Chronicles of a Paramedic / Probie Firefighter

Dream

2007-04-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry once again I haven't written much recently. I am really trying to get myself on the right track. Let's just say I'm having some life problems right now. Or something.

But I do almost have a story. Not about a call per-say....but a dream. I had a dream in my like 1/2 hour of sleep about a call. It was a full arrest. All out-CPR, rhythms, starting lines, pushing drugs, etc. It was like a mega-code in medic school. Haha. It didn't really bother me until I got to the firehouse this morning...I think bother is the wrong word. Maybe concern. I was talking with my partner and he was like, oh shit! I had a dream that I was doing CPR! So yeah. Hopefully it doesn't come true today. I would like a nice (insert "s" word) day :).

I Apologize

2007-02-28T08:14:00.000-08:00

For my absence recently...well actually for a couple of months. I have just had a lot going on. I was actually sick myself for nearly this entire month. I was in the hospital for several days, and I have been going back and forth with specialists. Definitely my idea of fun. I hate hospitals. And quite honestly I don't care for doctors, nurses, or the lot. Haha. Well, they're all okay unless I'm the one that's sick. I just don't like being the patient at all. And I'm a horrible patient because of it. I usually wait until the very last second to go to the ER. For example: I had an asthma attack this summer, while I was working, and I sat at the station in my bed, for at least an hour before my partner forced me to go. At the hospital I stopped breathing several times. Ha. But I still lived, so I still plan on waiting until I can't any longer.

Work has been pretty much the same. Some good calls...many not so good calls. I delivered my first baby this month. That was probably the best call I have ever been on.

I just got off work this morning from the ambulance company. Yesterday's shift was a complete nightmare. I started at 0700 and I was ready to leave by 1000. It was just bad. It wasn't like we were extremely busy or anything. We only ran five calls in 24 hours. We were just all over the place, ending up out of the county and running calls that another station should have been running, etc. The normal b.s. And absolutely everyone was crabby. It was ridiculous. And my partner and I were crabby as well. I swear we were getting CO poisoning in our rig or something because we were both feeling sick and dizzy. Like if I moved my head too fast, I would still be seeing whatever I was looking at before...and not what I was actually looking at. It was very odd. They kept us up for practically the entire shift. As soon as we'd drift off, the nextel would go off with another call. Typical day. I think the dispatchers time us so that as soon as we should be sleeping, they wake us up...like they purposely hold calls for that hour so that they can have the pleasure of disturbing my sleep. Oh well.

Anyways, I hope to update this much more often from now on. I'm sorry it took me so long! But hopefully some interesting calls soon.

Christmas Music

2006-12-18T11:58:00.000-08:00

A very slow day to begin with. We didn't do anything until the evening. I was hoping to keep it that way. Although quite boring, I would prefer to do nothing and get paid for it sometimes than cart around people that should be taking a taxi. Oh well.

All hell broke loose around 1800. We were called to a nursing home for chest pain. We got on scene, did our workup and determined that it was most likely a respiratory problem and not cardiac. Our patient had crackles in his lungs, just on the right side...probably pneumonia.

We had just made it back to quarters and got into bed (by this time it was around 2200 after getting dinner, etc) and we were called to a stand-by emergency room for a psych eval. Okay, no biggie. Just grab and go, drop 'em off and go back to bed. Well, it wasn't that easy. The nurse only gave us like maybe 1/16 of the story. She was actually an overdose. On cocaine, meth, trazadone, a bunch of psych meds, and pain killers. She was dizzy and nearly fell over getting onto the cot. Then she was hallucinating in the back of the ambulance. She said, "I really like what you've done with the place. Those curtains are beautiful!" Now mind you, we don't have any curtains, and our rig is definitely not beautiful. Then she asked why we were outside, and starting flipping out again trying to get the blanket over her head to suffocate herself. A little Narcan did the trick (kinda) but she was still hallucinating when we left the ER.

Made it back to quarters again. Laid down for 15 minutes. Called to transfer a psych to the state mental hospital. I was cursing and going on for several minutes because it is over 60 miles away. We got to the ER and I walk with the stretcher past the nurses station. The nurse grabbed my arm and was like, "you can't go in there without security!" I was like, "well, I wasn't planning on it, I'm just getting the cot out of the way." Whatever. So, we wait forever for paperwork, as usual, and finally we meet our patient. Before we even get a chance to open the door she opens it and yells at my partner, "you don't need to be knocking on my door, it is rude!" He never even touched the door. It took a lot of convincing, or rather several large security guards, to get her onto the cot. She loved the four point restraints. Ha. And even made my partner swear which takes quite a bit. The ride was actually quite funny. First I was listening to like pop/rock music, but I can't stand commercials, so then I changed it to country. Then that had commercials eventually too, so I changed it to Christmas music. Ooooh...that's when the fun started. She hated the music. So what did I do, you ask? I turned it up. And we both started singing, quite loudly I might add. For over 40 miles of the trip :). When we got there she said we stole her candy and that my partner's sister was a bitch, which she was referring to me. Then she got to fight with the guards at the mental hospital, so we headed home. Another life saved.

We did another transfer to a nursing facility out of the ER. This place is quite creepy. We always call the buildings bomb shelters. They are very funny looking and out of place, and there are maybe 50 of them. Very hard to find the one you need. And the lady was hacking and coughing all over my rig. Ugh. Disgusting.

We got back to quarters at 0654. At least I wasn't held over.

Your patient

2006-12-12T23:16:00.000-08:00

Busy day. We did a four hour ALS MRI. Those are my least favorite calls. In fact I hate doing them. It drives me crazy every time I get dipatched to one.

Lots of silly transfers....mostly rehab, psychs, and a few going back to nursing homes.

And I forgot my coat at home today so I froze to death until the evening. Then we got a call going to a nursing home near my house so we stopped afterwards and grabbed it.

Then we were dispatched for chest pain at a nursing home two towns away. The roads were kind of slick and it was really foggy out, so it took us a little while to get there. The lady was fine. All her vitals were good. She said it just hurt when she would breathe. She was just diagnosed with pneumonia/bronchitis last week.

When we were leaving the ER the FD was bringing a guy in that I had taken last week with chest pain. He was out of a nursing home. And one of the guys said, "yeah, we had to pick up your patient." Like the nursing isn't in their district. Dummies. That was the first time we had seen them at the ER all day, and we had been there at least 5 times already.

Took a crazy pysch patient that reminded me of a toddler because she asked "why" about everything. And she was being an ass, so we cranked the Christmas music and sang all the way to the psych hospital. The best song is actually a Hawaiian song called "Melekelikimaka" which means merry christmas, or happy Christmas. Yep. I went to the national fire academy and met some really cool guys from Hawaii. And I learned a lot. But anyways, it was an okay shift.

I was only peeved when we were woken at 0430 for a medicar call going to same day surgery...which doesn't even open until 0600. The nurse had a fit and flipped out on my partner and I, like we wanted to bring him early, like we didn't want to still be in bed. Hmph.

No...just call 9-1-1

2006-12-08T18:39:00.000-08:00

I started work as usual at 0700. We got a call at 0712. We were called for shortness of breath. The only bad part was that the nursing home we were sent to is about a 30 minute drive even with lights and sirens. So, we get down there, making decent time, and pull into the nursing home. We hit the "on scene" button on the computer in the rig, and just as I am taking off my seatbelt and opening the door, my dispatcher beeps us on the Nextel, "You guys can disregard...the facility is calling 9-1-1." I told dispatch, "But, we are already here...we're going in right now." She says, "Well, now they don't want us they want to wait for 9-1-1. You guys can stand down and return to quarters." I was like, whatever. We got back in the rig and left. I don't understand the nurse's logic. You call a private ambulance and accept a 30-40 minute ETA. The ambulance pulls into the parking lot as you are on the phone with dispatch asking for another ETA. They tell you that the crew just pulled up. So now you decide that the patient is too critical to wait and call 9-1-1, after 30 minutes? What the hell. I mean, if that floats your boat, by all means, but it just confused the hell out of me.

We left there and got back to quarters about 40 minutes later. I had just gotten my boots and socks off when dispatch, once again, sends us lights and sirens to a nursing home about 30 minutes away. We get dressed, get in the rig and head out. We are called for "Tachycardia...the pt is also complaining of SOB, fever and altered mental status." Okay.....

We get on scene after dealing with every single idiot in the world on the road we were on, and head inside. We get to the room and speak with the caregiver. She says that the patient was up, talking, eating and even brushed her teeth this morning. When she came back to check on her she was, well, not herself. Our patient was slumped over in her wheelchair, wasn't speaking, had a blood pressure of 70, a blood glucose of almost 400, and had a heart rate around 130 with an elevated T-wave. Yeah. Needless to say we didn't stay and play long. We were heading out to the rig and the caregiver hands me her cell phone, and said, "It's the family, they want to talk to you." I politely declined and said that I couldn't share any patient info over the phone. The caregiver asked me if we were going to go to her desired hospital (which was about 30 minutes away). I told her we would try, but there was a 99.9% chance we would be diverted. She got pissed and told us they didn't like the closest hospital. I aksed if she was a DNR, and the caregiver said yes...but of course she couldn't produce it. To make a long story short we went to the closest facility. We got her blood pressure up to 100 systolic, but she was big time messed up. I'm sure she's in ICU right about now.

We did a transfer for a hip fracture.....

Then a psych transfer. This woman was absolutely disgusting. She was psychotic. Very upset about everything. She had been smearing feces and menstrual blood all over the walls and her body. Her hair was all matted. And she had sores on her feet from never wearing shoes. Ugh. She was completely uncooperative, then laughing, the yelling, then asking about our credentials, and asking to see another doctor. Yeah. So, we ended up cranking the Christmas music up and singing aloud for the whole three mile transport. :) Yeah, we're evil...going to hell on the express bus.

All in all, a good shift.

Elvis

2006-11-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

First call right off the bat was a psych transfer. We got to the ER and it was a miracle-the paperwork was done and waiting for us! Whoa.

I finished my paperwork and went to meet our patient. He seemed alright. I hadn't really read into his papers, so I didn't get the whole story right away. I did notice that his feel looked blistered and had soot all over them. I just though, "hmmm...odd." Then I spoke with one of the security guards and got the truth. Apparently the guy doesn't like to live in his house, so he roams around the county and stays at campgrounds and basically lives off the streets. He was brought in by the police yesterday because he was found at one of the local campgrounds lighting a picnic table on fire, and in the process nearly catching the brush on fire. And that's not all. He proceeded to get up on top of the table, start dancing, and singing Elvis songs. Nice. That would have been a sight to see.

Sorry!

2006-11-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

A apologize for not writing as much as I used to. I have been extremely stressed out, and probably a little burned out too, recently. I couldn't keep up with the blog-especially trying to write stuff down so I could remember to post it later. I just got the wireless broadband for my laptop, so I will try to post more often...

Long Month

2006-10-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a long month of the same old crap. I really haven't had any good calls whatsoever.

Today has been a typical day. Well, kind of. We have only done four calls so far. We did a couple BLS calls in the morning. We just did a call for "bleeding" that was actually for an ulcer that started bleeding on a lady's leg. The bleeding didn't worry me too much, but the fact that her leg was really swollen above the wound, that I couldn't get a pedal pulse, and that her capillary refill was +3 worried me. Oh well, I'm sure she'll be fine.

We also did a psych right after that. I walked into the room to get him on the cot and he had blood streaming down his arm from where he had an IV. By the time I got gloves on there was blood everywhere-a nice little pool on the floor, all over my gloves, and all over the bed. Good times. The best part was that the RN was rushing us to get him out of the room because she had a squad coming in. Well, they couldn't use the room anyways because housekeeping needed to sanitize it all now that it was covered in blood. Gotta love it.

Now I am back in quarters, just chilling. I have homework to do...

BLS

2006-10-12T00:17:00.000-07:00

A complete BLS day. The only call that we did that was ALS was a burn and return (radiation). Pretty boring.

Most of our calls were psych transports. Nothing good either.

I am off until Tuesday, so hopefully I'll have something by then...

Deer

2006-10-09T00:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in forever. I've had a lot of crap going on....

Anyways, life is the same. I missed a structure fire today. I don't feel too bad because we went mutual aid and only did change on quarters-they struck out the box as soon as they got in the station.

But, the reason I am posting is much more, well, funny.

After returning from a rescue call this morning, the crew that was working was doing house chores, etc. One guy was out in the garage and he heard something behind him. He turned around and a deer had run into the bay. The deer was wounded-bleeding from god only knows what. (Walk in rescue call?) Anyways, so the guy is yelling at the others not to move because, they were all in the "house" part of the station and he didn't want anyone to get hurt. Meanwhile, one of the other guys was in the training room and heard a commotion and the one firefighter yelling, but he figured people were screwing around (as usual). Well, the deer ended up running into the door that separates the bay from the house and left snot marks everywhere and scratched up the door. It turned around, as the one firefighter is hiding in the workout room, and runs into the dayroom, getting blood all over the carpet, table, and chairs. The firefighter that was in the fitness room called the police station next door and told them that they needed to get over here and help. Well, needless to say, the cops thought he was joking. The deer eventually ran out of the bay, leaving only a trail of blood and snot.

Good times. I wish I could get the pictures, but they aren't on the shared disc. Very funny though.

I did a practice CPAT test on Saturday. Let's just say that I am joining a gym on Tuesday, because otherwise the only thing I'll be leaving in on test day is an ambulance.

Not too many good calls recently. I have had a few funny ones.

I had a lady that kept yelling "can someone please get me a gown" every thirty seconds for the hour we waited for her paperwork in the ER. They were getting slammed-two full arrests at once.

Tornado

2006-10-04T01:01:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago we had some really bad storms. On my way to work I could see heat lightning, but it didn't look bad. We got a rescue call right off the bat, and it was still okay outside-it wasn't even raining yet.

By the time we were about two minutes from the hospital it was hailing. By the time we got into the ER you could hear the sirens going off outside and the intercom at the hospital saying "code yellow." Which is their tornado warning. We hauled ass to get everything together and get back up to our station. I was doing my paperwork and I had to call dispatch to get times. The phone rang and rang and their was no answer. I thought for sure that the tornado had taken out my town. But, they apparently didn't feel like answering the phone.

The tornado was sighted in the town just north of the hospital, and headed towards the hospital (south). Basically we had to drive right back through the storm to get to quarters. The roads were flooded, shit was flying everywhere-leaves, sticks, trash. We were making waves going down the road. It was so windy that every time my partner took his foot off the accelerator, we got blown into the other lane. Crazy.

When we got back to the station there were tons of people here. A lot of people don't have basements, so we all come to the firehouse when there's a tornado warning.

Anyways, we got back for maybe 15 minutes and got dispatched to another call. Nothing big, but by this time it was raining like crazy. I looked like a drowned rat by the time we got to the ER.

It was an interesting night, to say the least.

I found out the next morning that a tree in my backyard got struck by lightning. It is a huge willow tree, and the branch is literally split to the core. It will definitely take out my fence if it falls.

Going Steady

2006-09-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

It didn't seem like we ran very many calls today. When I finally counted them up in the evening we had already done six. We were steady all day, but we made it back to quarters several times throughout the day.

We did several psych transports. A call for back pain at a nursing home. The lady seemed completely fine. She was; we took her back to the nursing home with a perfect bill of health several hours later.

We had a lady with an allergic reaction from a cleaning solvent. She wasn't wearing gloves and she got a rash on her hands and said that she had hives on her face. They were gone by the time we got there, but she said her face felt tight and she was itchy. The miracle drug Bendryl cured that. Another save...

We took a 15 year old girl that was a cutter to the psych facility.

No really good call. Just more of the same.

Nursing Supervisor

2006-09-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

Today was way too long. We ran all day...and all night. I feel like I have the flu. I just need a few hours of sleep.

Only one truly memorable call for the shift. I am blanking on most everything right now. We were called to a nursing home for a fall-patient still on the floor. We got on scene and a lady met us at the door. She said she was the "nursing supervisor," and starting giving us report. She said that our patient fell and probably has a broken shoulder. We asked her if the fall was witnessed. She said, "I am speaking now. When I am done telling you the story-then you ask questions." I just looked at my partner and rolled my eyes. So, the nurse finishes her little speech and still hasn't answered us. So we ask again-several times actually, but we never got an answer. Then we asked how she fell. She didn't answer. So we expanded a bit, asking if she slipped or tripped, etc. The nurse said, "When you're 96 years old, you just fall!" Okay...

We got to the patient and she was still on the floor, propped up with pillows and had a sling on her arm. She said her arm hurt, but other than that she was fine. She looked like she was in a lot of pain. She also had a huge knot on her head. We did our workup, got a c-collar on her, put her on a backboard, and did our vitals. She was writhing in pain-her shoulder was obviously deformed.

