chief at Craptacular Volunteer Fire Company. And what are you going to report?!? That YOU delayed patient care?

I declined to answer. I notified the EMS supervisor that they had refused to transport. By the time I got back to the station (two more calls later), the Battalion Chief had already called. Apparently Chief Nobody called to complain about me (before I could report HIM) and said that the reason they didn't take the patient was because "she didn't need to go" and that she had requested a hospital out of their region. #1, he never actually examined the patient and she ALWAYS says she doesn't want to go. And #2, she never once requested to go anywhere but the hospital in their area. Chief Nobody is a LIAR. And as luck would have it, the engine caught them responding at approximately 20mph. My Lieutenant had the Chief look at the times on our call. Despite actually being CLOSER to the patient's address than we were, their response time was 20 minutes while ours was 12. The engine, dispatched after they were caught them several miles away an driving really slow. And he's going to accuse ME of delaying patient care?? It took us longer to get her off of the floor because of their delayed response. She was so stiff and very "bottom-heavy". It was a miracle my partner and I got her into the chair by using a sheet as a sling and almost breaking our backs. She has to be over 300 lbs now. Chief Nobody also tried to claim I cancelled them when I called the dispatcher on the radio to see if they were still enroute. I ask you again...why bother freaking showing up if you're not going to actually run the call?

Anyway, later in the day we had an attempted suicide. Up to 150 pills and 1/2 a bottle of vodka. Husband found her in a puddle of puke on the kitchen floor. We gave her 1mg of narcan before the doc told us she was going to be "out of it" and not to give her charcoal. Well, duh doc. We were absolutely sure one of the drugs she took was a CNS depressant due to her state. Luckily she did not stop breathing or puke enroute. But she was mighty sleepy. And stinky. Ugh.

Now as for my real estate adventures.... I had a long talk with my mortgage broker on Monday morning. Turns out that the seller's broker DID NOT call them and ask for another deal. They only called to verify my information. Apparently another good faith estimate was requested by MY AGENT. I had no idea one was even generated because it was never sent to me. My broker told me that my agent told her to send it directly to her and that she "would go over it with me". Something she never did, nor did she tell me it had even been requested! THEN her husband told me that the seller's agent requested it. If it wasn't for the fact that I have to have a house under contract in the next week and a half or I lose my financing, I would tell them all to go screw themselves. In the meantime, I told her I need an answer on the house NOW. I cannot afford to wait any longer or I will lose my financing. Guess what? No freakin' phone call again today. I just want a freakin' answer. Are you going to sell me the damn house, OR WHAT?

I think I'll go get a drink. I seem to be ending a whole lot of posts this way, aren't I?

Rookie graduates and other stuff

2009-05-16T07:35:00.005-04:00

Well, my rookie graduated last night. I met his wife (good god that was weird as hell) and his dad, a career firefighter in another town. In all we graduated 114. It was a long ceremony for me. I went and did my honor guard detail though I supposedly have a sprained ankle. It's not sprained. I rolled my foot right off a patient's sidewalk. I'd say strain, but I'll be back to work on Monday. My Lieutenant thinks I did it to get out of hose testing. Riiight. We were on a chest pain call so I continued my transport and called the station as soon as we arrived at the hospital. I was seen in the ER (right along with my chest pain patient), had some x-rays taken, and got out of work about 18 hours early with an ace bandage and an air splint. It was a little painful, but definitely not a career-ending crisis. Not that the doc yelling across the ER "Hey! Do you need any narcotic pain relievers??" wasn't just hilarious. I told her I'd administer my own, thanks.

So I ran into the husband half of my realtor couple last night. I have to tell you that I'm pretty damn pissed off. He told me that the seller's agent is continuing to badger him about my offer, going so far to call MY mortgage company and trying to negotiate a better price for them! He told me that they basically called my mortgage company to see if they could "work out a better arrangement". Apparently they were negotiating with them to see if they would be willing to finance me for $229,000 and 5% (remember I offered $225,000 and 6%). Is this NORMAL? I mean, what the F!??! How DARE you negotiate with my mortgage company to get a better deal for you while incurring a higher interest rate for ME? And by the f-ing way, where they hell to get off not consulting me before you do it?!? I have repeatedly told them NO. this is my best offer, take it or leave it. And oh, by the way, I thought you had another offer. Why are you badgering my agents and calling my mortgage people if that's true? I don't know who the seller's agent is, but I'm ready to wring her neck! I get the feeling that this agent is pushing her luck because she thinks I'll cave. The more she does this, the more I'm resigned to say:

No freaking way.

UPDATE (16:45): Just spoke to friend who used to work in the mortgage industry. She said what I'm encountering is very common. The mortgage people tell the buyer all is well (and they don't confirm what's being agreed on), all the while cutting a deal with the seller's agent. Then at closing they spring everything on you - you end up with a higher interest rate and a bigger loan. You feel like you're stuck and they know they have you between a rock and a hard place. I feel like I'm in a pit of snakes right now.

Realtor Games

2009-05-12T19:22:00.004-04:00

I just got off the phone with my realtor. (Mine are awesome. It's a husband wife team and the husband half is in the fire department so he "gets" us.) The word is that the seller's realtor said "it looks like the seller will accept if we come up to $229,000 from $225,000". Um, No. My realtor said he told them that seeing as how I'm a public servant and offering my max as it was he didn't think I would go for it. Apparently, he was told they "had another offer". So even though it wasn't a formal counter-offer, I feel like they're trying to play one on me. Well, Lady Balls of Steel ain't going for it brother. You got a better offer? Take it. I'm not letting anyone bully me or play on my emotions for a house to get an extra $4,000. My bank already said it was OK and they'd accept it, but no friggin' way. I'm already out on a limb here because the taxes in that property are going to cost me $345 A MONTH. You know what he said? "C'mon, she can't come up with $4,000 more?" If it's such a piddly amount, why are you arguing about it, huh? So you know what Mr. Realtor? My number two choice has a lower price and lower taxes. Your property has been on the market for more that 160 days. The ball is in your court. My realtor told me this is why he loves working with me. I make a decision and go with it. There's no wishy washy, gotta talk to this one or that one, let me think about it crap. I may lose this house because I wouldn't budge, but that would mean it was meant to be. But it would SUCK because the house is just this side of awesome. *sigh*

As for mortgage woes.... Still no call from NACA. That "I'll call you within the hour" has lasted over FIVE DAYS. And it's not like they're a mortgage company you can complain about. There's no doubt in my mind that they do good work. I'm sure that they do. Their first priority is those losing their homes right now, so I'm not even on their radar. I do expect a certain amount of communication. It just feels like I'm spinning my wheels there. And it's not like I didn't do my part. I could understand if I went in there unprepared and with my finances a mess, but I didn't. I wonder what they do with THOSE people.

I need a drink.

Critters

2009-05-11T14:49:00.004-04:00

I'm thinking about changing my name to Country Medic. Or Boonies Medic. Or how about Cowpie Medic? 'Cause this is what's happening in MY life:

Three times. Three times I took down a bird's nest from inside the engine bay. Same friggin' robin. The first one was housing those three pretty blue eggs you see pictured there. Problem is, Mommy leaves her little piles of doody all over the bay and the equipment. She picked the garage door opener over the medic unit for her nest. So after listening to everyone bitch about it, I got the ladder and took it down. That's it boys, leave to to me. So yesterday, the little beyotch is building one over the engine! It was about 50% done when we got it out. Within the hour, she had another one about 25% done before I crawled up on the engine and pulled that one out. I finally yelled at the vollies to shut the damn bay doors so she couldn't get back in. They weren't happy about having their important car washing activities interrupted.

Then this happened:

Medic ##, respond to "insert address here" for a traumatic injury. Woman kicked by horse. Patient will be through the gate, first barn on the left.

Oh joy. One of THOSE. That means we'll be hiking all over the property looking for this one. Hopefully they'll have someone waving us in. We head over - which, being where we are, takes for f-ing EVER. As we pull in, I see two very LARGE dogs. Yes, they're Labradors, but you never know with dogs. Especially country dogs. We nudge in, but these dogs are barking and jumping up next to my door of the medic unit. I had to roll down the window and yell at them three times to back off. They're tails were wagging, so I figured they weren't dangerous. They just wouldn't let up and they kept running in front of the medic's front tire. The unit is so big that the driver can't see then and at one point one of them yelped. I yelled at him to slow down so we didn't run them over. The place was deserted. Well, except for the dogs.

DM: "Uh, Dispatch. Is there anyone with the patient? We have to large dogs on scene."

Dispatch: "No ##, patient is alone."

Great. Well, the dogs look harmless enough. When I got out I was instantly covered in doggie slobber and hair. I notice the dogs have electric fence collars on. I see a gate ahead of us - which is open - and a structure to the left further out in a pasture. And a horse. Untethered. Great, great, GREAT. Patient is alone. So we have to go in there with the horse that kicked the patient in the first place. Oh, and guess who is TERRIFIED of horses? Yep, The Rookie. *sigh* I grab the aid bag and oxygen and start the hike. Rook grabs the radio and follows.

DM: "HELLO?"

