Dazed and Confused

Today was a bit of an odd day. When I got to work I learned that my normal partner had taken a personal day and I was working with someone else. Not a big deal, just different. Sunday is usually a hit or miss day. Either we are extremely busy or we sleep all day. Today was busy.

Our first call was a priority out of a home address for dizziness. We got on scene in a ritzy area and headed inside. The lady was downstairs in the basement. She had woken up feeling dizzy around 0630 and it still hadn't gone away. No biggie, right? We got the stair chair and headed back down to get her out to the rig. We were getting ready to move her over, and her son points to the stair chair and was like, "Um...isn't that supposed to be connected to something?" I looked and sure enough, part of the chair had come undone and one of the front legs wasn't connected to the seat. Great. Then, after moving her over, I go to pup one of the straps across her chest and the seatbelt clip came off. Needless to say, I couldn't get it back on, and we had to tie the straps together. This was quite embarassing, especially because of the standards of living in that area. We got her out to the rig and onto the stretcher. We did all of our care, and headed towards the hospital. I was chatting with the patient and an IV bag came flying out of the cabinet and fell on her shoulder. It didn't hurt her, but all I could do was repeatedly apologize. (I could have sworn that I closed that cabinet!). The ride was bumpy, and I was just waiting for something else to go wrong.

We cleared up from there and were sent on a priority for severe abdominal pain. Of course, the lady weighed almost 400 pounds and was about 5 feet tall. She stated 10/10 pain and that she had a history of gall stones. She looked like she was in pain. It took forever to get her out to the rig, but we finally made it. Her vitals were stable. She writhed and screamed in pain when I started the IV, so I began to think that she had an extremely low pain tolerance. She stated she only wanted to go to one hospital. It wasn't the closest, but the second closest, so I told her that we would talk to medical control and find out what we were going to do. I was on the phone with tele and I told them that, "....hospital is the closest with an ETA of 9 minutes, we have an ETA to your facility of 17." The patient yelled, I will not go to that other hospital, I only want to go to ...hospital. The RN on tele asked me to get another pain rating, and the patient said it was down to a 2. They allowed the longer transport. I think the lady only said that so that she could go to the hospital she wanted, but in the process, downgraded it to no lights/sirens. Oh well.

We did a kid with a ruptured spleen to a Children's hospital. And a few BLS calls.

Blistering Hot

Today has been ridiculously hot. And the heat is here to stay for a while. When I got up this morning around 0730 to go to church, it wasn't too bad. The radio said it was 90 degrees. I can deal with that.

By the time I was heading back to the firehouse for my shift at 1200, it was 98 degrees with a heat index of 105. I was sweating buckets.

It is odd how the weather works here, because it always feels much warmer in the evening. It was 100 degrees at 1600 with a heat index of 108. It was so hot and humid it was hard to breathe. I felt like I was sucking air through a straw.

Tomorrow is supposed to be worse. 99 by 1000. That means over 100 by the afternoon. And, of course, I am working at the ambulance company where I get to wear wonderful polyester. Yeah. I won't be surprised if our crews drop like flies.

No calls so far today. I'm sure we'll have something tonight.

Sorry

I haven't had much time to post recently. I am keeping track of my calls and stuff for the most part. I have been journaling in a notebook, so bear with me.

Angel of Death

First call was for a person with shortness of breath. We got on scene and the nursing home forgot to mention that he was normally A+Ox1 and combative and now he isn't. He was extremely lethargic. His blood pressure was pretty low. He was breathing erratically. Great. And they though we were going to transport to a hospital 13 miles away. Ha.

We got him loaded in the ambulance, did our normal routine, and headed towards the hospital (the closest). His SPO2 was about 94% on a NRB. I can deal with that. Unfortunately, they didn't stay that way. We were about 4 blocks from the hospital when he started to circle the drain. His sats dropped steadily- 88....82....79....76...71...yeah. Fantastic. I ended up having to bag him the rest of the way, and his sats would still only raise into the 80s. He had no history of cardiac or respiratory problems, and he was a full code. I called the hospital when we were about a block away with an update. It was a good call though. I was surprised that he hadn't coded yet when we left the ER.