Because we never got a straight answer from the nurse as to whether it was witnessed or not, we did an ALS workup including an IV. (We also needed the IV for pain meds.) Anyways, when I took her blood pressure it was 206/126. We got the IV, and the woman yelled out in pain. The nursing supervisor came stomping down the hall asking us what we needed an IV for, because this was "just a simple fall." We tried to explain, but she wouldn't listen and stormed right back out of the room. The RN also told us that we must call the hospital before we leave. Well, we didn't call before we left because that's not our protocol.

She was pissed. So, she was calling our company to complain instead of assisting us.

We got the lady out to the rig, did another set of vitals, gave her morphine and meds to decrease her blood pressure. She was doing alright.

We got to the hospital without a problem. Then I got a page saying we need to call operations. I called and the nurse, sure enough, called in a complaint. She said we were rude, we initiated care without her approval, that we did unnecessary treatment and that we didn't consult her before we did anything. She told the call taker that we didn't need to give her morphine IV, that we could have given it P.O., and that she really didn't need morphine anyways, she could have given her tylenol. Nice. I just told operations that we followed our pain management and hypertensive protocols, and that's that. As far as I know the complaint was dropped, but I sure don't want to run into that nurse again.

Where is Lake County?

2006-09-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

We were busy all day. Every called pulled me closer and closer to Chicago. Don't worry-we finally made it.

We were sent on a priority to a home address in Chicago. There was tons on construction, so every street that I wanted to turn on, I couldn't. Ugh. We finally made it-on a one way street with cars parked on both sides. We pretty much shut down the street. We were called for "general weakness." We got inside this apartment building and had to maneuver the cot down and around on a ramp to get onto the first floor. I cut a corner a little too close and caught it with the bottom of the stretcher. Yeah, so I broke the wall! The base board ripped off (about 1 1/2 feet of it) along with about six inches tall of the past 80 years worth of paint. Oops. I just kept walking. We tried to get on the elevator, but the cot wouldn't fit...it wouldn't fit in the freight elevator either. So, we left the cot downstairs, and carried the jump bag and monitor up with us. The apartment door was open, and we were greeted my a very surly guy in a wheelchair. He was a paraplegic, and a very crabby one might I add. I asked him what was wrong, and he said his colostomy and urostomy bags came off. Great. He said otherwise he was fine.

We took him in the wheelchair to the first floor. He was probably about 130 kg and there was no way we were going to lift him out of the chair and onto the cot. He said he "rolled" onto the wheelchair, so he said he would "roll" onto the cot. That wasn't too pleasant. I got his butt in my face, and he only got about halfway on, so we had to pull him the rest of the way up. He was soaked in urine and feces. It was dripping off his legs. And all over the cot and floor. My partner ran his wheelchair back upstairs while I got a history, etc. We got a move on out to the rig. We ran BLS-nothing I can do but get him to the ER so they can put his colostomy back in.

It started to pour rain outside. As it was, I was stuck in the back of a tiny little rig with a smelly man that was covered in urine and feces. Now I can't run with the windows open because we will probably drown. I called report, and turned on the exhaust fan. I was pretty much sucking the wall to get any fresh air I could out of that little hole. Disgusting, I know. Then the rig started leaking again. Sheets of water were falling into the back through the weather stripping-soaking out jump bag. To make things even better, the entire ER bay was full, so we had to unload the patient outside and take him in. I looked like a sewer rat by the time we were done. Yuck.

We did several psych calls, a call for altered mental status, and a call for a guy with a 104 fever. I got off an hour and a half late. I think I only did two calls in Lake county. The rest were south.

Psyched

2006-09-06T23:58:00.000-07:00

A day full of psychs. For almost the entire day, I just bounced from one hospital to the same psych facility over and over again. We joked that we were the underground railroad for psychs-only we had to take the normal streets.

We took one to Chicago pretty late in the day. She was laughing most of the time and things such as the glove box and the tape on the cabinets.

On the way back from Chicago we acted like complete idiots. We searched, and found, the wierdest radio station and blasted it-with the windows open. Then, when we would pass either a) a car with their windows open, b) a large crowd of people, or c) a semi-truck, we would slow down and start dancing like complete idiots. Think: rave dancers with glow sticks, someone having a seizure, and disco dancing all in one. It was hysterical. By the time we got close to the highway we were playing it over the PA and naming our dance moves, such as "dying octopus" "crazed orangutan" "drowning fish" and "rabid donkey." It was way too funny. The best was on the highway because we would catch up to a truck, slow down so that we were even with their cab, count to 3 and start dancing. A couple of them were laughing hysterically and then got on their CB radios.

We got back up north and were immediately dispatched to another psych for the underground railroad. I recommended that we just rent a bus and take them all at once, but we couldn't figure out how to secure the restraints properly to the bus seats. Yeah.

We got into the ER and started paperwork. I checked on the patient and let him know I would be right back-we just had to grab the rest of the paperwork. As I was leaving the room I thought I heard something like a duck quacking. I ignored it and started getting everything together. We got him on the cot and out to the rig. While we were pulling out of the bay I heard it again. It was definitely a quack. He continued quacking for the entire trip. By the time we were halfway to the hospital we were playing a game I like to call "animal sounds." He would quack, I would bark, he'd quack again, I would moo, or meow, or make any other sound I could think of. He was having a blast, although he wouldn't make any other noises but the quacking. It was fun just the same.

We were called for a chest pain. We went enroute to the facility our dispatch told us over the nextel. It was about 0300. I didn't bother to look at the pager. We were about 4 blocks away and I look at the pager to see what room number we were going to and the facility name was different. They both start with the same letter. I was like, oh shit! Yeah, so I turned around and headed towards the other one, which is about 2 blocks from our quarters versus the three miles I had just driven. Just as I was making a u turn dispatch keyed us up and told us that we were going the wrong way and that we could disregard. The other shift rig was given the call first, disregarded from it when we got it, and saw us going south instead of east. They got the call. Oops. We went to the facility anyways and helped them out. The lady was fine. She has chronic angina. Like, daily. Oh well.

A very long day, although interesting, I am pooped. I didn't use any ALS skills, but I did have fun dancing, playing animal sounds and going the wrong way on a priority :)

Chocolate

2006-09-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

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.

Ladder Fight

2006-09-03T05:45:00.000-07:00

I have been really busy recently. Work is keeping my social life to a minimum, as usual, and school just started again on the 24th of August. I am taking five classes, just to make sure I have no free time :).

Again, I have been having trouble sleeping more than 2 hours at a time, so consequently, I end up doing all of my chores half asleep. Last shift was no exception.

I was out in the bay checking out all the rigs. I had already checked out the ambulances, the command vehicle, the brush truck and the engines. I only had one engine to go and I would be finished. I walked around the back of the older engine, and my typical sleep-walking self wasn't paying any attention. I walked straight into the ladder hanging off the side (and protruding about 2 1/2 feet off the back of the engine). I was seeing spots for about a minute afterwards. I cracked myself up because the first thing I did wasn't to curse or check for blood; I looked around to make sure nobody saw me make a fool of myself. I had a nice lump on my head (thankfully concealed by hair) and a bit of a red forehead for an hour or so, but I was okay. Thank God, because both of the guys I was working with were into their own little projects. They probably wouldn't have found me until we got a call.

A few brain cells lighter, and I am still pushing through the days. More work lies ahead. I have two days off this month.

Tequila

2006-08-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

Did an unresponsive with a probable subdural and a fall with leg pain...

Then a couple of ALS calls for lets see...fever, fever, ALS request but no ALS skills....yeah.

I actually got away without doing any psychs today, which is extremely unusual.

We ran most of the day. Mostly south of my area.

Our last call was for chest pain. It was at an acute care clinic (that really isn't even open anymore) for a 40-something guy with chest pain. He actually looked like he was in pain. Once we got him in the rig he said, "Good." He didn't speak much English, but we had just given him a nitro, so I assume it worked. He actually started talking in broken English on the way to the hospital. He was laughing a lot, and then he kept saying, "No more tequila, no more margaritas for me." In his Spanish accent. It was pretty funny. We were all laughing by the time we were walking into the ER. He was quite funny, in that drunk-disruptive kind of way. At least he was a happy drunk. The staff at the ER even got a kick out of him.

Good times.

Shocked

2006-08-16T21:04:00.000-07:00

First call of the day was for a 35 y/o man that got electrocuted. We were called to an occupational health clinic to pick him up. The guy said he was working and hit a live wire that was hooked up to a transformer. The wire carries 100,000 volts of electricity. His partner unplugged his hedge trimmer, which he couldn't let go of because of the electricity. He goes to his boss and tells him what happens. His boss tells him to drive himself up to occ health and take a whiz quiz. So, he does. In the mean time, he has chest pain, dizziness, pain in his arm, etc. He drove almost 25 miles to get to the clinic, sat in the clinic for over an hour before they decided to call us, and then we had to take him. He was still clammy and looked like crap when we took him. That's going to be a nice lawsuit.

We did a priority for shortness of breath, only to find out once we were on scene that they lady was not short of breath, and had no complaints. The RN said she had crackles in her lungs. They were clear and diminished at the bases. She was fine.

We did a BLS return to a nursing home s/p hip fracture.

An ALS transfer for cardiac surgery.

Another priority for hypertension and kidney stones. The lady just screamed the entire time and was actually hypotensive. Nice. By the time we got to the hospital I was screaming with her. (I was driving). I think she actually got a kick out of it.

We just got cancelled off of a chest pain that walked out of a clinic. Hopefully the night won't be too bad :)

Road Trip

2006-08-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

I finally broke down and did it. I made a road trip to Michigan to visit my best friend from high school. It was only about 215 miles; about 2 1/2 hours to get here. Not too shabby. I am having the time of my life so far. We have lots of catching up to do. I did run into a guy from AMR ambulance and they make much more here than I do in Chicago...hmph.

Lost

2006-08-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

Another day full of psychs. The only one that really sticks out in my mind was in the afternoon. We were taking her back to a nursing facility. We got to the hospital, and when I checked the room she was supposed to be in, it was empty. One of the docs asked if she could help us with something (unusual, I know) and I asked her if she knew where our patient was. She said that she saw her wandering in the halls for the past couple of hours, and she would look for her. Yeah...she found her. 2 blocks from the hospital! The cops brought her back in and we had an uneventful trip to the nursing facility. Good times.

Recovery

2006-08-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

Today was my day of recovery. Well, it should have been. I thought I would be sick, after last night, but I was actually good to go. I was a lazy bum for most of the day. I worked in the evening. Nothing too good; a 2 year old with trouble breathing and a woman with numbness in her arm.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2006-08-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday. I hung out with some friends and had dinner with my mom during the day. Then I went out clubbing with some girls from work. We had an absolute blast. You only turn 21 once you know....

Dazed and Confused

2006-07-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-03T20:28:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Greasy Spoon

2006-06-23T20:02:00.000-07:00

A few BLS calls back to back. Then a priority call for a woman with abdominal distention. She wasn't in any pain, but her belly was hard as a rock and made her look 9 months pregnant. She had a history of bowel obstructions.

A psych transfer to a state mental facility for a woman with psychosis. I've had her before. She didn't like me the first time, and she really didn't like me today. It was a long 65 mile trip.

Another BLS return.

Last call was for a 55 y/o man that was burned by hot grease. I didn't get the whole story but he was frying chicken at a restaurant. He had first and second degree burns from his chin to his belt line. His arms and hands were probably the worst. We took him to the burn center. We didn't even take him to his room (in the ICU). He went directly to the washdown where they clean and remove all the dead tissue. The weird part was that it didn't smell like burned flesh. It just smelled like grease. Yuck.

We didn't get back to quarters until almost 0500. A very long shift.

Sluggish

2006-06-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

Back at the ambulance company today. I have been terrible with keeping up with my blog. Sorry!

We haven't done too much today. All BLS calls. Nothing good. I am doing some public education tomorrow so that should be fun.

Hopefully more excitement soon!

Back from NFA

2006-06-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

I have more stuff to post, I just don't have the time right now. The academy was great. I made some really good friends, and met some really cool people. The class was awesome-as I expected, but my classmates were the best part. I had people in my class from all over the U.S. Some of us already have plans to vacation by each other. Me and a friend from Idaho are already planning a trip to Hawaii in the spring to visit two other guys from my class. Good times.

When we left it felt like summer camp all over again. Very sad. I felt like I was losing my best friends. We all plan to keep in touch though. Spring will come soon...

NFA

2006-06-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

I'm finally out at the National Fire Academy. We left yesterday around 1030 am. Yeah! We had check in as soon as we got on campus (after an hour and a half long bus ride from Baltimore/DC airport), then it was time for some fun. We had dinner, then went out drinking. A couple of us walked the mile or so to "town." Which is actually only about a mile long strip. A one stoplight town. We ended up at a hole in the wall bar, but it was a really good time.

I started class this morning. The class I am in focuses on community fire prevention. I think it is going to be a really good class. There are people from all over the U.S. here. Five people came from my department. We are all in different classes, so we only see each other for breakfast, dinner, and night time fun :). Lunch we spend with others from our class because lunch times may differ depending on what you are doing in class that day.

I have already learned a lot that I plan on bringing back to my community. It is interesting to hear about how other departments around the nation are run. I thought we were a very small department, but I learned today that we are really lucky. We may be small, but we have neighboring departments that we have mutual aid agreements with that we work with all the time. They can be to our city within five minutes or so. Some of the people I talked to said they would have to wait at least a half hour. Wow.

I have more blogs to post that are currently on paper. I just haven't had the time. I would do it now but I think I had a few too many tonight if you know what I mean. I apologize in advance for this blog because it probably makes absolutely no sense. :)

God bless and good night.

...Psycho

2006-06-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

I spent most of the day today in the city. Good times. We did a psych from up north to the city. The woman seemed okay. She was hearing voices. I got about a quarter of the way to Chicago and all hell broke loose.

I was on the highway and I heard a ruckus in the back. My partner was struggling to get the seatbelts back on our patient. I was on the highway, and I had to pull the ambulance over, turn the lights on, get out of the rig and get in back. We got her in restraints and we were back on our way. Whew. She said that the voices were telling her to get out of the ambulance.

Dispatch sent us hot to a professional building in the city for a woman having difficulty breathing. We got on scene, up to the floor, and my dispatch called us and said, "don't go on the floor!" Okay, well now that we're up here. We never found out why we were cancelled.

We got a call right after that for a five year old with a femur fracture. He supposedly tripped and fell while running at the playground. Yeah, not quite believable. We had to put him in hare traction for transport to the Children's hospital.

Another day. The countdown begins for vacation!

Flood

2006-05-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

We were rather busy today. Mostly BLS, mostly back to back. We did transfers and MRIs. Psychs too. One ALS call for low blood sugar. Our patient was babbling and quite confused. His sugar was 46. We gave him an amp of D50 and he was speaking normally within about a minute-his sugar was 133. He had a very irregular heart rate without a history too; varying from 40-90. When I took his pulse I got 48, but he was asymptomatic.

Another ALS (16 miles running hot) for abdominal pain at a clinic. The lady was fine. They had all the wrong history. They told me she had her gallbladder out 2 weeks ago-it was actually removed 2 years ago. Nice. She refused an IV, and I was in no mood to fight, so we went without one.

We were called to the psych facility to transport a patient ot the ER for an "evaluation." Neither my partner nor I could figure out why you would send a psych to the ER for an eval if they were already in the facility, but whatever. It turned out we were taking her because she had vaginal bleeding x2 weeks, was admitted from the ER yesterday, and didn't feel that it was necessary to tell them about it then. Oh well. She was taken back to the psych hospital just over an hour later.

Today was extremely hot. Polyester is not my friend. I think it got up to about 99 and it was extremely humid. It had to be 110 in some of the nursing homes. Even the toilet paper and kleenex felt damp. Yuck.

We also had some bad storms. We had severe thunderstorm warnings and flash flood warnings. They weren't lying! We were taking a psych to the hospital across town during the worst of the storm. I was doing paperwork and my patient said, "You guys sprung a leak!" Sure enough, I look up and water is coming down in sheets through the weather stripping in the rear doors. There was probably 1/2" of standing water in the rig. In the meantime, all you could see outside was water. There was about a half mile section where the water was so deep I was sure that we were going to stall. It was about 1 1/2 feet deep in the middle and 2-3 feet near the curb. Several smaller cars stalled. We were making waves.

I called my dispatcher and told him that we would need an ark-not an ambulance for any other calls. He was funny. He was like, "Why's that?" I told him that we were currently submerged in 2 feet of water and that cars were floating by. He said it was the same by him. I told him I already had my floaties and blow up giraffe on, so I was good to go. He said, "You plan on getting out of the rig?" I said, "nope- the rig is filling up with water...we sprung a leak." All he said was. "Oh...." then he was really quiet for about 30 seconds. Then he said, "well, tell your patient it is just a humidifier." My patient piped in, "tell your dispatcher that your patient can hear him." I thought it was funny. My patient was a 19 y/o kid-he thought the whole cluster was absolutely hilarious.