Horse Lady: (from barn) "Oh, thank god you're here! I'm in here!"

DM: "Are you OK?"

Horse Lady: "Yeah, I am SO happy to see you! I dragged myself in here from the pasture. It took two hours!"

Apparently the filly is in heat and was a little "anxious" to get at a couple of stallions across the fence. Little whore. So anyway, the patient was stuck unable to walk, in the middle of the pasture. She pulled herself across by grabbing tufts of grass and pulling. There was a phone in the barn and because we now live in a world of speed dial, she couldn't remember anyone's phone number so she had to call 9-1-1. She was so embarrassed. As for her dogs, they're used to the UPS guys letting them into their truck and giving them cookies at the bottom of the driveway. They wanted to get in with us. They're spoiled!

Ahhh. Just another day....

Well peeps, I'm off to go put in an offer for my first house. I've gotten my pre-approval for my mortgage and I'm off and running. As for NACA, I got tired of waiting, and waiting, and waiting for them to get their act together. I also wasn't exactly thrilled with being treated like a bottom feeder with a short attention span. The last straw was when the counselor said to me "Now, Miss, don't you remember when you were sitting right her in my office I told you that you needed to take a one hour home buyer's course?" Um, no. Because we'd already discussed how I took a SIX HOUR home buyer's course and you even made a copy of my certificate. And then she said "Oh, and I see I have a note here to get you approved by June 30th. Don't you remember we have to establish a savings history?" Um, AGAIN no. Because on our FIRST meeting I provided for you a history of my savings for the last YEAR. In other words, I came to you with every possible piece of paper necessary and you told me I was READY TO BUY. Ahhh, then she remembered me and how THOROUGH I was. All we were waiting on was my employment verification and landlord verification. So in three and a half weeks they've done absolutely nothing with my account. She said she'd call me back "within the hour". That was at 10:30 am on Thursday.

Yeah, I'm STILL WAITING.

Don't cry for me Argentina...

2009-04-30T13:22:00.004-04:00

Really guys, don't feel bad for me. My poor Rookie needs to learn. I had no idea how bad everybody feels for the guys that have to train us when we finally hit the field. I mean, you go through all of that training and you get out into the "real world" figuring you know it all, right? Holy crap. What you are, my friend, is a barely trained monkey. Let me tell you what my nickname was when I was barely old enough to drink and well, jail bait. U-Turn Laverne. I couldn't find my own ass with a map and a GPS. Well, GPS wasn't even a gleam in an MIT virgin's eye yet, but you get the drift. The point I'm trying to make here is that I HOPE I'm being easy on the pup. Some FTOs can be real pricks. It sucks being the new guy just as much as it sucks having to train the new guy. You feel useless because you don't know what to do. The only thing that makes that worse for everybody else is if you act like you know it all.

Ah, poor kid. He has so many years of education ahead of him. But he's young, he can put up with the sleepless nights far better than I can. What really mystifies me is that I'll finally get to sit on the couch 'round about 15:00 and he'll be there out like a light. I mean, how is that an old man of 19 years is sleepy at that hour and I'm not? I'll tell you how. You get one hour of sleep the night before, that's how! That also explains why Rookie is in bed long before old lady Detail Medic too.

This one is going to going to be full of good stories.

Rookie Tales - Part 1

2009-04-29T14:47:00.005-04:00

Hi gang. I'm sorry I haven't been posting. It's not that I haven't had anything to write. I find that sometimes I just want to come home and lay like broccoli. No, not copulate like a vegetable. You know, sit on the couch and watch HGTV all day. If I don't know how to stage my house to sell it, I'll never know. The thing is, I still don't own a house. The good news is, I know all the stuff the sellers are doing wrong when they're trying to sell me a house so I know what to point out when I'm trying to low ball them on a price. I'm such a bitch. The bad news is that a week ago my realtor gave birth to a 9lb 9oz baby boy. I don't think she's in any shape to be showing houses right now. I have to wait for her to heal. *sigh* Since her husband went to a closing the other day, I guess they're still doing fine as far as business goes.

So. Work. Yeah. I got a rookie. For complete lack of creativity and because I have no intention of getting attached to the puppy, I'm going to call him Rookie. The boy was BORN in 1989. Which means I FREAKIN' GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL 2 YEARS BEFORE HE WAS BORN. This creature has been married for a year and is 19 years old. My head shaking, I asked him why, for god sakes he did that. He has no idea - or at least he didn't give me a good one. All I heard was "whaa, whaa, whaa". I just finished my third full shift with the boy and let me tell you... He's going to be the DEATH of me.

Example 1: Our first call. He gets in the front of the medic unit and forgets to turn on the headlights. The Lieutenant, in the engine in front of us had to get on the radio and tell him to turn on the headlights because we were running semi-lights and sirens.

Example 2: He pulled a patient out of the back of the medic unit and before I could stop him, pulled to far and the latch didn't catch. The wheels on the stretcher were not down and the stretcher fell straight down on the asphalt. The patient was not hurt but there were witnesses and enough embarrassment to go around. The patient was nuts (technical term) and barely noticed anything happened.

Example 3: Yesterday I asked him to dispose of the full sharps box. I heard the nurse tell him to "dump" the box in the can in the soiled utility. He came back with the empty sharps box. I don't know how the hell he did it, but he actually freakin' emptied the damn sharps box. They're MADE to be UNOPENABLE. He's Hoo-FREAKIN'-dini. With a shocked and horrified look on my face I told him to get into the medic unit and lets go before somebody realized what the hell he just did...

God bless him. I keep telling him that everything will come with time. None of us were perfect our first day. We all forgot to do something or did something wrong because we didn't know. As far as FNGs go, he's not too bad. It's just hard having to keep an eye on a new guy all day. It's also hard having somebody follow you EVERYWHERE - including the bathroom. Before I went home this morning I told him it was his turn to bring lunch and dinner next shift. The poor kid was completely freaked out. The Lieutenant suggested brunch since it will be Saturday and he's never heard of it. Never heard of brunch. Oooookaaaay.

As for calls, well it's been interesting. I miss Good Partner SO MUCH. I don't have that flow going anymore. He used to have my lines set up, the ECG leads on and the computer and run sheet already ready for me before we left for the hospital. The bastard told me not to scare the new guy, then his parting words were "You'll probably get two cardiac arrests for his first shift". Guess what? That's right! First call of the day. I cursed him up one side and down the other. Good thing the Rookie didn't start until that night though. Of course, we've had several priority 1 respiratories (well, one was a DNR-A, so not really a priority 1), and abdominal pain that was probably a kidney stone that I gave 2 mg of morphine to and a kid who ran 7 miles and only ate a bag of chips but couldn't figure out why he was faint. With a blood sugar of 85, who could guess?? Job security boys and girls. There was definitely more to it and I got the story on the way to the hospital. Nobody chooses to go to the ER at 00:30 rather than just eat a sandwich.

And with that boys and girls, I'm going to go take a nap...

Seatbelts save lives - ours too

2009-04-22T17:23:00.002-04:00

So far what I've heard through the grapevine is that five of our own were saved because they were wearing their seatbelts. Responding to a medical call, the driver "lost control" and slammed into a utility pole. A friend sent me this picture. Geez people, slow the hell down. There's really no excuse for this. People are losing their jobs and going to jail for driving recklessly and killing others in the name of "saving lives"? Let's be real. You aren't saving anything by putting your own life, as well as MINE and the lives of my brothers and sisters in jeopardy.

Easter in the country

2009-04-13T19:09:00.004-04:00

I am seriously put out. I mean, it's not just that I'm THE MEDIC and you always want to keep THE MEDIC happy since I'm the only one... It's also that I'm THE WOMAN and well, you know how that is. Especially if you're married you know how that is. So what's got me out of sorts? Well, just like a good husband, good partners are hard to come by. And now that mine is damn near perfect, he's being taken away from me. I'm getting an FNG. See list at right for a translation on that one. Dammit. My boss said he doesn't want to train him so guess who gets to do it. I'm not going to lie to you - I'm a dumbass when it comes to firefighting. That's what my partner was for! You know, to make sure I wasn't forgetting how to do that part of my job. They've spent YEARS training me to be a paramedic and months training me to be a firefighter. Guess what I'm better at? (Obviously, as I look back at this paragraph, it's not sentence structure. Look at all of those sentences ending in prepositions. Dreadful. I'm too damn lazy to think about proper English right now.) On the upside, they're supposed to pay you $400 to precept a Rookie. Since they're cutting our raises, do you think I have a prayer of getting that??

Tomorrow morning is the first of four meetings we'll have about the county going back on our contract. A Chief told me yesterday that the Chiefs have been told that they will be required to take furloughs. Except that they still have to come to work on their furlough days. So what exactly makes that a furlough day? Sounds like a pay cut to me. Call a spade a spade, gentlemen (and I use the term lightly).