Next call was a burn and return. (Radiation therapy). It was a BLS call, which should have been easy. Not today. The guy had lung cancer that was pretty advanced. His vitals were stable when we took them on the floor. We headed towards the clinic where he gets radiation and my partner asked me to pull over. His blood pressure had dropped to 80 systolic. We took it again and got about the same number. We called tele and told them what was going on. They just had us access his pic line and give him a fluid challenge. It worked. We continued on our way. His pressure continued to fluctuate while we had him. I think we gave him about 500cc of fluid.

We did a psych transport for a teen with depression. She was a real piece of work.

Next call was for a possible CVA. The nursing home was 20 miles away. These are the calls that I wonder why the nurse didn't just call 911. We figured out why when we got there. The guy had facial drooping and weakness. It started two days ago. Nice. His blood pressure was low, he was minimally responsive, and had all the signs of a CVA. No clot busters for him.

We also did an ALS transfer for a lady with swelling that had gastric bypass in the beginning of July, and is now swollen and leaking excessive fluid from the drains in her abdomen. We took her all the way to Chicago. I think we got back to quarters around 0430. Grrr.

A busy shift. I actually felt like a medic for once, and not a taxi driver.

Ka-BOOM

Sorry! It seems like I fell off the earth, but I'm still here. I'm busy as ever and I haven't had time to post. I still don't have internet access except at work, so bear with me.

Nothing too good recently. I missed going on a huge fire by 5 minutes :(

Today is Independence Day. Not so fun when you're at work. I started at 1700. No picnic...no good fireworks....

I did get to see some fireworks. I contemplated climbing to the roof of the hose tower...actually I made it to the roof of the hose tower. Only nobody else was dumb enough to follow. I came back down before the fireworks even started. I figured my chief wouldn't be too happy if I fell off :) One of the guys got a picture on his phone. I look like cat-woman because you can barely see the little ladder. You have to climb up the ladder in the hose tower to the landing, then open the window and climb a skinny little ladder on the outside of the building to the top. Yeah...

We ended up sitting in the parking lot of a gas station where we could catch glimpses of the fireworks from the town south of us. Not so fun.

A guy stopped in and told us he had something to turn over. It was a huge stick of something...dynamite...I don't know. I had to call around and nobody knew what to do with it. I was going to just blow it up, but I decided I liked having all 10 of my fingers.

We actually weighed it at the police station. I guess anything over 28 grams is a felony. This one weighed in at 35.3.

Anyways, I will post more soon I hope. I am working crazy hours to try and get my house finished. And of course, save up for another vacation.

I missed the big one today. I ended up sitting at the station twiddling my thumbs while everyone else was out having fun. They came back three hours later. I got to clean the rig. I spent the morning cleaning. That was about it.

I can't wait for August. Well, I guess I can. Because after August comes September and then winter. Yuck. I wish we had this weather all year long.

Life is crazy. All I do is work. Literally. I got job to job, with maybe a couple of hours in between if I am lucky. I guess it's all right though. I want to go on vacation in August, so I better start saving.

Some days I feel like I am stuck in a vacuum. Nothing seems to change. I do the same things over and over again. Maybe I am in the making of the movie "Groundhog Day II." Something has got to give.

Fall

We did back to back calls for falls. One was legitimate...I guess. She ended up getting admitted because she couldn't remember falling. She had a 1/2" laceration on her head. No biggie. Our second fall was for a lady that slid out of bed. She was A+Ox2-3, so we had to take her in. The facility wasn't going to send her. I guess our patient had slid out of bed trying to get a better light for reading at 0530, and didn't call anybody. She was still sitting on the floor reading her book at 1000. I guess it was a good book. Anyways, her family wanted her checked out. I took her back to the nursing home several hours later.

We did a psych transport. A transport for a lady who's doctor was at a different hospital.

And a chest pain at 0630 (I get off at 0700 grrr). Just the typical chest pain. Nothing great. We hauled butt and got off by 0730.

I was hoping to work outside today, but it is raining. Oh well...

Bloody mess

I got called for a head injury. The guy had blood everywhere. We cleaned him up and it was a 1/2 cm cut. Wow. I guess that's what alcohol and head wounds do. Anyways, he didn't want to go, and he signed AMA.

Another AMA for a guy that was supposedly unconscious, but states that he is just hot. Nice.

Another day. Just another day. It is hot and humid. Looks like it's going to rain. I could go for a good storm. Something to watch anyways.

I wish I was back in Maryland. I had such a good time there. And the people were unbelievable. Oh well. I guess I have to take what I can get. Maybe I'll do some homework.

The monotony of my life is slowly killing me.