Transition

2006-05-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

I'm at the firehouse today. Nothing going on. We finally got our state certificates for Firefighter II today. It's finally official! Yeah! I am now allowed to go interior on fires, which I am definitely excited about. I got my "new" gear ( tan instead of black) and my new helmet. Goodbye recruit. Hello probie!

Relocating

2006-05-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of moving and my new place doesn't have wireless yet. So, I will be journaling on paper and then typing it up when I get a chance. Hopefully, I'll be back soon :)!

Aggressive

2006-05-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

Pretty slow day. Our first call wasn't until about 1300, and by the time we made it out to the ambulance they cancelled us.

We sat around some more for a few hours. Then we got a psych transfer. Nothing special. We did almost all psychs for the rest of the shift.

We did a transfer to the state mental hospital. We were told that our patient was very aggressive, was in 4-point restraints and was being sedated for the transport. Great. I poked my head into the room to see what we were getting ourselves into. He looked like a giant-massive head. He was probably 6'7 or so. He wasn't really sedated, but he wasn't yelling out either. He was cool with us for the 65 mile transport. Good times.

We did another psych to the local psych facility. A lot of depressed people recently.

Called for hypoxia-pt on a vent. Those are always fun. The only guarantee is that the patient will be massive. Since we don't carry a vent, we would be bagging the patient all the way to the hospital. The gouy was about 400 pounds, and I requested backup for both the lift assist and somebody to help me in the back. The guy's sats would drop into the 50s, but come back up with suctioning. He had just been released from the hospital on the 19th. His blood pressure was about 70/P. That was quite nice too. By the time we got to the ER I got his pressure up to 117, and his sats were 100%. I must be a miracle worker today :).

Last call was for chest pain. It was a 17 y/o girl. Her chest started hurting at 0600 when she was in the shower. We didn't take her until almost 0800. Nice. She said that it was 8/10 pain, but freaked out when we gave her aspirin and started an IV. I have a feeling that'll be the last time she has chest pain.

Held over yet again. I have to go home and finish moving all my junk to the house.

Black Cloud

2006-05-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

I am now convinced that I have a black cloud following me wherever I go. The house will definitely not be anywhere near liveable by Sunday. I had several plumbers and heating/cooling people come in and give estimates. I didn't like any of them. I don't have enough money for all this! Damn. Oh yeah, and some of the floor boards are rotten and need to be replaced.

I packed for most of the day today also. I bought paint so I could finish the one bedroom. By 1830 I was so fed up with everything that I drove to the firehouse-just to get away from the apartment (and bullshit with the guys). The cool part-it has been pouring rain all day and completely nasty. I think I must have fooled someone because on my spontaneous drive to the firehouse it rained, but once I got there it was sunny. I outran the black cloud :). It did catch up with me about 30 minutes later though. I almost won.

Packing

2006-05-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

Nothing good to write about. I have spent almost the entire day packing up my apartment. I think it's safe to say that I have accumulated a ton of crap since I moved in a year ago. Thank God I don't have much furniture or this would me a total nightmare. I have almost everything done...almost.

My house is another story. I have to be out of the apartment on Sunday. My house still doesn't have any interior walls. Or electricity. Or plumbing for that matter. I am in big trouble. Also spelled Homeless. Yeah. I'll have to pick up overtime so I have somewhere to sleep :)

Am I really still here?!

2006-05-14T18:43:00.000-07:00

I should have been off at 0500. There was no medic on the schedule so I agreed to stay. I worked until 1700. A very long day. I'm tired. And I want to spend some time with my mom on mother's day!

I took my mom out for dinner after I got off at 1700. Not too relaxing considering I had to be back to work at 2000. I'll make it up next week. I got last second tickets to Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah!

We got a call for a gas leak around midnight. I was just excited that my officer let me go. I figured that since I was the medic I wouldn't be allowed to go. But, for a change, I got to go. The smell of gas was strong, but all we could really do was shut it off. We were there for maybe an hour. That was the first call I actually got to pack up for (SCBA). Not too exciting for most-but I had a good time.

I looked at next month's schedule and I am actually scheduled for a couple nights as the firefighter (not as the medic)!!! Finally :)

Can I go home now?

2006-05-13T19:13:00.000-07:00

Long day. I was only supposed to work until 2000, but I agreed to hold over until 0500 for the sleep-in medic. Damn. We only did one call for vaginal bleeding. We were back in quarters by 1900, and I was wishing for another call by 2000. I hate slow nights. I want to do something :(.

Large Area Search

2006-05-10T22:24:00.001-07:00

We did large area search training tonight. We had about a 45 minute lecture and then practicals. It was pretty good. We used a 200 foot rope, with knots tied at 15 foot increments. The officer would be on the end (while the other end was secured to a fixed point), then the other two on the crew would have a 10 foot piece of webbing to attach to the knot and do a 180 degree search. This would reoccur at each knot until you either a) ran out of rope, or b) hit a wall. You would then follow it back to the beginning and angle it slightly so that you get another section of the room. If you found a victim, all you had to do was call it over the radio and they would send in another crew to rescue them. We did several evolutions, cleaned up, and called it a night.

I found out that I will be going to the National Fire Academy in June. Yeah! I am taking a class on community fire prevention/education. It should be fun. Hopefully it will also be informative :).

No calls today.

Labor and Delivery

2006-05-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

One call for a woman in labor. The nurse was a real treat. She wouldn't tell us anything about the patient. When I asked what was going on she responded, "well, she's obviously pregnant!" Yeah, like that's a problem. I gathered from the patient that she was 38 weeks pregnant, and thought she might be in labor. It turns out that she was having very few contractions that weren't regular. We took her directly to the labor and delivery floor, where, after checking her, the nurse said that she would be going home. Nice.

We had a shorness of breath, the usual psych patients, a guy that got stabbed in the eye, and a couple of BLS transfers. Nothing that great.

Nothing

2006-05-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

No work no play. I've been doing lots of work at the house. Nothing too good to write about. No good calls either. I'm back to work tomorrow.

Buzz

2006-05-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

I got off this morning at 0800. I headed home to get some stuff done around the apartment before I headed over to the house. I can't believe I only have 19 days left before I have to be out of my apartment. Yikes! I haven't done anything, and the house is nowhere near ready.

I didn't even get to the house until 1100. I didn't want to get too dirty because I thought I had to work at 1700. I spread some grass seed and cleaned up some stuff in the garage. I put the sprinkler out in the yard...yep. That's about it.

My backyard is getting beautiful-there are tons of flowers. The only bad thing is that when you have flowers, you get BEES!!! I am absolutely terrified of bees. I have never been stung before, and I am convinced that I am allergic. I figure since I have asthma and other allergies, there is a really good chance that I'm allergic. Thank God I only live like a block away from the fire house :).

I was standing on the deck in the back when I heard a noise so loud is sounded like a 747 was flying right at me. It was a mutant bumble bee that I swear to God had to have been as big as a bird. Exaggeration, you ask? Maybe, but either way I don't like them one bit.

People always make fun of me because I run around like a chicken with my head cut off until the bee is out of sight. But, make note: everybody else that just plays it easy (that I know of) has been stung. I have been running for almost 20 years, and I have yet to get stung. I am definitely convinced, and I will continue to run until I am unable.

I stopped by the fire house to check my mail and I noticed that I wasn't on the schedule for tonight. So, instead, I am going back to the apartment to attempt to start packing. Or, rather, to find something to do so I have an excuse not to be at the house.

Wait, Wait, Wait....and return

2006-05-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

First call was a wait and return for radiation: burn and return. Right after that we were called for another wait and return for a doctors appointment. It was a 23 year old with a lesion on his lung going to a pulmonologist. He was being tested for diving, which included a chest xray. They thought he might have TB, so he's been on isolation at the hospital for 8 days. He was telling me about his work in the military and how it is so much different from civilian life. He was cracking me up when he was talking about boot camp. He said that they teach you that you can cry for physical pain, not emotional. They also go through character building every day where their officers berate them with foolish things such as, "the bullies in high school were right-you are a loser!" etc. I thought that was pretty funny.

Anyways, other than that all we did were some transfers-one back to a nursing home and one to a psych facility. Nothing too great.

We actually got to sleep for several hours at night. Just enough that I should be able to accomplish something tomorrow.

Fire fire fire

2006-05-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

I got off at the ambulance company at 0800. No sleep all night-definitely not ready for 10 more hours at work. Oh well. I can't change it now. It's kind of wierd, but I'm almost happy to be going to work. I don't know if it is because my life is unbelievably stressful right now or what, but it seems that whenever I am off, I wish I was at work. I always think that when I'm not there they will get a good call, and of course, I don't want to miss it. It is kind of disturbing. I shouldn't want to be at work so much. Whatever.

I got to the fire house around 0820. I changed uniforms, made myself somewhat presentable and started in on my normal routine. Ambulance and engine checks first. Then I cleaned the living quarters. It's always the same; I wipe down the counters in the kitchen, clean the coffee pot and do the dishes. Then I put the stools up on the counter so I can sweep the floor in there, then the three bathrooms. Then I wash the mirrors and toilets, and emty all the indoor garbages. Then I sweep the hallways. Then I vacuum the day room, bunks, offices, and rugs. I mop after that so that I don't go over my clean floors with the vacuum. I do the kitchen, bathrooms, and gradually work my way out to the bay. Usually by the time I am done with all that (if I don't have any calls) it is about 1130. Just in time to order lunch.

Today we actually got to eat lunch without being interrupted-well almost. I was just finishing when the tones dropped. There were so many different radios and pagers going off (because we were all sitting together) that nobody could actually hear anything. I headed out to the bay to hear it better. "...fire department, you have an odor investigation...possible smoke showing."

I didn't think I would get to go, because for quite a while I have been told to hang back so that we have a medic in case we get a rescue call. My captain looked at me and said, "you're going." I was shocked, but very excited. Anthing to get out of the station, and possibly get a fire. I got my gear on and got on the engine. We headed towards the address. Dispatch came back over the radio and gave us an updated report; "...heavy smoke showing...confirmed structure fire in a detached garage." They toned out again for a quad, which brings in engines from four other departments. We pulled up and there wasn't too much smoke, but the garage was white, and you could see soot all over the front and smoke coming out of the eaves and the garage door. Since I am so new, I was told to do exterior. So, I pulled the preconnect and dragged it to the garage door. I flaked it out so that it didn't resemble spaghetti, and headed back to the engine to help the engineer. He already had the soft suction out, so I tagged the hydrant, hooked up the valve on one side, the soft suction on the other. The hydrant was really tight-whether it was just rusty or what I don't know. I felt like such a weakling-I was struggling to open the hydrant. I looked like I should have been on an episode of the three stooges. It was too tight to get it open without using all my body weight, so I was actually going around the hydrant with the wrench, around and around until it wouldn't go any further. Water was still leaking out of the bottom of the hydrant, which means the valve isn't completely open, but the engineer couldn't get it any farther either. Ha. Either way, I was excited to finally do something.

The interior crew knocked the fire down pretty quick. They let me come inside to see what was going on and to cool off some of the stuff in the garage that was still smoking. Good times. We had to wait for an investigator, so once it was cooled down I helped drag hose back to the engine and then got up on top to reload it. We were probably there for about an hour or so. A good use of the afternoon.

I felt sick for the rest of the day. Of course, as usual, we gorged out at lunch-on Chinese. I was stuffed, didn't get my 20 minute nap, and felt like the food was permanently lodged in my throat. I still felt sick by the time I got home. Note to self-eat sparingly while on shift unless I want to vomit on a crew member or a patient :).

After cleaning up the engine, I returned to my normal schedule. I washed both ambulances and the engine we used on the fire. Normally I was both engines, but I was cut short by about an hour, and it wasn't too dirty. Anyways, I did that, then pulled the cots out of both ambulances, disinfected everything, including up front, bleached the floors, let them dry, and reloaded them.

Then I did some training-working on ropes and knots with my partner. We were just putting everything away (it was about 1645) and the tones dropped-15 minutes before my off time. We were called for shortness of breath. The best part-I actually knew where we were going without looking at a map, and it wasn't a main road. It's getting better. We got back to the station around 1730, I did my report on firehouse and headed home by 1800.

Wild Goose Chase

2006-04-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

Another busy day. BLS everything.

I did have a rather good call. Not one that took any skill-but it was very amusing.

We were called for a "psych eval" coming out of a nursing home/psych facility going to a hospital in downtown Chicago. I grabbed the clipboard and headed towards the nurses station. All was quiet. The nurse handed me the papers and said, "oh, he won't be a problem...he wants to go." Okay, that's good. The nurse pointed out a man in the hallway and said, "that's your patient." Okay. She yelled to him and he headed towards his room. She told him that we were here for him. That was all he needed to hear.

The yelling started..."I ain't going to no damn hospital! It's overcrowded....they'll have me sleeping in the hallway." He went to his room and the nurse got a few staff members and we headed towards the room. He was screaming and cursing. He was completely uncooperative-swinging at the nurses, and trying to spit in our faces. It took five guys to get him on the stretcher so that we could put four point restraints on him and get going. He yelled and cursed the whole way to the ambulance.

While we were walking down the hallway, I started to hear someone clapping. Then I distinctly heard that it was more than one person. There were at least 10 people who came out of their rooms with all the ruckus and started clapping when they realized he was leaving. By the time we got to the front door of the facility practically the entire place was cheering and clapping, yelling, "don't come back bozo!" and "have fun in Chicago!" I had never seen anything like it. It felt like I was in a creepy movie.

We got out to the rig and he calmed down a bit. He was still ranting and raving about not wanting to go to an overcrowded hospital and have to "sleep in the halls." Then he started yelling again, "this is all a stupid wild goose chase....just turn around....all my stuff is back there!" At about 30 second intervals he would yell at me (I was driving) to turn around and end this "Wild goose chase."

I could hear him cursing about the staff while I was driving. He said that the nurses are always drunk-drinking special Russian vodka, and that the place is run by communists. He got quiet for a couple minutes. I later learned that he was just muttering to himself the whole time. Then he yelled out, "You better not be taking me on a helicopter to Alaska!" My partner assured him that we wouldn't.

We got into the ER (38 miles later) and stood in the psych triage area. He was being rather loud again. Everybody was staring; I was just amused. Then he screamed, "I am going to f***ing wet myself!" Not even two seconds later, a Chicago firefighter walked out a patients room, walked up by the nurse that was triaging us, and asked, "where's the nearest bathroom?" The guy let out this huge sigh/growl. Both my parter and I were laughing so hard that we had tears streaming down our faces. The firefighter just looked at us like we were crazy. How ironic.

Then the guy continued on with his wild goose chase. We walked down the hall to the second set of registration cubicles to finish up the process, then headed for the elevators. The doors had just closed when the guy stated, "this sucks donkey dick!" I tried to cover my laugh because I was standing right in front of him, so I said, "I've never heard that one before." I think he thought it was really funny because then he said, "this sucks elephant dick!" We got him onto the psych floor, and out of restraints before he peed on my cot.

That call made the whole shift worth working.

Roaches

2006-04-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

A bunch of BLS calls today. Nothing that great. Transfers, doctor appointments, surgeries, psychs. All the good stuff. I don't think I used any section of my brain whatsoever today. I went to a hospital on the west side of Chicago. I felt like I definitely needed a bullet proof vest. We had a couple hours of rest before they started kicking our asses again.

At 0300 we got a call to a home address for a patient going to Chicago for a surgery. I saw the address and realized that we were going to the ghetto. The caller gave the wrong road-they only spoke Spanish and minimal broken English. Oh well. We ended up finding the place, only it was much deeper into the southside than the address we thought we were going to. The last time I was in this area I was on a call for a multiple GSW-gang fight. I was hoping this would turn out okay.

I had to go the wrong way on a one way street to get to the building. It looked pretty gross from the outside, but we were in for a real treat. It took about 10 minutes of standing in the freezing cold for someone to come open the door after repeated beatings on it. I looked inside and realized just how bad it really was. The flooring was coming up, the paint was peeling off the walls, and the apartment numbers were written in spraypaint on the doors. The guy lead us up a creaking staircase with rotten wood that would sink with every step and threaten to swallow you up, to the second floor. He led us inside, past at least 8 sleeping people on an assortment of mattresses and couches to a bedroom where a man in his late 30s was lying in bed. Nobody spoke English. I introduced myself to our patient and out of the corner of my eye saw something move. I looked up and there were several cockroaches running up the wall. Eeew. I made note of it, but nobody else seemed to notice at all. My partner continued to speak with the family, and I walked back out to the rig to get the stair chair. I made my way back up the stairs, carefully avoiding one particular step that almost threw me down the staircase on the way down. It isn't completely attached and lurches forward when stepped on. I set the stair chair inside the apartment and put it together, making sure to tape the latch at the bottom for extra security. While I was doing that, a cockroach scuttled right past my knee. I was starting to feel sick.