Yesterday we had a couple of good calls. Holidays around here are usually not days where people calls 9-1-1 for the heck of it. We had an unconscious 90 year old. DFO at breakfast. The Blue Canary got there first and did a really good job. Her pulse and breathing were off until he got her out of her chair and laid her on the floor. Her incontinence led me to believe that she may have had more than a little "episode". At least we got her to the hospital in one piece - and breathing. The only other call we had was a diabetic in church. Got to treat a diabetic AND get a little fire and brimstone. The preacher was raising the ROOF! The patient was a frequent flyer. Brittle diabetic who tries to low ball his insulin. When you eat a donut with breakfast, you gotta take a little extra there Buddy. Or at least the amount you're supposed to take. Other than that, the only thing to taint the day was the fact that it was Easter Sunday and nobody called to warn us that the station stove was broken. It had been broken since Friday. Thank god there's one in the hall or we would have been eating raw turkey for dinner.

I have my appointment with NACA tomorrow afternoon. I am so ready to go. I found a few more houses online I'd like to check out. One in particular is in a historic neighborhood and might be eligible for refurbishment tax credits. And NACA will defer your mortgage payments up to six months so that you can get a house up to living standards before you move in. The house doesn't look too bad, but may need things like windows and new stucco. I'd like to have the roof checked out too. It's slate (and beautiful...). It's an 1936 English Tudor with a finished basement that has stone floors and a huge fireplace. It also has french doors from the living room and dining room that open out to a flagstone patio. It's a beautiful floor plan. That's just one of a few I found. Now it's just a matter of deciding. So many houses, so little time!!

Good news, bad news

2009-04-11T05:01:00.002-04:00

The good news is I don't have mono. I did have a rather, *ahem*, "tense" conversation on the phone with the doctor's office when I called at two o'clock in the afternoon and was informed that my doctor had left for the day and "never works Friday afternoons". But the receptionist would be happy to take a message and have the doctor call me on Monday since test results cannot be given by anyone but the doctor. Oh. I'm sorry. When was my copy of the doctor's schedule mailed to me? I must have MISPLACED IT. Oh, and incidentally. I'm scheduled to work on Easter Sunday and the doctor freakin' QUARANTINED MY ASS SO YOU BETTER GET HIM ON THE DAMN PHONE AND GET THE RESULTS OF MY BLOOD TEST. And no, I will not wait until Monday. Yes, thank you, I will wait for one of the other doctor's to call me back. Yes, they had BETTER be willing to give me the results. I found it kind of interesting that the damn receptionist was able to read me the results over the phone. Wow. So much for their high and mighty policies.

On a much lower note... Three days before my first meeting with NACA, I find out that the house I've had my eye on for the last month is under contract. Somebody else snagged it. I am so bummed I could almost cry. All I can do now is watch to see if the contract sticks. If it doesn't, I'm all over it. If it does, I have to start all over from square one again. Well, it does take the pressure off.

When it rains....

2009-04-08T18:58:00.002-04:00

Because I'm a good girl, and well, I figure I better use my health benefits while I still have them, I went to the dentist yesterday.

Dr. Molar Jockey: Hey DM? Um, I have some bad news for you...

DM: (With a mouth full of Molar Jockey's fingers) SNFHGF?!?

Dr. Molar Jockey: I don't THINK your right tonsil is supposed to be swollen to the size of a golf ball. And those white patches on the back of your throat don't look normal either.

DM: FUSWV!

I hadn't been feeling particularly bad. I had a slight sore throat, but I was ignoring it because it just wasn't that irritating. I've been tired lately but I was chalking that up to my work schedule and the glory that is being a woman. (Forget it guys, only other women will get that reference.) Anyway, I've had strep before and the white patches usually come with that. I called out sick and went to see my doctor today. He's a sweet old guy with a thick accent.

Doc: Okaaay, DM. Any rash?

DM: No, doc. I don't feel all that bad. Just tired and my throat is a bit sore.

Doc: Any congeeston or cough?

DM: Nope.

Doc: Lets have a see. (Comes at me with a tongue depressor and a look on his face like I'm about to give him some sort of deadly disease just by looking at him. Uh, oh. This can't be good.) Lay down now. I need to check belly.

DM: Oh-kaaay.

Doc: DM, you spleen swell. Maybe you have mono. Bibbity-bobbity (something in Latin in his weird accent). Need go have blood remove.

DM: WHAT THE? But DOC. I haven't KISSED anybody!?!?

I am never going to live this down. My partner is already convinced I have a little somethin' somethin' going on with a man he doesn't know about. My Lieutenant is beginning to wonder because my partner called out sick last shift with strep. I think they just BREATHE on me too much!! I went and had blood drawn. I won't know until Friday if I have mono or not. I may have to take off next shift too. I'm already bored. Ugh.

The Wheels Turn, but SLOWLY

2009-04-06T18:21:00.002-04:00

I finally have my first meeting with NACA next week. I've been carrying my stuff around with me just in case they wanted to do everything over the phone, but it turns out I'll be doing it face to face. I did spend an hour on hold today trying to get someone to give me a password so I can do my online stuff. One hour on hold to have a ten second conversation with a guy who promised me an email I still haven't received. My cell minutes won't be able to take another call like that.

I've had some conversations with a few people in our department regarding our upcoming contract negotiations. It seems our circumstances may be far less complicated than I previously thought. It turns out we have a choice. We can either take a 5% cut in our contracted raise percentage or we can get no raises this year AND get furloughed. Not much of a choice, is it? At this moment we have a recruit class of 117. This class was hired in December of 2008. Maybe we should have taken the expense of the largest recruit class of our history into consideration. If they knew we would not have the funding to honor something promised to current employees, why hire MORE? Our county, like others is facing understaffing issues. We routinely respond to fire calls with a staffing of TWO on an engine. Nothing new. Been going on for YEARS. Really, I'm tired of trying to figure this out. I'm going to go to the meeting and listen to what they have to say and then vote. I figure if I don't vote, I can't bitch. Same as the presidency of the United States. So enough of that. It's making my head hurt.

I had a REALLY good call last shift. After sitting on my fat arse all day... well, we let a recruit drive us around for driver's training... our first call was a cardiac arrest. Person was pulled out of the water. I was totally thinking this was going to be a DOA.

When we finally got to the marina, our friendly neighborhood fucktard volunteers from the neighboring county were there. Of course they were, it was a good call where they were bound to look like heroes, right? I grabbed my monitor and medic bag and headed for the pier. There, on the 3' section of stern on a really nice boat was a 69 year old man. Thank god he was moving. Turns out he went to dinner and drank. Went to his friends' boat and drank. Was headed to his own boat to? Yep, drink. Missed that last final step and landed right in the icky, ice cold water of the Chesapeake Bay. Hit his head pretty good on the side of the boat too. Spent a couple of minutes in the water before a bystander fished him out. While I was waiting for the other crew to get him on a backboard and pass him off to us, his very intoxicated friend was telling me how he saved his friends life. Huh. Looks like your clothes are dry as a bone there. Anyhow, Mr. Man was blue he was so cold. We cut the blue jeans off of him and got the IV started. He wasn't exactly being cooperative. We weren't sure if it was the alcohol, the the head injury or the cold. Pretty hard to tell. One thing I knew for sure. He wasn't in cardiac arrest. Whew. Both he and the wife were pretty potted. She kept telling us he was a "bug doctor". She thought that was highly amusing. Hee. Hee.

Our only other call that night was for a headache. When the guy meets you outside waving his arms and saying "She's right inside, come on in and get her on the stretcher", you know you're in for some fun. Eight cats, one German Shepard and an ex-husband looking for a reason to get his ex-wife who had a stroke 26 years ago and can't control her bladder the hell out of his house. We'd blocked the road since it wasn't even two lanes wide and this kid, who looked about 18 maybe 20, comes to the door while we're inside the patient's house to ask us to move our medic unit. Because....he's tired and he just wants to go home and go to bed. Talk about BALLS. I'm sorry, is this stranger's emergency INCONVENIENCING you?!?

I ask you. What the hell is wrong with people?

Money woes

2009-04-05T19:00:00.005-04:00

Sorry... I didn't post Friday. I was busy fixing some things. And watching it rain. Lately it seems to be gorgeous outside when I'm either working or sleeping to recover from the working.

So just as I finished typing my last post about the "special guest" at the Congressional Fire Services dinner Thursday night, I got an email from the fine gent who puts out The Secret List. Those of us in "the business" are familiar with this gentleman. He sends out information pertinent to the fire service. So while I was sent an email from the coordinator of those of us at the dinner asking us NOT to divulge the identity of the special guest speaker, an email was sent out from the author of The Secret List announcing it as Vice President Joe Biden. Apparently it wasn't a secret. Go figure. Anyway, the dinner was as it usually is. The food was OK, but I had a really hard time listening to the speeches this year. Although I have no doubt that those in Washington do truly have the best of intentions, I don't believe a word of what they say. Mr. Biden, I do think you are a great man and a loyal friend of the American Firefighter. But though you PROMISED to get our staffing where it needs to be, get our funding back and get us the equipment we need, you CAN'T seriously think what you do is really trickling down to us little guys. Next week I will be going to a meeting where my employer will be trying to renig on our contract. Some of my coworkers are falling for their scam. They cry poor and get us to give up 5% of our raises this year and 5% of our top pay because "times are hard" and hey, look around you! Other counties are furloughing their employees! Make no mistake... A furlough is temporary. A loss of 10% pay increase lasts for the rest of your career. We know this because they have already done this to us once before, PROMISING to make it up to us. They cut a contracted 3% pay increase that the employees never recovered. I'd rather take the furlough. And despite the very LARGE profit they've been making on our retirement fund (let's say they've been making 12% - more like 17%, they only have to pay retirees 8% by contract no matter what the market does) they're trying to get us to cut retiree profit almost in HALF (to 4.5%) for the next contract saying that the market is just too low. Of course they have no intent of increasing that percentage when the market increases again. There were no complaints when the market was in THEIR favor all these years, was there? In fact, they tried to get us to cut our percentage so they could make more money. On the upside, a neighboring county's pension plan lost 60 million to Bernie Madoff. Thank god we weren't involved, but I hear we tried to buy in.

