Chocolate
I ran all day in Chicago. I didn't mind too much because for once I actually knew where I was going. We did mostly BLS transfers. Nothing exciting, but I met some nice people.
We took a lady from a suburban hospital to a home address in Chicago. She was in her early eighties and her daughter was with her. Neither spoke more than a couple words of English-only Russian. So, needless to say, we had a hard time communicating. I was in back, and my partner was driving. We got the address, but the daughter was trying to tell my partner where she needed to go. We made it to the apartment complex eventually. It was an odd place, almost like a planned community. It had a nursing home, senior living, regular apartments, school, church, etc. I don't think we would have found it if the daughter hadn't been with because the address was off a main road, but it was just the address to the complex, not the apartment. Anyways, we got there and as I was getting out of the ambulance, the daughter said in broken English, "wait...wait..." and she was digging through her bag. Then she pulled out a box of chocolate truffles and handed them to me. She said, "for you...thank you...thank you." We took her mother upstairs and said our goodbyes. It's not too often that people are actually appreciative-and we didn't really even do anything but give them a ride.
We did a couple more transfers, but got out of the city on a whim. They sent us on a priority from Chicago back up to Waukegan. That was over 25 miles running hot. It was for an altered mental status, but when we got on scene we got the rest of the story. The status was not normal, but had been abnormal for several days already, and they were really sending him out because he had a fever of 100.1 that was down to 98 by the time we got there. Yeah. Good times.
We did several psych bounces, and a return to a nursing home in Cook County. The place isn't the best, but I have never seen it in such terrible disrepair as I did last night. We took the lady into her room and I heard a chirping noise. It was the smoke detector in the room. I told the CNA that they need to change the battery and he looked at me like I was crazy. Then the nurse was on break, so I was sent to the other side of the nursing home to get a signature. On my way over I passed probably 5 or 6 smoke detectors that were either hanging from the ceiling by the wires or that were simply torn down. There were also about 4 large emesis basins lining the hallway because the roof was leaking. Really nice. That place should be shut down.
We went back up north and stopped for gas. I was pumping and a lady walked out of the station and said "Hello!" She sounded rather drunk, and I just said hi and went back to my pumping. I watched her walk to the other side of the building and start dancing. She only had a t-shirt on and it was pouring rain. By the time we left she was deep in conversation with the wall at the laundromat next door.
We took a lady from a suburban hospital to a home address in Chicago. She was in her early eighties and her daughter was with her. Neither spoke more than a couple words of English-only Russian. So, needless to say, we had a hard time communicating. I was in back, and my partner was driving. We got the address, but the daughter was trying to tell my partner where she needed to go. We made it to the apartment complex eventually. It was an odd place, almost like a planned community. It had a nursing home, senior living, regular apartments, school, church, etc. I don't think we would have found it if the daughter hadn't been with because the address was off a main road, but it was just the address to the complex, not the apartment. Anyways, we got there and as I was getting out of the ambulance, the daughter said in broken English, "wait...wait..." and she was digging through her bag. Then she pulled out a box of chocolate truffles and handed them to me. She said, "for you...thank you...thank you." We took her mother upstairs and said our goodbyes. It's not too often that people are actually appreciative-and we didn't really even do anything but give them a ride.
We did a couple more transfers, but got out of the city on a whim. They sent us on a priority from Chicago back up to Waukegan. That was over 25 miles running hot. It was for an altered mental status, but when we got on scene we got the rest of the story. The status was not normal, but had been abnormal for several days already, and they were really sending him out because he had a fever of 100.1 that was down to 98 by the time we got there. Yeah. Good times.
We did several psych bounces, and a return to a nursing home in Cook County. The place isn't the best, but I have never seen it in such terrible disrepair as I did last night. We took the lady into her room and I heard a chirping noise. It was the smoke detector in the room. I told the CNA that they need to change the battery and he looked at me like I was crazy. Then the nurse was on break, so I was sent to the other side of the nursing home to get a signature. On my way over I passed probably 5 or 6 smoke detectors that were either hanging from the ceiling by the wires or that were simply torn down. There were also about 4 large emesis basins lining the hallway because the roof was leaking. Really nice. That place should be shut down.
We went back up north and stopped for gas. I was pumping and a lady walked out of the station and said "Hello!" She sounded rather drunk, and I just said hi and went back to my pumping. I watched her walk to the other side of the building and start dancing. She only had a t-shirt on and it was pouring rain. By the time we left she was deep in conversation with the wall at the laundromat next door.
posted by Ambulance Girl at 05:51
1 Comments:
Rest Homes are mostly crappy arn't they. Always smell of tale urine and the oldies are sitting there vegitating away. I hate them. Its disgusting that we stick our old people in such shoddy establishments. End of Rant.
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