We got the guy moved over to the stair chair, but there was only one problem. His legs were paralyzed, so he couldn't bend them properly, and his butt wouldn't sit on the chair enough. We made the decision to just go with it, so we strapped him in and made our way out of the room. Mind you, this whole time, the rooms have been rather dark because everyone was sleeping. One of the people in the apartment flipped on the light for us as we were leaving and no less than 20 cockroaches ran for cover into surrounding boxes, under couches, and no doubt, onto the people sleeping on those items.

It took us a few minutes to maneuver this man down the stairs because his legs were practically around my partners neck (he couldn't bend them). Then we transferred him onto the cot, into the ambulance, and we were on our way. The rest of the trip was, thankfully, uneventful.

We got a call almost as soon as we got back. A psych. No biggie. Ha, that's a good one. Our patient was a 15 year old kid that had to have weighed no less than 350 pounds. Great. I called dispatch for a lift assist, and was told that there was nobody. I made the kid walk to the ambulance. He was cool and was going for "depression" so I wasn't too worried. Before we even got to the psych facility, our pager and computer went off again with another page for a wait and return ultrasound. At this time I had already been held over for 30 minutes. We dropped off the psych and picked up our next patient. By this time it was almost 0900. My partner was supposed to pick her baby up at 0900, but our relief (that should have been there at 0800) was sent on an emergency call, and we never even saw them. We ended up getting a BLS crew to relieve us around 1000. Now I have bills to pay and a house to clean before I go back to work at 1700 at the firehouse.

Trapped

2006-04-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

I accomplished next to nothing today. I visited with my grandparents in the morning. They came down from northern Wisconsin to visit. I was supposed to work on the house today, but I got so frustrated with everything that I thought for sure I would crack up if I even saw the house. So, instead I was a lazy slug for most of the day. They other several hours of the day I was in my car. Trapped. This, of course, has been the other 25% of my stress. My car is less than a year old, and has given me nothing but trouble in the last couple of weeks. It has gotten progressively worse-now to the point that I don't even try. The ignition has been sticking, forcing me to sit in my car until I can convince it to spit out my key. Damn it. The car has a mind of its own, and for some reason it doesn't realize that it is in park. The key sticks in the half-on position and holds the key, acting like it does if you try to stop the car when it is still in drive. So, needless to say, every time I tried to get out of my car, I would have to sit and wait 15 minutes (or more) until the car would give up its fight and hand over the keys. I think this is the most quality time I have spent with my car-ever. I was probably in the car, not including driving, for a couple hours cursing like a sailor. Someday, maybe I will have time to take it back to the dealership to get fixed before the warranty runs out.

I was ready to take a sledge hammer to the car when I finally got home, so instead of giving the car what it wanted, and waiting for it to give in, I simply took the remote off the keychain, threw a jacket over the steering wheel, and locked the keys in the car. Problem solved (unless, of course, somebody tries to break into my car).

Around 1900, when I was just starting to relax, I got a phone call from the fire house asking me to come in for shift. There was no medic on duty on the schedule, and nobody that was on the schedule (as firefighter, EMT, engineer, and officer) was a medic. I gave in. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I refused to come in, there was no medic, and something terrible happened. I dragged myself out of bed, into the shower, and to the firehouse. No calls. Absolutely nothing. I checked out the rig, watched part of a movie with the guys and hit the sack.

Diamonds

2006-04-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

First call was from the ER directly to the cath lab at another hospital. She had a history of an angioplasty a few years back and also had a history of diabetes and hypertension. She was 28 years old. I was shocked when I realized how young she was. I noticed while we were chatting on the way to the hospital that there was something in her two front teeth. I looked a little closer and they were diamonds. I asked her and she said that she had her dentist implant them. I thought it was pretty wierd (for anybody to do that). She is so concerned with the appearance of her "grille," and yet she had B.O. and leg hair that was at least 1/4" long. Yuck. I don't think I will ever understand.

After that we took a lady to a women's center for premature labor.

We cleared up, just north of Chicago and grabbed some lunch. We were on our way back to the highway and dispatch keyed us up. They said they needed us on a priority to Lindenhurst, IL, which is at least 45 minutes to an hour away. So, needless to say, I flipped on my blink blinks, and turned on my woo woos and headed off. Of course we hit traffic, and construction. I had to take side roads to get to a different entrance, which was also in a construction zone. It took several minutes, but we made it onto the highway. There was a BLS crew on scene that brought the patient in the the facility. It was a wait and return MRI appointment. During the scan the patient started to have chest pain, so they wanted ALS to transport. Dispatch beeped us again and said that the crew wanted to call 911. We told them to go ahead-we were still about 15 minutes away. The called 911, but we were told to continue in; 911 would initiate care and we would transport. Of course, we got stuck in traffic again, and we were disregarded from the call about 5 minutes later. We were about 7 minutes from the scene. 911 was going to transport. I made it from just north of Chicago to southern Waukegan in 15 minutes. Scary.

We had a slow-ish evening. We still ran calls, but we weren't running like we usually do.

We got a call at 0100 for a transport to Milwaukee-a kidney transplant patient who was having complications and his body was starting to reject theorgan. The ER was super busy and it took a while to get the paperwork from the RN. We left around 0200. By the time we got to the hospital in Milwaukee it was just after 0300. There were two city ambulances in front of me running hot. We barely fit in the garage because they were so busy (it's a Level I trauma center). By the time we got back out, security had moved our rig to the front of the garage and six more rigs were inside. We had to move the rig outside to clean it because two more ambulances were waiting outside to get into the garage. Flight for Life was also there. I never got the story, but there must have been a bad accident.

We were home free by 0330 to head back south. One problem. The ramp we always use to get onto the highway was closed. I'm not too familiar with the area, we don't have Wisconsin maps in our rigs, and my dispatcher didn't know where to even look to find another way to get on the highway. We ended up pulling over at the police department and asking an officer. We just had to go up a few streets and over-there was another entrance. Whew. It started storming on the way home, but since I wasn't driving, I was more concerned with catching a few Zs. I think it was just after 0430 when we got back to quarters. A very long night.

At 0715 we got a call for a psych. We took her over without a problem. She overdosed on several different types of pills. The report from 911 said that when they got on scene she was foaming at the mouth. Nice.

By the time I got done with paperwork it was 0845. Late again.

Held over yet again

2006-04-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

Another day at the firehouse. I started at 1200. We did house chores and then headed out to the bay. We proceeded to empty all three engines of all the hand tools (pike poles, halligans, axes, pry bars, sledges, etc), clean all of them with steel wool and cleaner, towel them off, then sand all the wooden handles and treat them with linseed oil. I'm glad I don't have to do that every day. I almost took my partner out with one of the pike poles because I thought it was a short one, but it was actually about three feet longer than I thought :). Oops.

We decided in the afternoon to do some district familiarization in the newer subdivisions and repeater roads. We were out until almost 1600.

I should have been off at 1700. I was just waiting for my relief when somebody asked who was covering for one of the guys that was on overtime at his full time department. Nobody was. Since I was the medic and the other guy coming on was only an EMT, I had to stay. Not a huge deal I guess, three more hours for me. We didn't run any calls. The only thing I missed out on was watching TV. Oh well.

I'm back at home now until 0800 tomorrow. Just enough time to do some laundry, straighten things up and try to get some sleep. My schedule is killing me recently. I have to work over time to pay for this stupid house. I had over a 60 hour stretch going until last night at 2000. I work a 24 tomorrow and I am off until Sunday night. Woohoo! I will be working at the house the whole weekend trying to get it in liveable condition. Wish me luck.

Pre-Connects

2006-04-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

I worked at the firehouse today from 0800-1200 and then 1700-2000. No calls. We did some training around 1830. We practiced pulling pre-connects and having the newer engineers see if they can get water before the tank runs out with two lines running. Good times.

I am exhausted. I didn't do any calls, but I was cleaning all day. I'm ready to go to bed.

Psych City

2006-04-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

First call was for a possible stroke. The lady had slurred speech and facial droop. The nurse said the speech was normal for her, but the drooping was new. The son noticed it yesterday. That's always nice. Other than that she checked out okay. We went priority to the ER on a "stroke alert."

We did mostly BLS bounces during the day. My youngest patient was 92 years old until the late evening.

One guy was a real cutie. He was in for a syncope. We took him out of the ER. He refused to be admitted because he said if he didn't get home his wife would die. So, eventually they let him return. He passed out because he has 100% blockage of one carotid artery and 25% of the other. He said he didn't want to get it fixed because he wants to go when his wife does. We got him back to his room at the nursing home, and as we walked in his wife's face got red and she teared up. She was really glad to have him back. I brought the cot into the hallway and my parter did paperwork as I remade the cot. I glanced back in the room and I saw the man walk over to his wife's bed, sit down and give her a big smooch. They had been married for 71 years.

Shift was downhill from there. All hell started to break loose in the evening.

We did psych after psych after psych. We didn't even wait for the hospital to call. We just headed back for the next one as soon as we cleared from the call. They kept us up almost all night. I think I just started to fall alseep around 0630. At 0715 they beeped us and told us we had one coming out. I figured it was just another bounce. Nope. It was going about 40 miles away. Thank God we convinced an oncoming crew to take the call because I had to work at 0800 at the firehouse. Whew. That could have been bad.

Easter Sunday

2006-04-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

I got off at 0800. Ready to have a day off. I completely forgot that it is Easter today. I got home and called the church to get the times for the services. We decided on the 1200. I ran some errands in the morning and went to church. It was a really good service. I went out to brunch with my mom afterwards.

I worked at the firehouse from 1700-2000. A very boring night. We took out the trash and did dishes, then sat and waited for the tones to drop, which never did. I was hoping for a call to pass the time. Oh well. Now it is time for relaxation, seeing as I have to be back to the firehouse for a 24 tomorrow, then a 24 at the ambulance company on Tuesday. I am not off again until Wednesday at 0800 (hopefully).

Tardiness

2006-04-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

I took the Hazmat test this morning. I think I actually did pretty well (third time's a charm :)). I got to work around 1030 at the ambulance company. I had one of the crew members from yesterday hang over until I got there. They hadn't done anything yet.

I wasn't working with my normal partner. She was at a baby shower until 1600. I fell asleep by 1100. I didn't wake up until 1600 when she got to the station. Yep. No calls. We went to our other headquarters to get our stuff set up. We were only there for about an hour or so. We got a call-a return to a nursing home. Nothing special.

We got back to quarters for a few hours and then got another call. Another return from the same ER to a nursing home. The guy was really tall and said he wore a size 18 shoe. He had to bend his knees so that we could close the ambulance doors. A couple minutes before we pulled into the nursing home, dispatch keyed us up to let us know that we had another call holding. It was for a psych that tried to escape the facility needing to be re-evaluated and medically cleared to return.

He was cooperative. We took him to the same ER that we had been taking people out of. All that was left was a bed in the hallway. They were really busy. There was a shooting-2 people shot. One was just shot in the foot, the other had one in the chest and one in the neck. I stood by the nurses station to hear the doctor give report report to the trauma hospital. He said that the patient had a hemo and pneumothorax, a bullet near the spine, and a bullet in his neck that may have lodged in the esophagus. The the doctor proceeds to say that that patient is "stable." I was hoping we wouldn't get the transport. He sure didn't sound stable to me. In the end the doctor at the trauma hospital requested flight for life and we got to go back to quarters.

Right before we left the ER I heard the secretary on the phone. The patient's mother (I don't know which GSW victim it was) called to inform the ER that someone called and left a message on her answering machine that they were coming back to "finish him off" at the hospital. That was my cue to get as far away as possible.

That was our last call. We got back to quarters and slept until 0730. The only thing that woke us up was our stupid pager misfiring. We get news, weather, etc. on the pager on a regular basis. It is sent to a separate inbox that doesn't set off the pager-we can just view it at our convenience. This pager was going pyscho. All these messages were being sent to our regular inbox that sets the pager off. So, starting around 0100 the pager was going off about every half hour with stupid news and entertainment. Grrr. Normally I would just turn it off, but some of the dispatchers choose to page us out and then call like 20 minutes later just to "make sure" that we are en route. Never a good thing, because that makes us late for the call. They limit our response time. It actually gets quite ridiculous.

For example:

2000: They page us for a transport out of the ER.

2008: We are finally en route after using the restroom, etc.

2009: Dispatch rips me a new one because we took too long

2010: We should be on scene by now, but instead I am still waiting in traffic a block away from where I started.

2012: Dispatch calls for our location, and to inform us that we are late.

2015: I hit the on scene button so that we aren't too late ( I am going 70 mph in a 35 to try to be a little less late, and so dispatch has less time to track me and realize I am, in fact, not on scene)

2017: I pull up to the hospital after feeling like I was in a high speed chase, not anywhere near on time

2019: I make it into the hospital and find the nurse to get the paperwork. The nurse isn't ready. She says she wasn't expecting us for at least 15 minutes. I wait.

2045: Still waiting. The nurse is copying the chart

2046: Dispatch calls to ask why we haven't left yet

2055: The patient is ready and I have the paperwork

2100: We're out the door

2103: We get a page informing us of our tardiness

2104: We are told that we have another call holding

2105: They put us en route to the second call before we even arrive at the nursing home to drop off the current patient.

2115: I turn over care to the nursing home staff and get my paperwork.

2116: Dispatch is calling again to inform me, that I am, in fact, late to another call, when I haven't even had a chance to clean my cot and get back in service.

Someday, a little lightbulb will go off in someone's head that this system ISN'T WORKING!!!

Anyways:
We get up and get out to the rig, which usually takes about 7 minutes unless it is an emergency call and we run outside. We are kept locked away on the second floor of an abandoned hospital and it takes a little while to wind down and around the halls and outside to the parking lot. Anyways, they give the hospital a 20 minute eta. We are supposed to be on scene 10 minutes before the given eta, so the page comes in at 2000, which means the pickup should be at 2020. We should be on scene, according to these times at 2010. With the 7 minutes to get outside, that gives us three minutes to get across town. Yeah, like that's going to happen.

Another thing that gets us completely screwed is that, depending on the dispatcher, our times will be different. Some dispatchers put us en route as soon as we tell them that we got the page. Others will wait until we get out to the rig and hit the computer screen in the rig. That is where they get us, because if we don't run down and hit that button and go en route, we are late. We are allotted only 5-7 minutes to get to the rig. This isn't quite enough if you have to use the restroom or button up your shirt (except in emergencies). Then they get you again because, even with the 7 minutes, and we are left with 3 minutes to get to the hospital, we get in trouble for being late. You get written up if you take more than 7 minutes to go en route on the computer, and no matter what we are late to the call at the ER because it is 2.9 miles to the hospital and there is always tons of traffic. Whatever, I can't ever win.

I figure maybe they will realize that it takes more than 3 minutes to get across town. Until they equip my rig with something that can make me fly across town, they will just have to deal with us being late.

Stand By

2006-04-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

I worked on the house all day. There are no longer any interior walls except for the bathroom. Thank God I am finally getting somewhere! I am actually off all day today. It is an absolute miracle!

I didn't leave the house until around 1930. I got to the next town south and the tones dropped. (That figures) It was mutual aid to a town about 10 miles south for a grass fire at a state park. I saw the brush truck go by and an engine from a department in Wisconsin. Cool. I drove home, dropped off some stuff, picked up my uniform just in case, and headed back up north. I was on standby at the station for several hours.

I figured I would spend the time studying. My captain was also there and asked if I could hang out for a while because there wasn't a medic there (she was on the brush truck). I figured what the hell, I could use a good call. Yeah...we sat there for several hours studying and there weren't any calls. Oh well, at least I studied. I have my Hazmat test tomorrow morning.

Time for some good ol' sleep.

The Easter Bunny is real!

2006-04-12T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today was a rather odd day. It was way too slow for a Wednesday. We did a psych transfer in the morning. It was for the same lady that I took yesterday with the fire department. I didn't even recognize her. Yesterday she was slumped over and had snot running all over the place. Today she was yelling and cursing, in 4-point restraints. She was so combative that the hospital's security actually followed behind us just in case she got out of hand. Then we could pull over and he could help. Yeah. She was okay for the ride over. The first thing I recognized was her name on the face sheet. She told me the last name yesterday, but the police officer told me that it wasn't her real name and gave me a different one. Her face sheet had her "fake" last name on it. The second thing I noticed was her clothes. They were in a belongings bag, and they were the same ones she was wearing yesterday when I picked her up. What a small world :)

Our second call didn't come until mid-afternoon. We got called for "abnormal labs." It wasn't even given as an emergency call, just a call going to the ER. We went non-priority to the nursing home. My partner spoke with the nurse as I got vitals, etc. The guy's blood pressure was only 87/50. I tried it on the other arm: 87/50...it was the same manually. Great. We did the entire ALS workup and headed towards the hospital. I was driving. By the time we got to the hospital, our patient's blood pressure was down to 70 systolic. A wierd call. Good thing they dispatched the call ALS.