So you may be asking why I'm not falling for all of this "crying poor" stuff. Well, let me tell you. It's come to my attention that our department chooses to spend it's money in very creative ways. It's like the guy who stands out on the street panhandling telling you how he can't afford his mortgage and yet he won't give up his booze, cigarettes and cable TV. I'm not going to go into it here, but when you put your priorities in order and just don't have the money, your employees will step up. We live in one of the more lucrative counties - a big taxer. I know times are tight, but we're not in one of the poorer counties.

You know what? My group and I WORKED for our dinner Thursday night. I wonder who paid the couple of grand for the other people who went from my department. I know where we sat (way in the back by the kitchen doors) cost around $250 a plate, but they had much better seats near the $2000 a plate section.

Detail Medic goes to Washington

2009-04-02T06:26:00.002-04:00

Today I'm heading to Washington D.C. for the day. It'll be my third year helping out for the Congressional Fire Services event the culminates in a dinner. Last year the "entertainment" was Michael Israel - the artist who creates a painting of a firefighter carrying a small child by spinning a canvas and making a large mess. He auctioned off the painting for a small fortune. It was ironic - none of us could have afforded to buy the painting of course. Anyway, the guest this year is going to be QUITE special, but I'm not allowed to say who it's going to be. I'll tell you tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some pictures. I'll be skulking with my itty bitty camera!

Pretty good shift

2009-03-26T07:50:00.005-04:00

23:30: SCENE: Outside the local redneck bar. Drunk man is arguing with our resident cops (go figure). We pull up to check out the guy who has been assaulted.

"Victim": Man, this guy just came up and snucked me!

Er, what?!? Jesus, do I need to go take "street" language lessons? This is a REDNECK bar. I don't even understand what the hell that means. Apparently, loosely translated it means "the gentleman walked up to me while I wasn't looking and struck me in the face with his fist which was wrapped in brass knuckles, ma'am". At least this time I didn't insult anyone's manhood and make them cry. I let my partner talk to him.

00:45: SCENE: Very large 22 year old woman lying in her bed in an alleged post-ictal state. She has a history of seizures from a pseudo-tumor. Um, what? Lady, do have ANY idea what that means? I load her up and attack the "there's no way in hell I'm getting an IV on this one" problem. I was right. Ain't happenin'. I gave it the 'ole college try. Both before and after the "seizure activity" in the back of the unit. I was right in the middle of a consult when she had another "seizure". I got an order for up to 10mg diazepam IM in 2.5mg increments. The seizure ceased and I got permission to hold off - we were less than five minutes out. Because of the history and the patient's behavior I wasn't absolutely sure she wasn't drug seeking - she ran out of pain meds today. Seizure activity is different for everybody, but hers was...suspect to say the least. I ended up wasting 10mg of perfectly good valium. Never used it. *sigh* When I was explaining to the nurse about the pseudo-tumor and being really confused about what the hell that was all about she started explaining what "pseudo-tumor" meant. Yeah, thanks for the Latin lesson there genius. I know what it means, I just think the patient really thinks she actually HAS a tumor! What I'm confused about is how something that doesn't exist can cause seizures...

04:41: SCENE: 77 year old woman sitting on the couch fully dressed in what can only be described as church clothes. Her husband is in the kitchen getting himself some fresh fruit for breakfast. Biggest freakin' pear I've ever seen in my life. He sits down in the barca lounger and kicks back. We walk in where the BLS crew is already taking a set of vitals on the patient who has called with a HEADACHE, sudden onset. History of brain tumor - excised.

DM: So what's going on?

Husband (yelling): YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO SPEAK UP, SHE'S HARD OF HEARING.

Wife: WHAT?

DM: WHAT SEEMS TO BE GOING ON?

BLS Guy: BP is 142/76.

Wife: WHAT DID HE SAY?

DM: YOU'RE BLOOD PRESSURE IS FINE. WHAT'S WRONG TONIGHT?

Wife: THERE'S A CLICKING IN MY HEAD.

Husband: YEP. I HEARD IT TO. BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHERE THAT'S BEEN COMING FROM FOR WEEKS. TURNS OUT IT'S COMING FROM HER HEAD.

Good freakin' lord. It's damn near five o'dark thirty in the morning. My partner just leans over and yells "DO YOU WANT TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL?" Apparently this couple calls a couple of times a week. The last two times the complaint was: "I feel greasy." Huh? What? What the H-E-double hockey sticks does THAT mean? This is the first time I've seen them, this is not the first time everyone else has seen them. We sent them BLS.

Sometimes it's a good job.

Tick Tock

2009-03-26T07:50:00.002-04:00

I'm working tomorrow. Gotta tell you I'm not really looking forward to it. When my Lieutenant came in Monday morning he gleefully informed me that we are doing some training. My partner called me later in the day to let me know it would be for THREE HOURS. Apparently the Captain set a two inch pack of paper in their hands and said "have this done by the end of the month". So we're supposed to go out of service to do ladder training for three hours? Yeah. I'll believe THAT when I see it. The dispatchers have a cow when we go out of service for 20 minutes to get oxygen. They have this misconception that Paramedics are far too important to take out of service. We'll see how it pans out, but I'm not exactly excited about three hours of tossing ladders seeing as how it SUCKED in the academy. And last week when I went up the 100' ladder I was sore as hell for two days. I have a theory about that which includes my current medications, dehydration due to beer consumption on St. Patrick's Day, lack of sleep and my advancing age.

I did manage to get the Chief to give away my 24 hours of overtime on Saturday. As painful as it was to give it away, it keeps my pay down and allows me to go to the NACA workshop being offered on that day. Of course, the people who are supposed to be getting back to me about county funds haven't seen my next paycheck yet which is a biggie. It's bound to hurt me a bit. All I can do is stop working overtime for the time being. Since I haven't heard a peep out of them, I'm going on with the NACA option too. Can't hurt to have all the options available to me and I can't wait for these people to get the lead out of their drawers. My house is still on the market but the clock is ticking.

Big FAT Catch 22

2009-03-24T17:44:00.002-04:00

I am in the midst of a big 'ole fat dilemma.

I've been busting my a** working. The last two weeks I've worked 72 hours a week. This week I agreed to work another 24 hours of overtime, which will mean yet another 72 hour work week. All of this is in response to the fact that I was told that the programs I was previously eligible for were out of money and I would need to come up with roughly $9,000 for a down payment for a house. Well, OK there mister. Off I go working myself to death. Today I got a tip from TJ about NACA so I make a few phone calls. I call my contact at the program to find out about NACA and he calls me back - no not to talk about NACA...but to tell me that the aforementioned programs NOW HAVE MONEY!!! Get your fine booty down here and put in your application lady! I downloaded the application, pulled out my 2008 taxes and my latest bank statements and pay stubs. I was in his office within the hour. The grants are first come, first serve you know.

So as I'm sitting in his office, this young man has the NERVE to tell me that if I keep going the way I am, I'll make $87,000 this year. Sure...if I work 72 hours a week EVERY WEEK. I'm here to tell you that ain't going to happen. 1) Overtime isn't going to be that available. 2) I've never worked more than 300 hours of overtime in a year, I'm just pushing it hard to get the down payment. 3) I'll die if I keep up this schedule. I may have overtimed myself right out of the cash. My only saving grace may be him going to bat for me. Last year I made far less than $64k WITH the 300 hours of overtime. If he can get this to go through, I may have to dump the overtime I took for this weekend (that won't be any skin off my nose, I need a break) and not take any for a while. The upside is I'll also be eligible for far more than just the original $5,000 employee matching cash. The down side is that once again, they changed the rules. I can't get money just for being an employee anymore. It turns out that the cutoff for me to get this money is a salary of $64,000. How can you expect me to live in the county I work in when I can't even get a decent house that doesn't require major renovations or bars on the windows for less than $200,000?!? C'MON.

*sigh* I've already decided to try to get out of the overtime. There's a NACA workshop this Saturday (already signed up) so I'm not wasting time in case the other program doesn't go through. I did a little looking around. It appears that there are 4-5 other houses for sale on the same street as the house I'm interested in. One of them was my second choice and the price on that house has already dropped $5,000 since I saw it three weeks ago. The one I want hasn't budged.

*sigh* x2

I'm tired, beat down and ready to climb the tower by golly

2009-03-21T10:55:00.003-04:00

Well, there's not a whole lot to report on the house front. I worked another 48-hour shift this week. That's another chunk of money for "Plan B" since "Plan A" is still not panning out. I've gained a mortgage broker who was recommended by my agent. She supposedly specializes in government programs and CDAs, but so far hasn't found me anything I don't already know about - and incidentally already know won't work. The only thing working in my favor is that she's like a bulldog with a bone. Since this is how she earns a living, she's far more willing to be more of a pain in the ass than I am. The program that I went through made the mistake of telling ME they were out of money, and telling HER they were "running low". I faxed her the letter I got from them telling me that they would not be funded again until July 1st. This, of course, is after my guy told me that he didn't expect them to get funded this year at all. The only thing I can do now is make more money and file for back income taxes. Neither will net me fast cash. I think I'm still down by about $3700 needed for closing. I guess I can hope that the federal government steps up and gets the banks flowing out the 0 down mortgages again... Yeah, I'll hold my breath.

Meanwhile, I'm developing the ick again. Working too many hours with not enough sleep. Getting cranky and snippy with the piss-poor attitudes of the neighboring counties' f-tard EMS people. My Lieutenant gave me a stern talking to the other morning and told me we need to "be better than them". He's right of course. I know he is. I chose to walk away from them rather than argue or get an attitude right back. I know it wasn't the right way to handle it, but damn I'm tired of automatically getting an attitude becuse I wear the patch. You know what they told him? "We've had problems with her in the past." Those M-Fers have been nothing but nasty to me, yet they're going to bad-mouth me to MY Lieutenant? F them.

$ $ $

2009-03-13T14:19:00.002-04:00

They say that buying a house is one of the most stressful things you can do in life. They were lying. Buying a house is fun. It's the F-ING FINANCING that SUCKS A**.

So all of that crap I went through two, yes TWO months ago with the first time home buyers class where they blew sunshine and flowers up my butt? Telling me about all of these wonderful programs that would help me find cash for down payments, cash for closing? Pftbbbbbt! Bankrupt! Gone! The rules have changed Detail Medic and you can't use that money for what you actually NEED it for. What makes it even better is that the rules changed five months ago BEFORE I took the class. So when I was working all of that overtime and could have been saving it, I wasn't. I was paying down my car, which in itself wasn't a bad thing... But what I really need now is the cash. Nobody finances 100% anymore and you can't buy a damn thing without a minimum of 3.5% down. So when my mortgage broker heard the county tell her they were "running low" on funds she stopped listening to them and is hanging her hat (and my mortgage loan) on me getting $5k for my down payment. What she can't seem to "get" is that all of that money has been allocated to other home buyers. The ONLY way I'll see any of it is if they don't need all of their money and they kick some of it back to the program. I won't find out if any is available until these homeowners go to closing themselves and one of them is going next week. There's hope, but I can't count on it. Basically I'm falling back on plan B.

When I was informed last week that my hopes and dreams were bankrupt, I started scraping up what I could. I went to see the tax man and he got me a little chunk of money. After April 15th I'm taking the last two years back to him and having him amend them too. Hopefully he can get me a little more from those. I won't see that money right away, but I'm not willing to just throw it away either. I also picked up another shift of overtime that will go right into the bank. Then I signed up for ten more shifts. It still won't give me 3.5% saved within the next 30 days, but I'll be closer. I need something like eight more shifts of overtime unless I can get another chunk from the amended taxes or the down payment programs to actually work. Anyway, the broker is confident after she ran my numbers that the house is within my range if the price was lowered about 7,900. I can do that, right?

AAAUUUUGGHH.

I think I found "The One"

2009-03-06T19:44:00.004-05:00

I found it. I found the house I want. I know, I know. I had no idea it would take so little time. But seeing as how all those knuckle heads out there have made it so hard for me to actually get a loan without having a buttload of money, that's where everything is getting sticky. My credit is fine. The loan amount isn't out of my reach. The house has been on the market for 280 days and I have a good chance of actually getting it. But all of those programs out there for first time home buyers to help with down payments? Yeah.... They're either defunct, bankrupt or I make too much money. The programs for firefighters used to require no money down and have great rates. Now they require more than FHA loans! 5% as compared to FHA's 3.5%. My only hope now is either the Maryland Mortgage Program (god please let them not be out of money) or that my miracle worker of a CPA can get me a chunk of money back on my taxes to supplement my meager savings. If he can pull some cash out of that, I'm going to amend my taxes for all of the tax years I've been a firefighter thus far.

So. More about the house. It's advertised as four bedrooms, one full bath and two half baths. Yeah. Creative real estate agent. There's a toilet in the basement - it does NOT qualify as a half bath. The other half bath is in the garage. Hmmm. There's a room in the attic that I think they're counting as a bedroom but...no. It's accessed through a very small room on the second floor. I love the space, but I'd use it as an office with maybe the attic space as a library. I can stand up in the room but I'm only 5'4". A taller person would stoop. I'm not sure if it has lighting up there and I can't tell by the pictures. I'll be visiting at night soon.

The house has hardwood floors with inlays. The floors on the first floor need to be refinished but are in good shape. All woodwork is original and has not been painted. Electric has been updated. Kitchen is...workable. They're proud of it, but it has a very weird layout. At least the appliances are new (2006) and the floors are slate-like tile. There is a covered porch in front and a screened porch in back. There's a kind of mud room between the kitchen and screened porch which I kind of like. There's a deck, trampoline and above ground pool (that probably needs to go). There's a two car garage and that's where the fun really starts. The garage has a second floor that has a pool table, 60" TV, bar (needs a new top), 7' cooler, pellet stove, 1/2 bath, and the piece de resistance? A Buck Rogers pin ball machine. Really. And it all comes with the house.

I know...party at my house!!! Maybe, if you guys pray for me REALLY, REALLY hard and I get the place, the party WILL be at my house next year for the EMS symposium. Are you in Epijunky??

Life's little lessons

2009-02-26T19:20:00.003-05:00

Tonight the lessons that life has taught me are far, far too awful to write here. I've decided to limit my post here to the the trite little things I learned while house hunting today.

1. Realtors' listings are just big lies. I already knew this one but WOW. These are even worse than the listings on Match. com for crying out loud!! "Charming and cozy" means roughly the same thing in realtor-speak as "Shy with a great personality" means in man-speak. Yeah. Believe it.

2. Some people are freaking color blind. I've never in my life seen rooms painted the colors I saw today. Seriously, was there a sale on fuchsia and aubergine paint at the Home Despot at some point?

3. I will never again second guess my ability to DIY again. Seriously, a monkey with a hammer could do better home improvement projects on some of the places I saw today. Egads. Put the hammer down and back away from the spackle people.

4. No matter how nice your house looks, your neighbors can KILL your chance at a sale. That includes their crappy yards and their shifty looking hoodlum kids. You might not be able to help the way their kids act, but a fence might go a LONG way in hiding that decaying deck and algae-filled pool I can only assume will be breeding mosquitoes in a few short months.

5. People are not trying to sell their houses right now. Seriously, they're not. There's no other explanation for having the stove and washing machine side by side in the kitchen. There just isn't. And lets talk about the THREE different types of paneling - same house. And the horse shoes all over the place. And the Colonial style brass eagles screwed to everything - what the hell was that all about? That place scarred me for life....

I'll never be the same. I wish I'd taken pictures now because I'm sure I could never do it justice and you'd never believe it...

One more reason to love dear 'ole mom

2009-02-21T12:48:00.003-05:00

My phone rings and I look at the display. It says "ICE", which stands for "In Case of Emergency". I programmed my brother's numbers into my phone in case something happened to me. You know, like I get into a car accident and don't have on clean underwear and the cops need to call the next of kin. Since my brother is my official beneficiary, he qualifies as my emergency contact. However, the first time he called me after I reprogrammed the phone, I panicked. I forgot about the whole "ICE" thing. Anyway, I digress.

DM: Hurumphg. (This was supposed to sound like Hello.)

Bro: Oh, geez. Did I wake you?

DM: At 14:30? No way! I'm just really sick. You know, in that phase where I sound like I'm going through puberty again.

Bro: Well, I never know with your job!

DM: You doth have a point there, oh wise one. What's up?

Bro: Well, I just wanted to let you know since I know no one else will... Dad took a spill down some stairs. He's OK, but he'll need surgery on both knees.

DM: *sigh* OK. What happened.

My Dad was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis last June. One of the effects of the disease is that depth perception suffers. He may have fallen because of this. He apparently tore ligaments in both knees and needs surgery. My sister-in-law (SIL) and I, the only two people in the family with ANY medical training (and she has earned the title DOCTOR, mind you - she is a Cardiac Physical Therapist and a college professor) are both persona non grata in my mother's household. My SIL has lots of hospital contacts in the area and begged that Dad go to the area physical therapy hospital to recuperate post-surgery. Mom knows better. She says he should go to the local nursing home. Did I not say she was a bucket up crazy? We ALL disagree with her, but nobody wants to get in the middle of that hornets nest.

I just want to f-ing scream right now.