Around 1900 we met five other crews at an ice cream place. We all parked in the back, turned all our radios to the same station and had a little get-together. You know how it works-it didn't last too long before a crew got a call...then another...then another. Eventually only the two shift crews were left, so we broke up the party. Good times though. It was still 70 degrees and sunny outside.

Back to quarters again for a few hours before we got another psych. This one came from a government facility. Nothing special. Just a routine transport.

Our final call didn't come in until 0720. I was supposed to get off at 0800. Damn it. This always happens. It was for a psych. We were late on the call as it was. Traffic was backed up something awful. I should have expected it because we were going south in the prime time for rush hour. Anyways, we got to the hospital about 10 minutes late. Another patient in restraints. What a way to end the shift. I really didn't read into the paperwork in the ER. I just made sure that we had the petition/certificate, etc. and was ready to go. The nurse handed me a belongings bag while my partner was getting the cot ready out in the hallway. Inside the bag was something covered in polka-dots and something white and furry. I looked at my partner and said, "what the hell is this? A bunny suit?" We both laughed and went into the room to get our patient moved over. She was relatively calm, so we decided not to put on the 4-points unless she got out of hand. We got the lady out to the rig, and as I was climbing in she asked, "can't we drive with the doors open?" I just shrugged it off. She would fade in and out. One minute she would be talking like a normal person, the next she would be talking to absolutely nobody. About two minutes later (and about every two minutes throughout the transport) she asked me, "Do you have my bunny suit?" I nearly choked when she said that. I just replied, "yes." The she asked me for her purse. I told her I couldn't let her have that until we got to the hospital. I had to hide my snickering because all I could think of was, "what does she carry in there? Carrots? I finally read her history after I realized that it was, in fact, a bunny outfit. The paperwork stated that she was wandering around a mall in the bunny suit muttering to herself. The police were notified, who then called rescue. I've got to give her some credit though. At least she was in the bunny suit and not dressed as Santa or something. She's got the right holiday in mind. When we got to the psych hospital she recognized one of the staff members from her previous stay. She told him, "I told you I would wear my bunny suit next time, but they wouldn't let me put it back on...I told you I'd show it to you, only I didn't think it would be this soon..." Nice. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when she was brought in the ER. All I can envision are the scenes from the tv show ER around halloween where all sorts of crazy things were being wheeled in. Definitely worth being held over until 0930 for.

Realization

2006-04-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

I realized today that I got a shitty house. I mean I knew it needed work, but come on! This sucks. Just about everything that could be wrong with a house is wrong with this one. I was thinking about just donating it to the fire house so we can do live burn training. Ha. That would be the day.

It seems like I will never get the place into good enough shape to actually live in it. Damn it. The only good thing I found out after tearing apart the ceiling is that my inner walls aren't load bearing. Only the outside walls are. So, basically, I am free to move any walls I want inside.

I would give all the details, but I am too upset right now. I might just break something.

Back up needed

2006-04-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

Only two memorable calls today.

One was a basic return to a nursing home. The nurse in the ER left as soon as we got there-it was the end of her shift. We were told the name of the nursing home and given the address. Good enough for me-it matched what our dispatcher told us. We got to the nursing home and got inside. The staff said that it wasn't their patient. Great. We had to call dispatch and get things squared away. There is only other nursing home on the same road, and I figured they just gave us the wrong address. Sure enough, she belonged at the other nursing home. Nice.

We got dispatched for another call right after that for a psych at a group home. Our pager said, "possible restraints...aggressive." This should be fun. We got on scene and spoke with the caregiver. He said that this child (13 years old) broke the door off the porch, was breaking things around the house, and was threatening and hurting other children and staff. Our patient was sound asleep in bed. He didn't know he was going to the hospital. The caregiver expected me to wake the kid up, tell him I'm taking him away, and everything would be a-okay. Not. I told the caregiver that it was his responsibility to tell the kid that he was going, and I certainly wasn't about to get into this kids face and wake him up when he had been so destructive all day. Needless to say, the child refused to cooperate and we ended up call the police. After much convincing, and threats of being tackled by several officers, he walked out to the ambulance without a fight. He was good the entire ride. When we pulled up to the hospital there were several security guards and two workers off the psych floor waiting for us. I asked how they knew we were coming and they told me that they heard us over the police scanner. Good times. He did put up a fight once we got on the floor, and ended up in the quiet room and in restraints. Never a dull moment.

Rain, rain go away

2006-04-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

I got off this morning at 0800. I had big plans for the day. I was going to work on the house-pulling ceiling and drywall. Yeah. It was pouring rain and extremely windy. A wasted day. Damn. I hate that because I don't have much time off and now I just lost a whole day. Oh well.

I worked tonight at 1700 until 2000. We did absolutely nothing. No calls. This is the first shift in a long time that I haven't run a call. I guess I have a nice relaxing evening of nothing to look forward to.

Neuroblastoma

2006-04-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

Long day. We only did six calls. It felt like 20. We did a few BLS calls during the day. We also did an ALS MRI that took forever. The kid was 18 and had overdosed on heroin. Crazy.

We had a transfer going to a Children's hospital. It sounded like a routine call. We were dispatched for epistaxis. I got the whole story at the ER. We were taking an 8 year old boy with neuroblastoma. He was bleeding from his eyes, ears, and nose. My partner was in back. I drove on priority all the way to Milwaukee-60 miles. His nose was packed and his eyes and ears had stopped bleeding before we left the ER, and he rested comfortably for most of the ride. The boy really tugged at my heart. He said he was going to me a fireman when he grew up. When we got to the hospital we had to wait for a few minutes for a clean room close to the nurses station. We stood in the hallway. While we were waiting for the room he reached up to his ear and pulled back his finger. He looked at it and there was blood. He said in a tiny voice, "I'm scared." I could have broke down right there. He was so innocent and so scared. There was absolutely nothing I could say to comfort him. It really made me feel useless.

We did one more call-a return to a home address. Nothing good. Just a crabby old man that wanted to call a taxi, but couldn't because he was a paraplegic.

There's no place like home

2006-04-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

Back at the house today. What a mess. I worked mostly in the yard. It was too nice to be stuck inside. I met some neighbors-all very nice. My next door neighbor actually brought his ride-on lawnmower over, mowed the lawn, then swept it, and then came over and fertilized it. He said he was excited that someone was finally cleaning up the place. The previous owner lived there for 8 years and never touched anything. Yeah for me.

A very long day. I almost regret buying the house. It is going to cost me a lot of money :(

Sick

2006-03-31T19:50:00.000-08:00

No good calls to write about today. We did some basic transports. One lady was really cute. She was telling me about her husband, and how life used to be. She noticed my ring and asked if I was married. I told her engaged and her face just lit up. She asked about wedding plans, whether I had my dress, etc. She told me about her wedding in 1949 and how her dress only cost $50 and her entire wedding, including the band, only cost $600. We had a good time chatting on the way to the hospital.

I have been sick all week. Today has been no different. I couldn't stand it anymore by like 1500, so I called around and found coverage. She couldn't come in until 2030, but it was coverage none-the-less. At 1930 dispatch called us and told us to head out west for a 2030 call. Great. So much for coverage. I actually threw the nextel and almost cracked the console. Oh well. We got there early and waited for our patient. He was rather crabby and I was glad that it was my turn to drive. The dialysis place we picked him up at is about 30 minutes from my station (without traffic). The nursing home is 20 miles south of that. Not cool. We ran the call. I had one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on a vomit bag. It sucked really, really bad. When I finally got home I collapsed in the bathroom. I don't remember much after that. I just remember trying to find my radial pulse and I couldn't find it. It felt like a dream. I woke up around 0600 and stumbled back to bed.

Closing

2006-03-30T20:03:00.000-08:00

I finally closed on my house today. I had tons of papers to sign and I was so ready to just run out the door. But, I did it. It is finally mine. Hopefully I don't find anything wrong with it. I was ready to get home and go back to bed. I had to call off work again. Too sick. I shouldn't have even gone to the signing, but they couldn't postpone it. Oh well. Hopefully tomorrow is better.

Barely making it

2006-03-29T13:29:00.000-08:00

I barely made it out of bed. I am thinking about setting up a cot in the bathroom. It would lessen my response time to the porcelain god. I feel like I'm dying. I am definitly not a good patient. I refuse everything. My doctor sent me for tests, etc. She tried to admit me. I refused. She said if I vomit anymore I need to go to the ER. I still haven't gone. I think my blood pressure is slowly dropping. I can't focus my eyes and I constantly feel dizzy and shaky. This is what I think of when I say "circling the drain." I think I am right by the hole. I don't think I am circling anymore. Yuck. Anything would be better than this.

Very long day

2006-03-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

I don't even remember half the calls I did today. I have been running my ass off all day. Nothing too great. One lady was funny from one of the psych places. We took her to the ER for agitation. When we were leaving another guy, who happened to be a patient, came up and kissed her. She said that was her fiance. Then another guy said, "no, I saw her first!" Nice. She had a cigarette before we left. I talked to one of the staff members while we were waiting. He has only been working there for 10 days. I've seen him at least 6 times. He knows me by name. I think he requests that I come get the patients. He used to work at a maximum security psych facility in Florida until a patient stabbed him. He decided to hang low and a more lax facility. Wow.

We ran all night. I started feeling sick in the early afternoon. I didn't eat all day. I started vomiting around 1600. Of course we got ran and I ended up running to the bathroom while my partner did the work for both of us. We got back to quarters around 0630. I had one of the oncoming crew members come early so I could get home. We did an MRI that ran late. I didn't get out of the station until after 0730. I feel like I am dying very slowly. My heart is beating really strong and I'm dizzy. Hopefully this goes away soon.

Firestarter

2006-03-25T21:18:00.000-08:00

First call was for an ALS MRI. The guy was really cool. He was chatting all the way to the ambulance. We were taking him because he had a seizure. My partner was playing music off of his ipod on the way to the MRI. The song that came on right away was the Beach Boys. The guy yelled, "turn it up!" and was jamming to the music. We listened to Stix, the Beatles, etc. all the way to his appointment. He was having the time of his life. we took him back to the hospital when he was done too. It was the same routine on the way back.

For the rest of the daytime we did mostly BLS calls. Nothing special.

Our first "real" call came in around 1900. We were called to a local nursing home for a patient with tachycardia. We got on scene, to find a man of about 40 dripping with sweat (literally) and extremely pale. The staff said he had an anxiety attack in the morning, and then began to sweat and get pale around 1600. Way to wait three hours to call EMS. We got him moving. Just about everything checked out-we couldn't find any explanation for his symptoms. Another crew took him home in the middle of the night. They said he still looked like crap when they got to him. He was still sweating and pale. Nice to know that the hospital takes care of its patients.

We did another call right after that for a patient with SOB. When we got on scene, we found our patient: a fever of 103, unresponsive, and belly breathing. The nurse said the guy was up at 2100 to get a drink out of the vending machine. She went to check on him at 2245, and this is how he was. We got him onto the cot, hooked up to the monitor, and got him downstairs. He looked pretty good on the monitor. His blood pressure was about 96 systolic. His oxygen sats were kind of low, but came up to about 95% on a NRB. I noted that his pupils were unresponsive. He also didn't have a gag reflex. I put an oral airway in, which he wasn't bothered by. I got my intubation equipment out, had the laryngoscope in, visualized the cords, and started sliding the tube in...and he started gagging. I stopped and put him back on the nonrebreather. So much for that. He didn't become any more responsive than that.

We did a transport in the middle of the night for a psych from an immediate care center to the ER. Nothing special.

We did another psych call around 0400, that proceeded to take up the remainder of my shift. The woman was quite odd. According to the nurse, the lady was found by neighbors on her front porch, dousing it with gasoline, and carrying a few knives with her. They called 911, and they got to her before her whole house was torched. There were several burn marks on the porch from earlier in the day-she tried to torch it earlier, but it wasn't burning properly. That is when she proceeded to get gasoline to do the job. The police also found several more knives on the kitchen counter, including a switchblade, and about 10 cans of lighter fluid (the kind you would use for a grill). Nice.

Around the world in 24 hours

2006-03-22T19:06:00.000-08:00

I was everywhere in northern Illinois, except for my area today. First call was for a doctors' appointment. It was going to a hospital just north of Chicago. The lady was really lethargic and having difficulty breathing. We were taking her to her respiratory doctor. I thought we should have just taken her directly to the hospital, but the nursing home disagreed. Her vitals weren't bad enough to go direct. We went to the office, and the doctor listened to her lungs and sent us on our way. We went across the street to the hospital.

Before we even cleared up we got a call for a psych going back up north. The lady was pretty interesting. She was talking to someone named Renee the entire ride back. She was also conversing with Jack, who I later realized was her husband. She kept asking me to tell her when we were half there, and then laughing. A pretty entertaining ride.

We got back to quarters for about 10 minutes. Then we got a call from a local nursing home/psych home going to Chicago. The woman wasn't happy with the place and knew how to play the system. We took her to the hospital and spoke with one of the nurses. The nurse said she also works at a hospital across town...she just discharged this lady this morning. She couldn't have been at the new facility for more than a couple of hours.

We got back up north again for about 15 minutes, then got a call from a dialysis place out west going to a nursing home to the southwest. It took us about 35 minutes to get to the dialysis center. It took us about an hour from there to get to the nursing home. We got lost several times. Our computer told us the wrong address. Our mapbook gave us the wrong coordinates. Our account list gave us the wrong cross streets. Our dispatcher had two different addresses for the same home. We had to call the facility and they gave us landmarks, such as "Walmart." Nice.

We made it back to quarters, once again. It was already late. No sooner did I close my eyes, and we got a call. It was actually in town for a psych transfer from the ER to the psych hospital. End of story. Uneventful. I practically ran for my car this morning when my shift was over with.

No calls

2006-03-21T19:04:00.000-08:00

I spent my shift doing absolutely nothing. I was sized for new gear. Then I helped my lieutenant redo our MABAS books, replacing old box cards with updated ones. I studied for HAZMAT for a few minutes. I cleaned-the usual-inside and out. Nothing that great. I was definitely ready when shift was over with. I have a long 24 hour shift ahead of me in the morning.

Slow day

2006-03-19T19:38:00.000-08:00

First call was for a fever. Besides that, the guy had an altered mental status and had poor vitals. The nurse said the fever started this morning. The she tells me he fell last night at 2345, unwitnessed. But how she knew it was at 2345 if it was unwitnessed, I will never know. Then I asked if his mental status was like this before the fall, or just afterwards. She said she didn't know-she only worked weekends. The other nurse said that this wasn't her floor. The other one said it was her first day. Yeah, if that doesn't tell you something, I don't know what would. The guy had been up and walking around since, so we didn't board him. He had no complaints, just that he was tired. He was lethargic and confused, and I had no history or events to go on. Gotta love it. The hospital especially enjoyed my report.

Second call was for hypotension. On scene, once again, the guy had an altered LOC. His blood pressure was fine, but is SPO2 was low. We did what we could and transported. He cried the whole way to the hospital because he didn't want to go. He said he wanted his mother. At 69, you would think this was just confusion. But, no. His mother is 101, and was going to meet us at the hospital. Wow.

Our SPO2 monitor stopped working during the call. We went back to headquarters and switched out cords. We fixed it and were back in service in less than 30 minutes.

No calls after that. We almost had one out of the stand-by ER, but we were cancelled. Sleepless night. I wasn't with my usual partner, and the guy I worked with snores and talks in his sleep. All in all it was a good shift. Besides the feeble attempt at sleep.

Firehouse

2006-03-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

Another night at the firehouse. I accomplished absolutely nothing all day (go me!). Boring day. We did some minor cleaning-mopping, taking out the trash, and then just sat around and waited for the bell to ring. It never did. I didn't get much sleep-too much on my mind. 0500 rolled around pretty quick. I have enough time to drive home and shower, then head off to the ambulance company for shift.

(back dated)

BLS

2006-03-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

Today I worked on a day car with another medic and a third rider that just started at the company. The guy I worked with is in a different system than me, and the gear assigned to the rig is in the same system. In other words, I am the BLS biotch for the day. Great.

Our first call went from a local psych facility to a state psych facility south west of us. A long drive, but it was okay.

We did a call for "generalized pain" on a priority, which turned out to be an anxiety attack. She told me I don't know what I'm doing.

Another call-abdominal pain, on a priority. The woman was just chilling out when we got there. She was sitting in her chair with her feet propped up. She looked completely normal except for her stomach, which looked like she should have been about 6 months pregnant. She had a history of obstructions.

We did a transfer for a blood transfusion. Then a transfer back to the nursing home for a woman who was screaming and crying hysterically. Her son was something else-requesting all our papers and copies of everything. All I gave him was our privacy policy. He asked for the company's phone number and our names. Whatever. As soon as he was out of sight and his mother was on the cot, the screaming and crying stopped. Wierd.