Take my lung, please

2009-02-20T05:52:00.003-05:00

I stopped sofa-surfing long enough to drag my ass to the doctor's office yesterday. I needed a doctor's note so I didn't get penalized for taking the day off. After all, I needed to justify luxuriating on the couch hacking up a lung, right? The sarcastic "Have a good night" I got from the Lieutenant I called in sick to the night before told me so. So here I was, in the doctor's office.

Doc: "So why you here to see me, DM?"

DM: "Well, Doc. I need a note. I called in sick today. I started out with a sore throat, sinus pain and general acheyness yesterday but started the cough this morning. It's productive now with thick mucus. I had a hard time sleeping, I couldn't get comfortable." (Doc and I have a just-spit-it-out-and-give-me-the-gory-details kind of relationship.)

Doc: "You not allergic to codeine, are you?"

DM: "Huh? What? You're not going to give me CODEINE are you?"

Doc: "In cough medicine. Just to help you sleep. And antibiotic. They give it away free at Giant." I walked out of there with a diagnosis of bronchitis and a sheaf of prescriptions. Oh. And a doctor's note to keep the brass away.

Sweet Jesus. What is the world coming to? I mean, I know I was feeling pretty crappy. It was all of the discomfort of the flu without the vomiting, but geez. Why are doctors so ready to just dispense antibiotics and narcotics? I told him "Thanks, but no thanks." (In my head, that was said in Sarah Palinese!) If I need to sleep, I'll knock myself out with benadryl or a nice dose of tequila, thanks! I did fill the scrip for antibiotics just in case this crap doesn't go away. I felt better last night only to be awakened at 03:30 this morning to yet again hack up aforementioned lung. Still awake. Still trying. Neighbors must be thrilled. That explains the early post. By the way, the news sucks. They've already repeated themselves three times. Slow news day. President Obama blah, blah, blah.

Speaking of the recession... We got the contingency plan IF the county exec requires furloughs. It's in legalese so it's hard to understand. It's also rife with typos which TOTALLY pisses me off. These people need to utilize the spellcheck button for crissake. (Don't call me on my creative license - I'm a blogger and use made-up words. A contingency plan shouldn't have any made-up words. Am I right?) Anyway, emotions are high despite the fact that the document clearly states that the plan will ONLY be put into effect IF the exec requires furloughs, and he hasn't yet. I'm seeing a dangerous trend here with this politician. Our current contract expires as of July 2010. If he's crying cash poor now, it gives him precedent. We're waiting to see how the police contract negotiations fare.

Gotta love The Blue Canaries. But seriously...I do love you guys. Even though I give you grief.

Recovering from more OT

2009-02-16T15:22:00.003-05:00

I'm recovering from a double at the firehouse and watching the Dead Like Me marathon. It was a quiet double as far as calls go. I didn't have any transports and I didn't even do any ALS skills until 04:00 this morning when I was ripped from my bed and hastily tried to put my pants on. It took two tries. I kept trying to put both legs in the same hole. And even then I STILL made it out to the unit before my partner did. I attribute that to the fact that he got to go to the bathroom and I didn't. It was a LONG transport for me. Good two hours before I got to shut my screaming bladder up. Anyway, it was a chest pain. I'm not sure what this guy had going on. I mean, I saw normal sinus with an occasional PVC but he was complaining of 10/10 non-radiating chest pain. It only took one minute to get to his house (he lives practically right next door to us) so I never got to read the call notes. I got a minute right before hitting the doors to the ER, I noticed he'd taken FOUR nitroglycerin before we got to his house. FOUR. And you know why it never occurred to me that he'd taken any? Because even though I'd given him one of my own, his blood pressure was 224/118. No kidding. The chest pain went away, but his blood pressure stayed right where it was. And I took it four times. Ouch.

Saturday was a bit rough. I got there about 13:00 to work with the shift that regularly works with mine. They're good guys but, DAMN they snore. All three of them. I knew I was going to have to sleep on the couch. And true to form, the young volunteers were at the firehouse screwing around until 03:45. I didn't get to sleep until almost 04:00. Which means I got about two hours sleep before my regular shift got in to start the new day. They got to go home and go to bed, I had to go to ice rescue training bright and early in the morning. Into the dry suit and into the bay you go! They are NOT endearing themselves to me. There is no curfew and I can't say a word. Assholes.

I caught up with the Chief and asked him what had become of our problem with the neighboring county's fire and EMS. Apparently chief Dickhead who yelled at me had, quite literally, been caught with his pants down. On the internet there is a picture of him with his wang hanging out. Drunk, and acting like an asshat, a friend of his posted this charming pic to his myspace page. Seems like he's in a spec of trouble. Maybe it's not "us people" that's the problem, eh? He's got a serious case of "Why-does-everything-happen-to-me?" right now.

Anyhoo...

I did go see "Confessions of a Shopaholic". There was a group of about seven of us. We went because I knew a friend of mine loved the books and wanted to see it. I'm more of a "The Departed" kind of girl. It was NOTHING like the book. The only similarity was the names of the characters. It was cute, but meh. (I did come home and download the soundtrack so I could have "Bad Girl" by the Pussycat Dolls. Theres a part in the movie where the bad chick walks in with these shoes.... Yeah, you just have to SEE them to know what I mean. Only a girl would "get" it. That's the song that was playing.) We went out for more sangria afterwards. That was way more fun. I got the girls Valentine's Day t-shirts and they got me chocolate - they know the way to my heart. Who needs boys anyway?

Three tequila shot shift

2009-02-09T09:38:00.004-05:00

I had a big glass of sangria at dinner last night it was well deserved. Saturday's shift started at 0700. At 07:16 there were two back to back cardiac arrests and a GI bleed who was also throwing up blood. I'll give you three guesses which call I ended up on, and the first two guesses don't count. The two cardiac arrests ended up being DRTASTW (refer to the glossary to the right for that translation), but the GI bleed ended up having a BP of 87/42, poor thing. I gave her a first class, albeit LOUD transport to the ER and only got her up to 92/58 after a bolus. But before all of you ALS providers feel sorry for me not getting my very own cardiac arrest, hold on. Mine came later. But before that fun, we had another run-in with our friends in the next county...

It is our county's procedure to dispatch a medic along with a BLS unit if the call sounds like it will be BLS. Our medic was dispatched along with a mutual aid BLS unit to an abdominal pain. We got there first. We took an initial set of vitals and a history. Our patient had been having abdominal pain for some time (for about 30 days) and had a long history. She was definitely a BLS patient. The other unit arrived on scene and I stepped outside to give the crew a turnover while the patient put on shoes and a sweater. As I approached the ambulance, the crew stepped into the back of the unit and started to fold their turnout gear and one of them demanded to know how long we were on scene. I replied that we had been there for about five minutes. He then wanted to know why we had not transported the patient. I replied that the patient had requested to go to their hospital and that she was a BLS patient. The same crewmember then proceeded to loudly tell me that he was "Sick and tired of having to come all the way up here because you people don't feel like taking a BLS patient." I asked him if he was refusing the patient and he replied that he "wasn't saying that". I chose to take the patient myself rather than have further confrontation with this crew. I told him to forget it that we would be taking the patient ourselves. The crewmember then yelled after me to be sure to tell everyone that it was "Chief Dickhead". I went back into the residence and noticed the occupant had been standing at the door and had witnessed the event. The resident asked why the other crew had been acting that way but I declined comment and completed the call. I called my EMS Officer and told him about it and told the Lieutenant for the day since my Lt was off.

A few hours later, right around dinner time, I got a call. From a Division Chief. Uh-oh. I looked at the phone like it was going to bite me. Crap. I held my breath, thinking the crew of the mutual aid ambulance had called. Nope. Apparently the resident of the house who had called 9-1-1, no knowing who to call, had called dispatch back to complain about the other crew. The Division Chief called me to find out what the heck had happened. The resident had nothing but wonderful things to say about my partner and I. WHEW! So yet again, e-mail had to be written and sent to a million people. I am not endearing myself to the neighboring jurisdiction. Can't we all just get along? What the hell? This guy really needs to get a grip. After all, I did not dispatch him or call for him. And if he didn't want to come he should not have staffed the damn ambulance.

Later, I was sitting at the computer and happened to glance up.

"Third arrest of the day!! LET'S MOVE IT PEOPLE!"

21:15. I didn't recognize the address. My partner was trying to describe it to me, but as soon as we started getting close, a glimmer of recognition began. It sparked into a full-blown fire as we climbed the hill. This one was hard to forget. I'd been there before. We had WAY more help than we needed. There was already an ambulance crew there from a mutual aid jurisdiction as well as "Command One". Without getting into too much detail, some of the volunteers from our station who have become disillusioned with our rules have moved to the neighboring county. The cocky little puke that can't get hired with us is now a Sergeant with them and was on scene. He was nowhere near the patient, of course. When I got in there, CPR was not in progress. The AED pads were on the patient but, though it had taken almost 15 minutes for us to get to the residence (our first due is HUGE and they are much closer to this residence than we are), the patient was still on her bed - they were in the process of moving her. A police officer had gotten there first and placed the AED on her. That's as far as they'd gotten. I got the monitor on - nothing. The crew started CPR as my crew started tossing me IV stuff. I got it (not without a first miss) and my EMS Lieutenant started tossing me drugs. The PO, an awesome Paramedic was getting the tube and I looked up to see my partner kicking the young girl trying to do CPR out of the room. Gently. His first push cracked ribs, which means she was not doing CPR at all. We got out to the medic, hooked her up to the thumper and high-tailed it out to the closest facility with the promise that the EMS Lieutenant would call the ER to tell them we were coming. He. Did. Not. Nothing like walking into an ER who already HATES you with a full code. SURPRISE!!! They threw massive attitude as usual, but at least this time they apologized later. I managed to get drugs out of them, but no replacement blades. *sigh* I finally got finished with all of the paperwork at 23:30.