Finally some rest-soon. We got off right around 2300. It sucks that today is St. Patrick's Day, and I can't even go out and have a good time. Damn it.

Fever

2006-03-16T06:31:00.000-08:00

Today has been the day of priority calls. Right off the bat we got a call for chest pain at a stand-by ER. The normal chest pain call. The guy seemed to know a bit too much about it, you know, complaining about jaw and arm pain, etc. He had a psych history. The entire way to the hospital he kept saying, "I'm ready for the urine specimen whenever you are." Nice.

Second call was back to the same place for a person with chest pain. My first thought was that the patient we just brought in probably caught a cab and came back to the stand-by ER since he enjoyed the ride the first time. Nope. Different patient. He had chest pain earlier in the day- now he just had numbness to his left arm and shoulder and tightness in his chest. Normal workup and transport.

After that almost all my calls were for a "fever." I think out of four patients, the lowest temperature was 104. Completely ridiculous; not to mention that it wasn't their only problem. Most had really low blood pressure, SOB, etc.

We only did two actual transports other than emergency calls-very unusual. One went to a nursing facility out west-clear across the state. She only weighed about 80 pounds, it was snowing terribly and the roads were slick, so we were moving at a snail's pace. She was in agony by the time we got her there. She said her tailbone was killing her from sitting like that for so long. I also did a transport to a local nursing home. The had fractured her hip a while back and was in the nursing home for physical therapy. She told her therapist that something didn't feel right, but the therapist said she was fine. Needless to say, she broke her hip again-during therapy. She was a very nice lady and she told me about her daughter and how she had bought a new house so she could have her own room and be able to get around better. She was excited to go home soon. We chatted for the entire ride. I plan on bringing her flowers next shift. I told her she was in my prayers.

I was definitely tired when shift ended. No sleep for us. The worst part-I start work again at 0900. It's 0830 right now :(

Back to normal

2006-03-15T07:07:00.000-08:00

I'm finally back in the swing of things. I finished just about everything for my mortgage. I can't believe I am finally getting a house. Yeah! The fire department was uneventful so far this week...on my shifts anyways. I am back at the ambulance company tomorrow.

Tonight was positively boring. Of course, as most fire houses are, mine is filled with guys that snore. My shift just happens to be full of them. Our bunk rooms are separate, but we share a common wall. One guy will only sleep in the day room and he snores. Another guy that sleeps in the bunk room snores-probably worse that the day room guy. So, needless to say, I don't get much sleep there. If I do, I am in the ambulance sleeping on a cot covered with MRSA. Nice.

I couldn't fall alseep anywhere, so I decided to go on a mission. I cleaned both ambulances from top to bottom, including the front. I used cavicide first, bleached the floors, then sprayed with a disinfectant that has to sit for 10 minutes. I also organized the cabinets, IV tray, and tested all the bulbs and batteries in the intubation kits. Good times. It took several hours. I had the radio cranked the whole time on the bay floor, but I guess everyone was so busy snoring that they couldn't hear it.

The Terminal

2006-03-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

We got up at 0440 to catch a cab to go back to the airport. I looked out the window and realized that we were probably in for the same problems as last night. If anything it looked worse, but I figured maybe the sun would break the fog.

Once we checked in, I got a chance to look up at the board-flights delayed and cancelled all over the place. Ours said 'on time.' All I could do was snicker and curse at the board for telling an obvious lie. I also noted people sprawled across the floor sleeping-most likely people from our flight last night. The waiting areas were all full-people were in line already, only most were lying down or sitting on the floor. The boards started flashing again-delayed...delayed...delayed. I felt like I should be filming the sequel to "the terminal." Someone came over the intercom and said that nobody was coming or going as of this moment. No word on when flights will resume. We got comfortable and figured we were in for the long haul.

Our flight was only delayed for a bit over an hour or so. The flight wasn't too bad, but I was relieved when I was back on the ground.

In the end, I missed my home inspection, my meeting with the lawyer, and my meeting with my mortgage person. Great. I also had to call off work because I was too late to get coverage and I wouldn't be back in time to be of any help. That sucked.

I guess I'll try again tomorrow. Things can only get better.

Cancelled

2006-03-12T20:10:00.000-08:00

We bummed around for the majority of the day. Not much to do. It was rainy and cold. We did try to fly a small rubber-band powered airplane through the hallways, and fly a battery-powered airplane in the courtyard. Both crashed and broke. Nice.

We headed out to MacArthur airport around 1700 for our flight. The roads weren't too bad, but there was some fog. We boarded the plane on time and taxied on the runway...and were still on the runway. The captain came over the intercom to tell us the visibility was reduced and that we would wait to see if it would improve. Needless to say, it didn't, and we went back to the gate. We got off the plane, as the flight was cancelled, went to the counter, got tickets for the morning and called a cab. We went back to the apartment and relaxed. Hopefully we have better luck tomorrow. I am supposed to be doing a walk through and home inspection of a house I plan on purchasing at 1000.

St. Patrick's party

2006-03-11T20:06:00.000-08:00

What can I say? I just can't get enough of Manhattan. We did another little tour of the city today-upper Manhattan. We did the Central Park thing. The only thing that sucked, once again, was the fact that we couldn't find a stupid bathroom. We walked from Penn station (around 34th street) north of Central Park (around 82nd street), and still couldn't find a bathroom. We walked through the park several times and finally stumbled upon a bathroom-thank God. I thought for sure I was going to burst.

We got back on the train to go back to the island around sunset. We had to go back to the apartment, shower, and head to the fire department for the St. Patrick's Day party.

The party was actually quite large. When I got my wristband, my number was already 1400. Wow. All that at a volunteer department. We had a good time, had a few drinks and headed home just after midnight.

City Life

2006-03-10T20:43:00.000-08:00

We got a late start today. I was still an hour behind because I never reset my watch. Damn. We got on the LIRR (long island railroad) around 1200. I absolutely love the city. I just like to walk around and watch people and look at the buildings.

After wandering for a bit, we decided to visit the Empire State Building. Very nice. It was absolutely beautiful. We went to the lookout on the 86th floor, and then paid the extra $14 to go to the 102nd floor. I could have stayed up there all day. I got a really weird photo from the 102nd floor; I was facing in the general direction of ground zero, trying to take a picture of the rays of sun breaking through the clouds over the city. This is what it looked like:

If you can see to the left there are two things that look like towers. Once I got a really close look at the picture on the computer I realized that it was the reflection of the windows. But, when I took the picture, I thought for sure it was a sign from God. It looked like the twin towers. They were just to the left or east of where the reflections are in this picture. Very creepy. All I kept saying was, "holy shit." I just knew I needed to get to Ground Zero and say some prayers.

Our next stop was Ground Zero. The sight was upsetting. To me, it is sacred. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. I was crying the whole time I was there. What upset me the most was how people could just walk by like nothing ever happened. They reopened the subways below and people are back to their normal way of life, not taking a second glance, or even a fleeting thought of the lives lost. Then there were the people that were gung-ho and taking pictures and video taping so they could say that they were there. I just felt like it was so disrespectful.

After about 45 minutes I had to leave. I couldn't look at the gaping hole anymore.

We went out for dinner a while later, and I had had a few too many drinks. We walked around lower Manhattan well into the evening. Eventually, the drinks caught up with me. I had to go to the bathroom really, really bad. We wandered forever, and knowing Manhattan, realized that I wasn't going to find a bathroom. What I did find was a construction site. It had an outhouse; and I used it...sneaking in with a little penlight in hand, going as quickly as possible without falling in the toilet, and running out without even having my pants completely up. It was disgusting, but a toilet none-the-less.

We managed to get back to the subway, back to Penn station, and back to Long Island. It was a long day, but a good one. I have a very deep love for this city. I'm not quite sure why. I just love the way that it is always busy, there is always something going on. It is not so in Chicago-it actually does "sleep." I'm in it for the action. We may go back tomorrow, I'm not sure yet.

Back to New York

2006-03-09T20:35:00.000-08:00

We were up at 0400 to start our hike to the airport. We caught the 0525 train to Union Station. We then got on the EL train, of course we accidentally got on the purple line instead of the orange line, corrected ourselves at the next stop, and continued in the proper direction. We got to the airport with time to spare. The plane ride wasn't too bad-thank God. I still took Xanax before we left though.

We arrived in mid-morning, doing our usual rounds of visiting people and wandering around the island. We also saw the movie 'the Pink Panther,' which wasn't as good as I thought it would be. We made the decision to go to the city tomorrow, so we called it a relatively early night (at 0230 or so).

Not much excitement in the apartment building tonight. All is quiet.

Saving the world: one psych at a time

2006-03-07T21:21:00.000-08:00

First call was for a psych going to a facility in Chicago. It was an uneventful trip. We dropped her off and headed home. We stopped at a restaurant called Portillos that has really good food. I wasn't in a hurry, so we took the long way home through the ghetto. Good times.

I think I did a return to a nursing home after that-I'm not really sure.

We were really slow in the evening. Of course, that is when my pager for the fire department went off for a full arrest. I was supposed to be there this evening, but I switched shifts at the ambulance company for the day in preparation for vacation, and had to pawn off my shift at the fire department. Damn. I heard from a couple people that were there and I am kind of thankful that I wasn't. The guy was pretty dead, but the crew couldn't decide if he was warm or cool, so they worked him. He was a big guy too. My back is thanking me for taking the other shift.

We did an adolescent psych transfer. Of course me and my partner can't help but mess with people. The kid was 14 and was being admitted with ADHD. We got him on the cot and started strapping him in. He gave me a look like I was crazy for strapping him in-he thought they were restraints. Of course I have to get smart with him,

Me: "These aren't restraints, it's a five point harness like race car drivers wear...you're lucky I'm driving..."

Patient: "Why?"

Me: "Because if my partner was driving, you would have to wear a helmet too."

Patient: "That's not funny."

Me: "The good news is that if we roll the ambulance, you will be suspended from the ceiling like spiderman."

Patient: "You mean crash! You're that bad...um...maybe you should give me the helmet."

Me: "Not to worry. We only get in accidents of Monday nights."

Patient: "But today is Monday."

Me: "Oh..."

Patient: "Are you going to drop me?"

Me: "Nope. I only drop people on days that end in 'y'."

This conversation continued with my partner in the back until we arrived at the hospital. He must have said some other things to the kid, because when we got to the facility he practically jumped off the cot. Yep. Life is good.

Another psych after that to the same facility. This one wasn't too bad-he was relatively cooperative. We had seen him in the ER on our previous visit. We got our paperwork and went into the room. He was sleeping, so I said his name to wake him up-no response. I yelled his name-no response. My partner shook his shoulder-no response. Sternal rub-still no response. I told my partner to check a pulse. The guy finally woke up. That was enough of a scare for me. I thought for sure there was something wrong. I got his belongings together and the psych coordinator handed me a small baggie and said, "this is his prized possession." I said, okay and was on my way. Want to take a guess of what was in the bag? A box cutter. Yeah. Nice. My parter put it on the back of the cot, but we ended up hiding it in the front of the ambulance just in case he went psycho on the ride. It was uneventful.

Another call shortly after for a laceration to the forehead. It was at a nursing home about 10 miles away. We brought everything inside with us-including our backboard, etc. The guy had fallen, unwitnessed and bumped his head. According to staff he fell flat on his face just outside his bathroom. He denied passing out and he was A+Ox3. When we went into his room there wasn't blood anywhere. They had already cleaned it up. The story seemed a bit fishy. The guy's forehead was completely split open-you could see is skull. The actual laceration/avulsion was about 1 1/2 inches long and about 1/2 inch wide. When I dabbed the wound with gauze his scalp moved about a quarter inch or so. The nurse said there was blood everywhere, but it was just oozing when I saw him. Everything else checked out, and according to his mental status, our findings, and our protocol, we didn't have to c-spine him. Another save :).

I did another psych from a government facility to a psych facility. Depression. A quick transport and I was back in bed-for 25 minutes or so.

Last set of calls was for an ALS MRI. We got called at 0445. Pickup was at 0530, but we have to be there 10 minutes early. We got on the floor and the patient isn't ready. We wait. We finally leave around 0555. We get to the MRI at 0610. Nobody is there. We wait. The secretary shows up at 0625 and lets us in. They don't open until 0630-they don't scan until 0700. We wait for the tech, who showed up around 0640 and started up the machines. Our patient finally got into the MRI at 0710. He finished around 0800. Then we had to take him back to the hospital across town. I got done at 0845. Late as usual.

I'm off for the rest of the week. I leave for New York on Thursday morning. I have an appointment to see a house today and then I plan on being a bum for a while. I will try to post before I leave, but if I don't, I will be posting all about the trip once I get back next week.

Circling the Drain

2006-03-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

First call, right off the bat, was a return to a nursing home. The lady was the cutest little thing. She had a blast on the ride there; she was harassing my partner the entire ride. When we got to the nursing home, she asked me, "what the hell happened to you?" I said, "um...I don't know." She said, "when did you get so tall?" I told her that possibly I grew on the way over. The lady's daughter piped in, "mom, you're only 4'10"." She just said, "Oh."

Next call was in Northbrook for an "arrhythmia." Wierd. On the bottom of the screen it also included vomiting and diarrhea. Okay, that doesn't sound too good. It was screaming cardiac problem to me. We got on scene and saw the patient. She had been vomiting for two days, not eating, and, according to the RN, had an abnormal heart rate. I put her on the monitor and did vitals and I wasn't able to figure out how she discovered the abnormal rate. She didn't have a radial pulse. Her blood pressure was about 80 systolic, and her heart rate was around 160. She had a history of A-fib. To add to the problems, she was diaphoretic, dizzy, short of breath, had a blood glucose of 372, and I couldn't get a line. She also had stroke-like symtoms of sudden onset during transport-she had slurred speech and one of her eyelids started to droop. She had a history of a CVA, but the RN said she didn't have any deficits. The patient wanted to go to a far hospital, but I was diverted to the closest for obvious reasons.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing when I got to the ER. Our patient was a DNR, but that doesn't mean do not assist, or do not try to help. I was doing everything I could to help her and make her comfortable. I gave my report to the nurse, emphasizing my concerns. This is what the nurse replied, "It's not necessary to get all worked up. Maybe it's just her time to go...her blood pressure is 80 systolic-that's okay...we'll just give her some fluids." I was pissed at the nurse. Besides that it was completely unprofessional to say that it "might be her time," my patient was A+Ox3, and could hear, and understand, everything that was going on. I almost wished I had taken her to the farther hospital. The nurse completely dismissed my concerns, even the possible repeat CVA that could have been critical-and treated right away-considering they didn't start until we were en route to the hospital. This was my first diversion of the day.

I got a call for a patient in respiratory distress at a local nursing home. Once I saw the name of the place on our pager I knew we were in for a treat. The lady was gasping for breath, unconscious, diaphoretic, and pale. She was a full code-a ward of the state. We got her moved into the ambulance and did the rest of our assessment. Her blood pressure was a little low, her heart rate in the 130s. Her respirations I counted at 40. Her spO2 was okay-around 93%. Staff said when they found her it was 46%. Her arms were contracted and we were unable to get a line. I gave her a neb treatment because she was wheezing. She also had crackles, but without her being alert enough to use CPAP, and without a line, I was shit out of luck. I checked her gag reflex while my partner continued his search for a vein. It was there. I checked it one more time before we left the scene-not there. Crap. We got the intubation stuff ready and were set to go. My partner inserted the blade and she started gagging. She had tons of phlegm in her throat that we suctioned. At least she had a gag reflex. Now that my rig was officially trashed-we were ready to go to the hospital. Another desired hospital about 15 minutes away. I called medical control, and big surprise! I was diverted again. She did okay on the way to the hospital. We got her into a room right away and I gave my report. All I had to say was the nursing home I got her from and the nurse was shaking her head. The last I heard she was in the ICU, clinging to life. Or, rather, circling the drain.

There were five other squads at the hospital while I was doing paperwork. One squad alone brought four in.

Another transport for a psych patient. I had taken him before. He was alright-very quiet.

While we were there I noticed another lady, whom I predicted would be our next psych. She stood in her doorway for a few seconds. Then she turned around and went back in her room. She returned dragging a chair and holding a bottle of saline. She put her arms up in the air, as if she was blocking someone. She said, "hello, officer friendly," to a police officer that was standing in the hallway. She tipped the bottle upside down and unopened, and then declared, "oops! I fell." A nurse approached her and tried to get her back in her room. The nurse tried to take the bottle of saline away from her and the patient told her she was thirsty-it wasn't for drinking. The lady proceeded to sit down on the chair, the nurse took the bottle of saline, and the woman spread out her arms and declared, "give me back my normal saline!" I was trying to disguise my laughter as a coughing fit, but I don't think I did a very good job.

Our last call was for a patient with a fever-on a priority. The nursing home is about 15 miles form my station. We got down there and the nurse said the patient had a fever of 102.8. After seeing the patient, I had her take it again-103.2. The patient had wet herself, and soiled herself, she was flushed, diaphoretic, had a low blood pressure, was lethargic, and was oozing copious amounts of greenish brown phlegm from her stoma. Nice. We actually got a line on this lady, which surprised the hell out of me considering my track record for the shift. There really wasn't much I could do for her but wipe the phlegm off that kept running down her chest every time she coughed. I also noticed that she had gotten her stool all over her hands as if she had been playing in her diaper. Yummy. I gave the hospital a two minute ETA. We got her settled in her room. I'm not sure she will pull out of this one.

I was held over again. I got back to quarter around 0830, but it was a good shift. I had a paramedic student with me, so he got some good calls. It's always nice when I actually get to use some skills.

I was off until 0900 (a whole 30 minutes). I got my rig checked out while my partner ran home. He had forgotten his wallet. It was the same partner I just did my 24 hour shift with. We went out to breakfast at IHOP with two other crews and then we were sent to post a local hospital. We sat...and sat. Everybody in the county was busy except for us. We watched a movie about a psych facility called Madhouse. Very scary-I don't recommend it. I was especially stupid to watch it because my quarters are actually at a psych facility. We stay on the second floor of the hospital. Thank God I didn't try to watch it last night. The hospital is all shut down except for two floors. The psych floor is right above us. We were wandering around last night for a bit and ended up in the surgery area. There was mold growing across part of the floor, old beds and tools lying around and even the machines that anesthesiologists use. Very creepy. It looked like an old hospital from a war movie that had been deserted. Anyways, we finished the movie, I fell alseep for about a half hour or so, and then we got our first call-a psych going across town. Isn't that convenient. He was alright, the transport was uneventful and I was glad to finally run a call. We told dispatch we were clear and they told us to hit the pumps and have a good night. It was 1600-I wasn't due off until 1900. Oh well. I was hoping to have a repeat of yesterday, but no such luck.

I am back on shift tomorrow. Another 24. I am dead tired. I barely had the energy to eat dinner when I got home. All I did was throw my uniforms in the washer to prepare for the next round-hopefully a good one.

Uneventful

2006-03-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

A very uneventful day. I accomplished very little, and everything I tried to do didn't work. For instance-I tried to buy paint to finish painting the ruined walls of the master bedroom. The paint store was all out of the specific paint I needed. Great. I did get a new tire for my car; it was getting old riding on a spare and having to obey the speed limit.

I'm at the firehouse tonight. I doubt we will run. Oh well. We shall see. Tomorrow is another day.

Hospice

2006-03-02T08:19:00.000-08:00

First call of the day was for respiratory distress. The page was an ASAP, but we were told to run hot. I knew the area well-we were responding to a home address in my turf near the firehouse. I got the story from the hospice nurse. Our patient was a 49 year old female with end stage lung cancer. She was going to the hospital because she is getting worse. She gave our patient 120 mg of morphine in the last hour and wanted me to give her roxenol on the way (which I am not allowed to administer). I could hear her breathing once I got into the house; she was in the rear bedroom. The lady was very sick, but I guess this is where I get confused. The lady has been sick for a while, she is in hospice care, and has a DNR. I always thought the whole point of hospice care was so the person can die peacefully at home-not in a hospital. The nurse said we were not to do any interventions-no monitor, no IV, just oxygen. She said they would get a central line at the hospital. Okay...here's the kicker. We weren't even bringing her to the ER. She was going directly to a room. Yeah...I felt pretty silly running hot to the hospital only to unload the patient and bypass the ER. Whatever. I got the wierdest looks from the ER staff. I am walking by with a patient in obvious respiratory distress-tripod position, her lips were a little blue, her skin pale, eyes closed, monitor furiously beeping around 150-and not stopping at the ER. They must have thought I was really stupid. We got her settled in her bed and spoke with the nurse on the floor. I figured our patient would survive maybe a couple more hours.

These are my least favorite calls. Actually, I hate them. I felt terrible for the lady. She was suffering and all I could offer her was a hand to hold. Half of the ride I felt like I was torturing her. She kept pulling off her mask because she was struggling so much to breathe and probably thought the mask was the cause; and I kept putting it back on. I found out from a friend that works at the hospital that she died that evening-alone. Her family was back at home, where she should have been in her last moments, where her hospice care was taking place until we whisked her to the hospital for no reason. Damn it.

I did a call for "wound care." Our patient was non compliant with her care and turning herself at the nursing home, and now her wound was getting worse. Not a big deal, just a little drop off in the ER and off I go. My partner had me start driving while she got vitals. The blood pressure cuff was acting up. I was two miles down the road when it finally worked. Our patient's blood pressure was only 78 systolic. I was at a red light, so I turned on my lights and turned around (this road is hard to explain. You have to drive north to go back south towards the hospital) and pulled over to the side of the road so I could hop in back and see what was going on. Normally, I would let my partner do her thing and just drive, but we weren't going to the closest facility-we still had about 20 miles to go. I must have looked pretty silly. I was just driving along with no lights or sirens. Then I get to a light, put on my lights and sirens, turn back south, pull off the road, get out of the driver's seat and hop in back. Let's just say I had a whole bunch of people staring at me.

Once in back, I took a manual blood pressure (the last pressure we got was with the monitor). I got 98 systolic. Not especially critical, so we could still go to the desired hospital. The patient refused any care-she didn't want an IV. So, basically I got back in front and started driving. By the time the hospital picked up the tele line I was about 4 miles passed our "closest facility" and well on my way to being screwed if our patient started to crap out. The nurse on tele had no choice but to let us come because we were passed the closest hospital, and besides that it would take me longer to get off the highway, turn around, get back on, and go to the closest, our patient was relatively stable (besides the fact that we didn't have IV access). I ran hot to the hospital just for good measure. I didn't want to be caught in this situation if it went sour-especially since our patient was not a DNR. She was still doing okay when we pulled up in the ER-another job done.

I did a psych transfer for a guy that said he was suicidal. According to the ER staff he was playing the system-he needed a good meal and a warm place to stay. This wasn't his first visit. When we arrived in the ER to take him he was wandering around the ER, walking up to patients, sitting on their beds and trying to hold conversations. We got him going as quickly as possible. He kept saying he didn't want to go but he was cooperative for the most part. He told me that he almost tried out for American Idol, but he got bored standing in line. He told me I have to watch next season, because he will be the next American Idol. I told him I would be watching for him.

I did a call from a nursing home for a patient with diarrhea x2 days. She wanted to go to a hospital about 15 miles away. We tried to call report, but they were on full bypass. We took her to the closest hospital. Not an eventful call at all. She complained the whole way about how tight the blanket was and that she didn't like being tied up.

We took a psych out of the same ER as soon as we finished paperwork for the lady with diarrhea. They were pretty busy and the paperwork wasn't ready yet. I was standing chatting with a security guard when a patient stuck her head out of a nearby curtain. She said she wanted a nurse and opened the curtain a bit wider. I was shocked at what I saw. The lady was standing in a pool of blood-her gown was soaked, the bed was soaked, and blood was running down her legs in streams. I figured she was having a miscarriage, judging by the amount of blood. It took a while for the nurse to get to the room, and all the while this girl was standing in a pool of her own blood like it was no big deal. She didn't look scared or upset. She just said she was sick of sitting on a wet bed. Go figure. She was whisked up to L+D shortly there after.

Our psych was finally ready. She was lashing out. She kept screaming to "open the f***ing curtain" and yelling at nobody in particular. She was four months pregnant. Before we arrived, she was standing in the hallway, lifting up her gown and yelling, "that baby's coming! The baby's coming!" We got her moved over to the cot, put her back in four points. That was when I got the first whiff of her B.O. I also learned what I was taking her for-homicidal ideations. Great. She didn't create a scene until we got her to the psych hospital. The only thing she did on the way was hum the song from the Popeye's chicken commercial. Since she was in restraints we took her directly to the locked wing and to a room. The staff made the mistake of telling her she was going to the "quiet room." That started the yelling again. She screamed, "you can't put me in the quiet room! I ain't going there! I have two kids, and you know who they are! I'm four months pregnant, and it's not good for the baby! I need a cigarette! I want to eat everything-ice cream, cookies, candy, chips....I'm not going in there alone!" After a few minutes of listening to this we lowered the cot, undid the restraints and got her on the bed. She stopped making a scene. That was enough for me.

I layed down at 0200.

Red Light...Green Light

2006-02-27T08:12:00.000-08:00

The oncoming crew was late getting back. I got stuck doing station duties for an hour and a half. After they got back we stayed in quarters for about a half an hour. Then the fun started.

The first call...I can't even remember. I did a call for abdominal pain from an acute care center to an ER. Uneventful. I think we did a few BLS returns too. I can't recall. I'm too tired.

We ran to another hospital to pick up a blood pressure cuff that was left on a patient earlier in the day. Then we sat for about an hour, holding a hospital parking lot. We got our first call going to the city. An infant with a fever for five days, going to the Children's hospital. Then we cleared up and went right to another call for a fever in a nursing home. The woman was more lethargic than usual according to the RN and had a fever of 100.3. We transported to a city hospital. We made it all the way back up north, and had just gotten into quarters. They needed us for another transport to Children's. This time for an eye laceration. The three year old needed surgery. He tripped and fell into a dresser-head first. The corner cut his eyelid, and into the muscle; which would no longer function. On the way to Children's, I had my first run-in with the cameras at red lights. There are two lights, spaced only about 30 feet apart on one of the main roads that I took. The first light turned yellow, but I wasn't going to slam on the brakes. I slowed down so I could stop without jolting my parter and patient at the second light. This made me slow down through the first intersection, causing me to prolong my time in the intersection. Needless to say, I was still in the intersection when the light turned red. It looked like a lightning storm or the paparazzi were after me. The whole intersection lit up with probably 30 different flashing white lights. I had been caught on camera in a red light. Uh oh. There was no way I could have avoided it. I had to write up an incident report on it in case they try to fine the company (or me), because I wasn't running hot...I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I headed back up north again. We got a call for a patient in the "standby ER" with abdominal pain. Easy enough transport. We did a dialysis call-direcly out of the ER. We got back to quarters, shut off the lights, and got our final call of the day at 0615. It was for a fall at a nursing home about 20 minutes away. The lady had a laceration above her left eyebrow and was complaining about shoulder pain...amongst every other pain possible (leg, neck, back, arm). We took her to a hospital about 15 minutes west of there. I cleared up at 0745. My dispatcher told me we had another call-just a bounce across town. Personally, I was sick of being held over. By the time I would even get to quarters without the call, it would be at least 0815-not including paperwork. We spoke with our oncoming crew and they agreed to take the call. We got back to quarters, I did my paperwork, and I was out the door by 0850.

Busy Week

2006-02-25T20:02:00.000-08:00

I have been running my ass off all week. My apartment is finally starting to look better. I got one room completely painted. Finally.

Work was crazy too. I worked shift on Monday and we got our butts kicked. I think we only ran maybe seven calls in 16 hours, but I was in the city, out west, in Wisconsin...all over the place.

Thursday's shift wasn't too bad. We ran about 5 calls in 24 hours. Nothing too exciting.

My hands are still messed up-especially my right one (thank God I'm left handed!). The swelling has gone down, but my skin is peeling. Yucky. I got feeling back in my left hand by Monday morning. My right hand is really weak; it feels like I had a stroke. I can't hold anything without dropping it, and it hurts to squeeze anything. My palm and thumb are really swollen; the base of my thumb (by the palm of my hand) is bruised. I'm not too sure what that is from. I found multiple other bruises-most of which I can identify the cause. My knees are bruised and swollen, but that is definitely from crawling through debris. My left elbow is bruised-that is from bashing it into an electrical conduit while breaching a wall. Good times. I look like a victim of abuse. I guess I am, but it is self inflicted...just not on purpose.

I went up to northern Wisconsin on Friday morning. I had to move more of my Mom's stuff. I also visited with some family that I haven't seen for nearly a year. We got back tonight. I'm back on shift in the AM.

Hard Work

2006-02-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

I feel like I aged 20 years overnight. I got to the firehouse at 0645 for training. We left around 0700 to the house we are using in the next town over. It is freezing cold outside; I have under armour and several layers on, including my turnouts, and I think my core temperature is still right around 90. Damn.

My first drill was on the roof. The house has a very steep roof...and I'm not too fond of heights if I am not tied off. There was about a 6-8 foot gap between the ladder I used to get up on the roof and the roof ladder. Yeah...not so good. I was praying that I would make it to the ladder with my tools in hand, rather than crashing to my death on the frozen ground. I could feel my boots slipping as I inched up the side of the roof. It seemed to take forever, but I finally got the pike pole hooked on the ladder and I was able to pull myself up a little better. Whew. And that was the easy part. I still had to make it to the very top. It wasn't too bad. I sat over the peak of the roof and started chopping away. I chopped with the axe from one side of the roof, over the beam, and to the other side. Then I switched places with my partner and I tore off shingles. Then it was time to power up the chain saw and cut ventilation holes. I have trouble started the chainsaw on the ground...let alone on the roof. It got started and I actually had a pretty good time. The only bad part about being on the roof for about an hour was the wind hitting my face. It was hovering right around 0 degrees and my skin felt like it was burning off. I guess two days in a row out in this weather probably wasn't such a good idea. Oh well.

I went through a station that we pulled ceiling, floors and walls-the same way we would be looking for fire extension and for investigation purposes. There was a mouse in the floor. It came out when I started to pound on the boards with the axe. Yuck.

The next station we broke windows and talked about ventilation. We also breached walls, and dragged a "downed firefighter" across the floor, and up and down the stairs.

I was completely exhausted by the end. My back was tense and I couldn't feel my fingers or toes. During one of the evolutions, when it came time to remove our masks, I couldn't do it. My fingers refused to tighten on the connection, and my officer had to undo it.

I was glad when the time came to pack up and go home. There was lots of cleaning to do at the station, but it only took about an hour or so. Both of my hands are swollen and they refuse to warm up. Hopefully they won't hurt too bad tomorrow.

Now it is time to relax. My mom came into town today and I have to get her settled in.

Women's Fire Training

2006-02-18T18:36:00.000-08:00

I got to the fire station at 0500. Way too early in the morning for me. We got on the bus at 0530. There were four of us from my station and three women from other stations in the county (that actually rode with us). I was excited that I was going to be riding in the short bus today, but I was disappointed when a short charter bus arrived. Oh well...window licking is overrated.

It took us about two hours to get to Frankfort, IL. We had a short introduction and then we broke out into our groups. My first group was on saws and torches. I got to use several saws and two different torches. I used a chain saw for the first time. Then I had forcible entry. The best thing I discovered was a device that you put on the middle or lower hinge in the door and it will hold it open. The best one was circular, and it barely let the door close at all; maybe two inches or so from the fully open position. We also discussed a lot of problems that they have with high rises in the city, and of course, customer service.

We had a break for lunch, which included a speaker. She was a Salt Lake City firefighter that won the world-wide combat challenge four years in a row, then retired. Shorly after, another competitor from Houston was killed in a fire-she was trapped when the roof collapsed in a McDonald's. At the funeral, our speaker was approached by the woman's sister who asker her if she would consider competing one more time for her fallen sister. Of course, she agreed, and went on to win once again with a time of 2:22. It was a touching speech, and we saw all the video clips from news programs covering the story.

My next class was SCBA entanglement. This was probably my most informative class. We went through a maze that was comparable to others I have been in-for the first 15 feet or so. There were tight spaces, studs that were only 12 inches apart (I even got through without dumping my pack!), a "victim" that we had to drag around corners and through obstacles, and wires. Yeah, the wires were the worst. I came across a wire. I thought to myself, not to bad. Of course it was dark, so I couldn't see ahead of me. There was a whole section of wires hanging just ahead and one was connected to the floor. I nearly made it through without dumping my pack, but I ended up getting way too stuck, so I dumped it and continued. There were a few more wires and a few corners before the end. I could see the light...and where it was coming from. It was a square opening-about 1' by 1', if that. I got through with no problem. I was glad when it was all over with. My air pack's bell started ringing toward's the end and I couldn't even hear my partner talking (hers was going off too).

My last class was flashover. We had a short classroom portion and then we headed out to the flashover simulator. It was probably one of the coolest things I have seen so far. We watched the fire from the beginning. We lit a small fire in a burn barrel in a corner and let it go. The smoke wasn't very dark at first, but you could see the layering, and the air flow. The air up above was flowing away from the fire, and you could see the smoke just above us getting sucked back towards the fire. Eventually, the room got dark with smoke-we could barely see the fire. Then we could see a slight glow,then the whole room got bright, and I could see flames rolling above us. Within seconds everything was on fire-it looked like a movie. It was awesome; I didn't want to knock it down-even when it got really hot. It was just too beautiful. We let it flash about 7 or 8 times before we finally vented the room. It was probably my favorite class. And I smelled like fire :)

I was back on the bus around 1700 and got home around 1845. I was beat and ready to rest...at least until 0600 tomorrow.