No sleep though - back out for an MVC. Got cancelled. Couldn't sleep. Tried to go to bed about 0230. But then we ended up going back out for a little old lady frequent flyer. She can't pee. Right. We finally got to bed somewhere around 0430. I just couldn't in good conscience leave the oncoming medic with no blades or oxygen, so my partner and I replaced all of that while we were at the hospital anyway. Despite the fact that we were brain dead. And goofy as hell....

Long 48

2009-02-05T16:07:00.003-05:00

It's taken me a couple of days to recover from my 48-hour shift. I didn't get to sleep much over that time so I came home exhausted. Both physically and mentally. And I didn't get to come home and sleep either. Due to a late call in the morning, I managed to get back to the station, do a turnover and made it back to my neighborhood in enough time to get to my first appointment. I didn't get home to rest until about 15:00. I'd had to reschedule a bunch of things that had been canceled because of the snow last week. People around here don't see snow much, so they panic a little bit when the white stuff falls.

My first 24 kicked off with a visit to the shop (a good 30 minute drive) for fit testing. We decided to drive the ambulance (I'd picked up 24 hours on a BLS unit - hey I'm not picky!) because the off-going crew passed on they'd smelled "something burning" on a call the night before. One of the crew confided in me that he suspected that his partner had been driving with the emergency brake on. This would not have surprised me. I've told you about this guy before. He's the one that used to jack up my partner by showing up late to work or calling in sick at 03:00. He's holding on to his job by a VERY narrow string right now as it is. Anyway, we made it up to get our SCBA masks tested and make sure our faces haven't gotten too skinny/fat for them to be rendered useless without our brakes smoking. I struck up a conversation with a guy who has been working in one of the houses that the department has not been staffing lately to cut down on overtime. I asked him why the volunteers are staffing the engine and not the ambulance. Now, as I've said in the past, I have a great deal of respect for these particular volunteers and it surprised me that they would pull a stunt like this. Well, it seems that I may have been hasty in blasting them for their actions. It seems that they were actually trying to stand up for the paid guys. Apparently there are other stations that have BLS ambulances with potential to be staffed, yet the same career guys are ALWAYS tapped to be used and abused. The other units are never staffed. So while the guys at one station hit the street early in the morning and rarely get back to the station, other guys are resting comfortably in their lounge chairs all shift. So as a show of solidarity, the volunteers are trying to show some support. And although I love these guys, I still maintain that you don't sacrifice the health and wellbeing of the public to make a point.

My attempt at sleep was interrupted by a middle of the night call in the middle of some very messy winter weather. And then to top it off, picture a snowy night, a homemade WHITE sign (lettered in Wal-Mart gold letters) and a new development in the middle of what possibly was once a cow pasture. This guy's house must have been 4,000 square feet and had an elevator. We didn't get the grand tour, but there was a 60" flat screen in the BATHROOM. The other medic's partner asked if the guy would be willing to adopt him.

The second 24 hours started with the annual county physical. Oh joy. The receptionist was hyped up on energy drinks, the nurses were really very nice and the doctor had no sense of humor. It went fairly quickly, but I'm still mystified at how 90% of my PHYSICAL was completed while I had four layers of clothing on. I had to remove only my shirt(s) for the ECG. I never took my 20lb, steel-toed boots off. Amazing. Doc has x-ray vision. Once I was finished I went out to the waiting room and there was my Lieutenant with that "I'm about to make your like miserable" look on his face. Yeah. I read THAT look right.

I had been summoned from on high to headquarters for an interview with the EEOC Chief. Great. What a way to screw up my day. Well, the dispatch center was breathing down our necks because in someone's infinite wisdom, all of the medics on our battalion were either having physicals or having their masks tested. In other words, ALL of us were about 30 minutes out of our first due area. And it looked like we weren't going to be back in service for several more hours. We arranged for my interview to be held before lunch rather than after. It took a bit of doing, but we got it out of the way. I am MUCH wiser in the ways of how all of this sexual harassment crap works now. Apparently the guy in question was interviewed which is why he's acting the way he is now. He refuses to talk to any of us now - not that I give a hoot. No one has to tell the accuser that the accusee is being interviewed. I guess I was afraid of retribution (which is illegal), but they'll show it in their own, sneaky little way I'm sure. What am I saying, he already is. I was told yet again, this time by someone with a hell of alot more clout, that they've been having trouble with this guy and women for a long time.

When we FINALLY got back to the station and our whole crew was together, it was well after 16:00. I ended up running a 12 year old in SVT (asymptomatic). His pulse was over 200 for over an hour and a half! I couldn't vagal him and drugs and electricity would have been inappropriate. He had no signs or symptoms at all. This happens to him occasionally. I also ran a lady in severe respiratory distress at 05:30. History of lung cancer and asthma. Combivent did not work. She usually has to have the fluid drained by the hospital. It was a LONG drive to the ER at warp speed. Even with the CPAP on she was only sating at 92% by the time we got there. She was much better by the time we left.

It only took me two hours to get back home...more snow. At least there was no accumulation!

Why doesn't anyone come when I call 9-1-1?

2009-02-01T08:19:00.003-05:00

Just the other day I got a shock. Because I work in a remote part of the county, we don't always hear what's happening in the other parts. I'd heard bits and pieces, but I was unprepared for the information I heard before I went home yesterday morning. In an apparent attempt to save money on overtime, our county has cut back on staffing certain stations with paid personnel. If they run short of personnel, they will not fill the positions at these houses (two positions in each of two stations) instead of paying overtime. Now in their defense, these stations are heavily staffed with volunteer personnel. Up to this point I would have defended the volunteers at these stations. They have very good reputations. Both of these stations house the busiest BLS ambulances in the county. So what has the response been? The volunteers have refused to staff the ambulances. Instead, they are staffing their engines with six people while the ambulances sit unmanned at the firehouses. And it's not that the six people on board the engine are unqualified, they just won't ride the ambulance.

Just last shift when our volunteer chief (who was recently busted down to a Lieutenant because he has not been doing his job as chief - his membership just refuses to acknowledge his new rank) asked if we needed anything. I asked for some "C" cell batteries for the medic unit. His response? "I'm not supplying ANYTHING for the citizens of this county! The county has cut my budget for everything! We have to pay for cleaning supplies now!" Okaaaay. Um. Why are we here again? Wasn't it to SERVE the people of this county? Just checking. At that point I walked away. I figure it's in my best interest not to speak to anyone there right now.

With the huge budget problems everyone is faced with right now, I don't expect there to be much relief in sight as far as money goes. Our County Executive is basically making cuts everywhere. The news yesterday stated that county employees could expect a 13 day furlough and no raises next year due to a multi-million budget deficit. Now, I have no idea how that is going to effect public safety. I have to be honest with you. I'm worried. If I were one of the recruits in the academy right now, I'd be outright SCARED. There was a rumor that they were going to be laid off as soon as they graduated, but you know how rumors go. There was supposed to be another class starting in July, but I'm not holding my breath. There are 4-5 people retiring a month right now. For that matter, I'd be scared to death if I were retiring too. I'm thinking I need to beef up my retirement plan. I don't trust the county's retirement much anymore...

I hope the economy starts looking up soon.

Mom said there'd be days like this

2009-01-31T09:14:00.002-05:00

I should have stayed in bed. Called in sick. Anything but go to work.

It started with our first call. Every once in a while our radio screws up. We're not exactly sure what's going on, but there's a glitch. It's happened before on other pieces of equipment, in other stations. It happens on engines, medic units and on portables. The channel changes on it's own and the volume goes way down. We can't hear dispatch. Our Lieutenant has reported the problem more than once. Since it can't be duplicated, it can't be tracked or fixed. Anyway, it happened to us on our first call. It was a comedy of errors, in fact. And of course, but comedy I mean it was not at all funny. Thank god the patient was not critical - a fall on ice that hit her shoulder and wrist.

Here we are moving right along our merry way when my cell phone starts it's incessant vibration. I look at it and it's a friend of mine who I know is dispatching. I answer it.

Dispatch: Hey! Are you guys OK?!?

DM: Yeah, we're fine. Except I just realized we're in a part of town where the damn map is wrong and we need to turn around. We're turning around now and we'll be there in a minute. Why?

Dispatch: We've been calling and calling you on the radio and you're not answering.

I look at the radio and realize right away that the channel is all wrong. Since the problem has happened to my Lieutenant before, I know what to do.