Snow blower

2006-02-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

Yeah. Last night was a good one. I got rather drunk and "drunk dialed" a few more people than I thought I did. At least most of them thought it was funny. I got up at 0900 to start out the day. I didn't accomplish much-just cleaning and getting ready for my long weekend.

I left for work around 1915. The roads were pretty slick; it had been raining all day and now it was freezing. Great. Besides the fact that my car normally slides all over the road-I still have that stupid spare tire on it.

I was about 2 miles away from home, driving about 45 miles an hour. There was a pickup truck in front of me. The pickup truck hit a bump and, in slow motion, something rather large flew out of the back. It was a snow blower. I felt all my muscles tense up; I was preparing for the thing to fly through my windshield and hopefully not kill me. I thought about closing my eyes but it was in slow motion and full speed all at once. I was pissed because it would make me late to work. I slammed on the brakes and watched the metal scrape the pavement. Sparks were flying everywhere and pieces of the snow blower scattered all over the road. My brakes were squealing as I came to a stop-halfway in my lane and halfway in the oncoming lane. I missed it. Whew. Onward to work. The truck never even stopped; like they didn't notice that this huge machine just flew out of the bed. Besides my heart skipping a few beats, I was okay, and so was my car.

The fire house has been quiet. Hopefully we'll get something. I'm up for some good action.

My Valentine

2006-02-15T17:10:00.000-08:00

My car is a piece of crap. Yeah. I was driving home and I heard a bad noise; it reminded me of the noise the wheels on the cot make when we reach or go over the weight limit. I knew the light I was at was long, so I my car in park and got out-yeah, my tire was flat. I had to drive like a block or so before I could park because there is no emergency lane on that road. Great. I found out today that they can't fix it. The guy at the tire place said that I could refill it and put it back on but it would probably blow off the car in a day or so. That would suck, so I guess I will just keep the spare on and hope it doesn't fly off when I hit 50 mph :)

Wow. This is the first year in a long time that I actually celebrated Valentine's Day. I won't say much more...it has been a good year. Let's just say that I will be going to a spa for a day...

Work was, well, work. We were really slow all day. We did a psych call from the regular psych ward to one run by the government. Then we did a call from our post to the ER for a guy that was sent over for occupational health, but the nurse decided to send him back by ambulance, instead of by car, because he would get seen quicker. Gotta love it. Our last call was from the ER to the psych ward. I had seen the lady earlier in the ER; she was loud, obnoxious and telling the staff to "call the cops." What a wonder drugs can do. She slept the whole way there and barely woke up long enough to slide into bed. Unfortunately, when her meds kicked in, she still had her food tray, and she fell asleep with her head in her plate. Yuck. She smelled like moldy food.

Of course, on the nights that we don't run, I can't sleep. Every time I almost fell alseep I thought I heard the Nextel go off; it never actually did. What a stupid night. I got off at 0730 so I could run some errands before I went to school.

School went well today. My dance classes were pretty fun-especially jazz. We were doing swing and the "Lindy." Good times. There is a thing at the Willowbrook ballroom on Sunday that I may go to. It sounds like fun. I found out in my psych class that I can't make up my test until the end of April. Yeah, that sucks. Oh well, it's one less thing I have to worry about this week. Ballet was good too-but I was pretty tired by the end of it. My body just didn't want to move anymore by 1300.

Good night ahead. I plan on getting drunk...and hopefully not getting any noise complaints from my neighbors.

Lethargy

2006-02-12T21:07:00.000-08:00

I slept for the first couple hours of shift. We got our first call around 1200. It was a priority for a lethargic patient. I have had more calls for "lethargy" in the past two weeks than I have in the past year. Anyways, it took us about 15-20 minutes to get on scene. The nursing home that we were going to can only be accessed from the north-bound lanes. Unfortunately there is a concrete median, so you have to pass the nursing home, go to the next intersection, due a U-turn and head back north to the place. I feel pretty stupid every time.

We got on scene and found a 75 y/o female with a history of mental retardation that was usually aphasic, that was now "more lethargic." Okay, I'll give them that. They had her on four liters of oxygen on a simple mask, and they had tried to get a line twice and failed. Of course they used all the good veins and left me with nothing. The RN said that the lady hadn't eaten in a couple of days. She was diabetic. The lady's glucose was 71 at 1200. I took it again and I got 59; borderline, so I gave a unit of glucagon IM. We got her packaged and down to the rig. Her oxygen sats were in the low 90s, so I put her on a non-rebreather, and they went up to about 95%, which I can deal with. I took her glucose again-54. Okay, that's not supposed to happen. Her blood pressure was also only 80/42, and without a line all I could do was put her in Trendelenburg.

The hospital is south of the nursing home, and there is the same problem with the median. On the way to the hospital you have to go north about 1 1/2 miles and do a U-turn to go right past the nursing home again and head towards the hospital. We got about 1 mile from the hospital when things started to go downhill. I didn't even have time to call the hospital back with an update. Her sats started dropping into the 70s and she started breathing rather slow and shallow. I switched over to a BVM and she was back up in the 90s. Whew. I wanted to check her glucose again, but I didn't have enough hands, and we were pulling into the ER. The staff freaked out when we came in. From my report, they knew that her blood pressure was low, I didn't have a line, but other than that, her problems were taken care of for now. I had about three nurses and two doctors in the room with us. We moved her over to the ER bed, a nurse took over bagging the patient while I gave my report, and I got out of the room so that I could finish my report and get out of the way. They took her glucose again-32. Yikes. No wonder she didn't feel like breathing. They got a central line on her, and about 5-10 minutes later her glucose was about 100; they stopped bagging her and she was doing good. Talk about a good first call of the day.

We did a transfer to a nursing home out of the same hospital right away. We got back to quarters around 1600. I did one more call around 2100 for a return to a nursing home from a local ER. It was a boring call. I was just ready to transfer care over to the nursing home staff because he wet himself, probably several hours before we got him, and he reeked of urine. Oh well. Hopefully a quiet night ahead.

Polar Plunge

2006-02-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

Today was a real surprise. It seemed quite nice when I left home-sunny, not too cold, and clear. It had clouded up by the time I got to the firehouse, but I still believed that it would be a nice, or at least bearable day. We got all our gear ready and headed up to Wisconsin at 0900.

Once we got to the site at 0930, we suited up and tested out the suits in the water. A few of us were new to the whole "dive/rescue" thing, so we took our time to get used to how the suit feels. It is necessary to explain the suit, because I currently don't have any pictures. They weren't the nice dive suits, because those of us that weren't actually "diving" wore ice/cold water rescue suits. If you have ever seen a level A hazmat suit, these look very similar. They are big, yellow, and hard to walk in. Needless to say it did keep me somewhat warm for the first hour or so. Five of the divers actually did a dive for about 30 minutes under the ice; I was a tender on one of the lines. I don't recall my hands getting cold. Instead they started to hurt. The last of the divers were getting out when the first groups started to jump.

After we cleaned up the dive site we all went down to the beach where the rest of our rescuers were. I was standing/floating in about 5-6 feet of water, helping people get to the shallower area so they could walk out. I was very surprised that nobody got hurt. There were a few older people that I thought for sure I would have to do CPR on, but all went well. The last of the jumpers went around 1430. Of course, the jokesters we all are, we had to be dancing with the music in our suits, playing with the rescue board (including a few people taking it about 50 feet out where the ice started), and jumping.

About 5 minutes after the jumping started, it started to snow and get colder outside. By the time the second or third group was going it was practically a white-out. Even though the dry suits were nice, they didn't prevent my face from getting splashed with every jump and being covered in snow for 6 hours. Oh well, it was a good time and for a good cause (special olympics).

Me and one other firefighter decided to do the plunge...in our dry suits. More info about the suits. When you put them on they are really baggy, but as soon as you get in the water, the air rushes out and you are left with a relatively skin-tight outfit. Generally, when you wear these suits, you walk into the water, allowing the air to gently escape through the top of the suit by your head. Let's just say it doesn't quite work that way when you jump into the water. When we jumped in, we both blew up like something inside the suit inflated. I really wish I could get the pictures on here for full effect. We looked like we were all shoulders-having had all the air out of the entire suit violently forced into the chest and shoulders with no escape; we had both fastened the top of the suit that covers your head and part of your face. It was really funny.

I was sopping wet by the time I got out of the suit. Three of us looked like we peed in our pants. The suit can get rather uncomfortable if you wear the face/neck zipped up for too long, so most of us unzipped it a small amount. That wasn't such a good idea. The water ran all the way down from the top of my suit, and I could feel it running down my leg within seconds of dipping too far in the water or rolling over because my ankle weights weren't keeping my feet weighed down enough. Every time I would try to move my legs would float up from below and try to flip me. Back paddling, I learned, was the only way to go. Damn. I wish I would have learned that before hand. At least I wasn't the only one that was soaked.

After we were all cleaned up we went back to the station to clean the suits, our vehicle and other assorted diving gear. Then I headed home to dry my clothes and get back to the station by 1700 for shift. We didn't run any calls; we only picked up some supplies from a local hospital that we needed for one of our ambulances. I studied for a couple hours and it was time to go home. Now that I am home, I plan on getting some sleep. I will probably pop a few Advil and call it an early night. My face is really wind-burned and rather puffy. Hopefully it won't look so bad in the morning, otherwise I feel sorry for my patients.

Hazmat

2006-02-10T18:13:00.000-08:00

I actually woke up rather early this morning. Well, early for me. I drove to a neighboring (sort of) town to pick up an application for the municipal ambulance service. Hopefully that will work out. Or at least something will.

I have decided that I will most likely be transferring into the city. They get better calls (and more of them) down there anyways. I am not looking forward to the 65 mile commute, but I guess I have to do what I can until I turn 21. I think the traffic will be less stressful than the situation I am in currently.

I went for my spyrometry (I don't think I spelled that right...) and auditory tests today. The spyrometry was okay. I thought my head was going to pop off by the third go around. I don't know if you've done it before, but they make you take a deep breath and then make you exhale as quickly and much as possible. It made my lungs hurt.

Then I waited about 15 minutes for the auditory exam. This was the best part. I haven't had one since I was in grade school. And when they did it then, you went in a quiet room with practically sound proof headphones on. Those I actually think worked. This time it was a joke. I was in a regular exam room. They gave me crappy headphones; I could hear the traffic outside, the secretary on the phone...it was ridiculous. I just sat there and hit the button at random intervals. The woman handed me a form to bring back to the fire house. It said, "passed." What the hell? I thought for sure I had failed-I think I only heard the sound once or twice; and those times I thought my ears were just ringing. Great test. It was loads of fun.

I had my Hazmat awareness test tonight...again. Second try is a charm, right? I'm not so sure how I did. There were 57 questions...I finished in 15 minutes. Yeah, so I hope I didn't fail again. I don't think my Chief would be impressed.

Another Day

2006-02-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

Another day on shift. Right off the bat we got a priority call in Deerfield. Almost 20 miles later or so we were on scene. It was the same nursing home that we joked about previously for deciding to check on their patients for once. This call was for a lethargic patient with a fever. Nothing too good. The nursing home said her blood pressure was 80/60, but we got 114 systolic. She was already being treated for pneumonia, and other than being pretty much unresponsive, she was doing good as far as we could tell.

Then we did a call for a doctors' appointment. We took this 380 pound lady, who only needed a wheelchair van, on our stretcher to the doctor. The doc was in awe that the nursing home asked for an ambulance. Thank God she let us keep the patient on the stretcher for the exam. Whew. That was a long one.

I think I did another one up north, and then I headed back south. One of the hospitals was "dumping." There were at least four rigs from my company in and around the ambulance bay. We took a 20 year old to Evanston for psych. He seemed like a good kid.

I can't talk about most of the rest of the day...I have a feeling the information would get to the wrong place and I would be out of a job. Let's just say that I plan on transferring stations; if not companies. I am sick of the bullshit. Anyways, I didn't finish out the shift and I got home around 2300.

Customer Service

2006-02-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

School again today. My classes were uneventful, as usual. The only thing I did notice is that my muscles don't hurt so much after class anymore and I'm getting more flexible. It's about time. I will be buff by summer :).

I got out of school around 1430 and headed home. Once again, I didn't get a whole lot done, but maybe shift will be slow tomorrow and I can work on it. I am such a procrastinator...Ugh.

I went to fire training at 1800. Tonight was a lecture on customer service-taught by a Captain from a neighboring department. His lectures are usually pretty good, but tonights was especially so. I can't wait until I get to use some of his suggestions out in the community. I especially love working with kids, and I think this just might be my chance. I tried to get into a class at the National Fire Academy for the summer, but my application was too late. Instead, I am taking several certificate courses online through the NFA, including public education.

I am back on shift tomorrow. It doesn't even feel like I had any time off. It seems like I've been saying that a lot recently. My doc put me on Ambien, so hopefully I will get some decent sleep. I'm sick of being tired all the time.

I thought I was completely off on Friday, but I remembered that I had a physical for the fire department at a local clinic for spyrometry and auditory testing, and then I have my state Hazmat test at 1900 in Mundelein. Saturday I am working at a "Polar plunge" in Wisconsin-working in an ice rescue suit and helping people out of the water. They are trying to find certified divers to do it because several of us that are going aren't divers, but either way I will be there. A few of our guys are jumping, so if I don't work there, I will probably take the dive with them. Only time can tell.

Road Trip

2006-02-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

I got off around 0900. Yet another day of being held over. Whatever-I'm off until Thursday. Yeah! The only bad thing is that I had to lug myself to Elmhurt today to get my banking account squared away.

The trip was actually not too bad. By the time I left there wasn't too much traffic. The only bad part was that the "open tolling" is in effect, and I don't have an I-PASS; basically I had to go into the lane furthest to the right and wait in line and a toll booth. I didn't realize it, but it is like 38 miles to Elmhurst. Wow. The bank fixed my debit card and is sending me a new pin; they also reordered my checks, got me signed up for online banking, and I used a temporary check to transfer funds. Whew. I'm glad that's over with. Banks are right around the top of my list of least favorite places to go. Also up there are post offices and the hospital.

I didn't accomplish much after that. I ran a few errands, such as purchasing the paint for my apartment. The paint store was really cool. I guess the store is mainly for contractors; he said, "you're a firefighter? I'll give you contractor's price." Nice. I only spent $30 for $65 worth of paint-the day is getting better.

I also tried to do some homework, but I made very little progress. I kept getting distracted. Oh well. I will get some sleep and try again tomorrow.

Back to school, back to school...

Paranoid

2006-02-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

I spent my first 8 waking hours at school. It went relatively well...I'm still glad I'm done until Wednesday.

I got to work at 1500. Right away I got a call for a return to a nursing home-nothing special. The lady had a hip fracture and was going for rehab. We were told to post a hospital about 10 miles away and right before we got there they cancelled us. We sat at the station for a while getting some paperwork done and chatting with our regional manager. Then dispatch called back and said to go post the same hospital, once again. We didn't make it there this time either. We were told to go to a nursing home down the road (about 5 miles) on priority for vaginal bleeding. Needless to say, the bleeding wasn't severe and it had been going on for two days. Another day of risking my life to act as a taxi.

We didn't even clear from that call when we were paged out to take a patient from the same ER to another hospital for surgery. Our patient was using a table saw and it slipped, partially amputating his right index finger and lacerating the others. We took him directly to the OR at a hospital about 20 minutes outside of Chicago.

We got back to our quarters and got to rest for about two hours. Then we got dispatched for a psych transport. The lady was a paranoid schizophrenic. She was walking around in circles around the nurses station muttering to herself. She asked many questions and kept saying, "I can walk...I can walk." She also asked me why she had to wear all the seatbelts, and that she couldn't help anyone if she was strapped down. She was very concerned that the doors were locked and that no men were in the ambulance. She asked if she could go home. When I said she had to go to the hospital she said, "I can't go home? Is that what my mom said?" I just told her it was the hospital's policy and that they would work everything out there. I was glad to finish the call-my hand was getting tired from all the times she made me unlock and relock the back doors to prove to her that they were, indeed, locked.

Back to quarters again for about an hour. We were called for a return to a nursing home from an ER for a patient that had abdominal pain that was cured with a GI cocktail. Great. Easy enough, right? Nope. She weighed almost 500 pounds. Before we left quarters I asked my dispatcher for a lift assist because they included the weight on the page. She said she was sending one from the Glenview area and that they would meet us at the hospital. We were about 1 mile from the hospital when one of our company's ambulances passed us-with both people in the front. The rig wasn't from my station so I figured it was our lift assist-having missed the hospital. My dispatcher kindly turned them around and they got to the ER about 10 minutes after we did. I can't believe they missed the hospital. As if the big blue signs with the "H" on them means anything but hospital. Oh well. We got the lady to the nursing home without incident. She was a big one and I was glad that was my last call.

(back dated)