DM: CRAP. We've gone digital. I'll have it fixed in a minute. I gotta go.

I get off the phone, and get my partner turned around. Meanwhile my Lieutenant is now trying to call me AND text me. I ignore him in the interest of getting my ass out of this mess. I get on the radio after fixing the problem.

DM: Dispatch this is Medic XX, our unit switched itself to channel XX. We're back online.

Of course, I didn't realize the volume was still down. We get to the call - or at least I think we do because we're behind the other ambulance and I hit the on scene button. I then realize they're dyslexic and at the wrong address. We're two blocks away. Right about that time (I've now adjusted the volume) I hear:

Dispatch: Ambulance XX, Medic XX is having radio problems, could you please relay messages from them?

*sigh*

DM: Dispatch, this is Medic XX. We are not having radio problems. Our unit automatically switched channels. We are back online.

Dispatch: OK Medic XX. We were concerned because we could not reach you. Blah, blah, blah....

(At this point I stopped listening because I had a patient, we had already gotten lost, I was frustrated and frankly, I didn't have time to chat.)

About four hours later, the phone rang and my Lieutenant answered it. The Lieutenant from the dispatch center asked for me and proceeded to chew me a new ass for getting "shitty" with his dispatcher. OK, I'll admit that I may have gotten a "tone" with her. He then started to yell at me for not reporting to him (?!?) about our radio problem. WHAT? I told him I didn't have a problem, it is currently resolved. He then pretty much called me a liar. Told me nobody in the county has EVER had such a problem. Okaaaaay. I then told him (politely I might add) that I was going to have to put him on hold and have this conversation with my Lieutenant present, to which he snottily answered "Absolutely!". My Lieutenant picked up the phone and backed me up completely. Told him that not only had he had the same problem, but that people all over the county had the same problem. As a matter of fact, he told him he has REPEATEDLY reported it to the dispatch center. So what? I'm a liar because HE never heard about it?!? The dispatch Lieutenant insisted that the guys contracted to fix the radios come look at our radio. And he did. And he found nothing. And more phone calls were made. Meanwhile the man who tore me a new one did not bother to apologize for basically calling me a liar. Whatever. You're a colossal ASSHOLE. And by the way, I still haven't heard anything nice about you and this is the SECOND time you've been a DICK to me. But I bet you don't remember. Because being nice to us little folk is beneath you. I hope I hold on to this feeling when I get promoted. I would never want to make anyone feel like that. Or at least I'd like to apologize when I make an ass of myself. And I'm sure I will.

Lately things have been "strained" at work. All of a sudden the guy that I had a problem with a few weeks ago won't talk to any of us anymore. His name was removed as Assistant Chief and the paid officers were told not to call him as a volunteer officer. The volunteer that gets the gossip on everyone has been digging mercilessly and says that no one will tell him anything but he thinks it has something to do with me. So that means that despite all of the promises that were made about confidentiality, this asshole was told that his actions were documented. I don't really care two shits about him and what he knows. What I am wondering though is where the information came from. There are a limited number of people who had the information in the first place. From what I've been told, my documentation (there was no discipline or complaint filed against him from me) is just a drop in the bucket compared to what they have compiled against him. But if I can't trust these guys to handle something like a simple documentation, what if something really big happens? I can tell you that I will never trust them with anything else.

You know the old saying? Telephone, tell a friend, tell a fireman.

The Plunge 2009

2009-01-29T11:11:00.009-05:00

Ahhhh. A balmy 37 degrees. With a wind chill in the teens. It was...FRIGGIN ARCTIC. The annual Polar Bear Plunge is always the third weekend in January and you get what you get. There is no cancellation because your wimpy disposition might get chilled. And my answer to everyone who made fun of my white legs, choice of apparel or anything else that may have gotten a wise-ass remark? If you didn't give money to the cause or you weren't there by my side dunking your pale bod in the icy water, you don't have a voice buddy. So there. For those of you cheering me on, I thank you, and the athletes of the Special Olympics thank you. Anyway, here are the pictures. I did pretty well this year, tripling my donations from last year. I still came up $85 less than my coworker - of which I will NEVER hear the end. Better luck next year. I will start hitting you guys up in July...

Starting my day

2009-01-23T08:35:00.005-05:00

Hello all. It's a quick post today since I'm going to be quite busy the next couple of days and I've been up since 0400. We were awakened by a cardiac arrest this morning.

A 105 year old woman was found at permanent rest this morning. I have to admit that sometimes I am really surprised at the reaction of some family members. At age 105, do you not think that a person has the God-given right to REST? Have they not earned the right to greet God and say "Happy to see you, where are my wings?" Should there not be happiness that they died peacefully in their bed without the violent intervention of my tools? I say yes! Her daughter and I exchanged smiles when I saw her face and I pulled her covers back over her. She was at peace. Her eyes closed. My Lieutenant had told me that though her core was still warm, her extremities were cold. I called her and had no problem doing so. The family actually had been waiting for this to happen and had called the funeral home first. They told them to call 9-1-1. It was the grandson whose reaction startled me. "You didn't KNOW her!" he said sternly to me. Maybe it's his youth. Maybe it's my experience and her daughter's age that makes us understand. Accepting death is not as awful as watching the futile efforts of a Paramedic pounding on a 105 year old woman. It's unforgivable.

But in an effort to end on an UP note.... Tomorrow I'll be dipping my ENTIRE BODY in the frozen - and yes, I'm not being cute here, the water has huge chunks of ICE in it - Chesapeake Bay for the annual Maryland State Police Polar Bear Plunge. The water temp has been predicted to be at 34 degrees, air temp at 37 with a wind chill in the TEENS. For those of you who know and love me, please consider sponsoring me. Every little bit counts! We do this every year to benefit the Special Olympics. Tomorrow I will be sporting my kilt, of course I will have on the flaming tights and the Fargo hat. Can't imagine that combo?? I will post pics....BUT ONLY IF I GET MORE SPONSORS!! HURRY! TIME IS RUNNING OUT!!!

UPDATE: I'm up to $300 in pledges and a friend has vowed to beat my ass. Please don't let him. PLEASE. I will never hear the end of it.... OR he will make me plunge naked next year...

Stuff I'm not supposed to know

2009-01-21T10:27:00.003-05:00

So here's your daily dose of dirt. I know you guys love to hear the random bits of stuff that I get to bring home with me from work. I'm not asking to be told, it's coming to me COMPLETELY unsolicited. As a matter of fact, I wish I didn't know. I'm not passing the information on because it would just further put more people in the jackpot. I'm also not passing on the information because some of it's not first hand - I don't pass on rumor to the brass.

Apparently the jackass that laid his hands on me has been making advances to a 17 year old volunteer. This is not a new development and since she turned 17 last week..., well you do the math. Rumor has it he's been calling her and asking when she'll be 18. Ick. His nephew is the one spilling this one and says he thinks his "shit don't stink since he got the bariatric surgery". I was also told that my complaint about him is definitely not the first. He's pulled this crap before on a paid female firefighter. She was moved and nothing happened to him.

This same 17 year old volunteer, who up to this point I thought had her shit together, has allegedly already had two abortions. Lately she's been "talking to, seeing, messing around with" no less than three guys at the same time and the names are CONSTANTLY changing. When she's at the firehouse she on the phone or texting at all hours of the night. I had to tell her twice to put the damn phone DOWN while on calls. It's unprofessional to be texting a guy your dirty messages while I'm starting an IV. My partner happened to catch her sending "This is the best white p*ssy you'll EVER get" on a call. Nice.

The same volunteer has apparently been making out with another volunteer, allegedly at the firehouse, who is engaged and in his mid to late 20's. There is some problem between the two of them now. I'm not sure what's going on there but he hasn't come around lately. I was wondering where he's been and why she's been hanging around ALL THE TIME.

Another female volunteer and her ex-boyfriend have allegedly had sex at the firehouse. Both before and after they broke up. They don't really deny it. She has already had one baby and several pregnancy scares since. She is also 17 years old. I was very uncomfortable with the whole lot of them piled up on a sectional couch in a very dark room the other night while we were working. They're putting us in a VERY awkward position.

Is it any wonder that my blood pressure goes through the roof when they're in the house? AACK!

Coronation in DC

2009-01-20T11:48:00.004-05:00

As of 0900 about 410,000 people had entered the National Mall in DC. There are reports on the local news that some of the metro stops have been shut down and people are being asked to get off at other stops and walk the rest of the way to the Capitol. When I went to go get coffee (and I live a good twenty minutes outside of DC in NO traffic) I saw a young lady in full Obama gear in line in front of me at 0930. This man is a rock star. Sit up and take notice. I wonder what the repercussions of this will be. I hope that people understand that he cannot make everything "all better" overnight. I hope the feeling of good will lasts a long time. I hope that the hope lasts a very, very long time. But most importantly, I hope that inspiration lives a long, long time in the lives of those attending this event. They're saying that 90% of the people in the city are from outside the DC area. Let them carry this energy home and revitalize this country. We've been hiding our heads in the sand - or better yet, hiding behind our computer screens long enough.

Time to go meet your neighbors and be the change we want to see in the world.