Earn Money Sleeping
I'm working for 24 in Cary today. The day did not start out well.
I walked in the station at about 6:45, because even though we're not required to be there until 7, it absolutely sucks to take a call 15 minutes before you're supposed to go home. Today, it bit me though. I'd barely managed to set my stuff down before the tones went off. I grabbed a radio, and off we went.
The first call of the day was for a 300lb woman with knee pain. She'd had surgery in the first part of January, and got an infection in her incision site. Today, the pain has become "unbearable" (even with 2 oxycodone) and she can hardly survive. At least half of this lady's problems stem directly from the fact that she's a bipolar lardass with hairy legs. Ick. Also, she smelled.
Take her to the hospital, and drop her off. She hurt my back. It should be a law that if you weigh more than 250lbs, you can't call 911 unless you plan on walking your ass out to my truck.
Done with that lady, my partner and I head back to the station, and meet up with the oncoming crew so he can go home. We check the truck off, and head for breakfast. Here, you can find one of the rare benefits to EMS. Some wonderful places decide that emergency personnel in uniform deserve free, or discounted food. These are the best people of all time. I had a great breakfast at Barry's Cafe, and paid $4. That means a lot when you're poor like me.
We made it back to the station, popped in some Family Guy DVDs, and began instructing the students who're riding with us today on the finer points of sleeping on the couch.
Like all good things though, this comes to an end relatively quickly, when we're paged for a "head injury" down the road at an apartment complex attached to one of the nicer neighborhoods in Cary. While we're enroute, we're informed that we'll be met on the scene by law enforcement. You smell that? It's trouble.
Our patient is a 51 year old female, who is out of her freaking gourd insane. The first words out of the CPD officers mouth are "Good luck" followed closely by "She says she was assaulted by the FBI Wednesday night."
Our gal is sitting on the couch, moaning to herself, and is absolutely covered in bruises. True to her (obviously false) story, they do appear to be a few days old. She's quietly moaning-
CrazyLady- "Ohhhhh, who could do this?"
Me- "Ma'am, what's going on?"
CL- "They tied me with poofy string!"
You can imagine how the rest of our conversation went. I check out everything I can think of that could possibly make this lady act crazy (short of her just being crazy) and nothing pans out. There's no family around, and no neighbors. Essentially, we're killing time while we wait for the police officer to get in touch with some member of her famiy. During this time, I'm treated to several courses of psycho babble, all of which involve many fantasies of strange men coming and tying her up.
Me- "Ma'am, did these men hurt you?"
CL- "No! They just tied me in ludicrous positions! With poofy string!"
Word for word. No lie.
Law enforcement finally gets hold of this lady's father, who says that she has a history of psychotic breaks like this, and that we should take her to the hospital. He also says that the bruises came from her. She's used a hammer on herself in the past. He has custody of her 3 sons, all of whom are autistic and bipolar. Honestly now, who can blame this lady for being crazy?
We load her into the truck, and ride her into the hospital. While we're pulling up to the bay, the lady says "Who would do this to themselves? They'd have to be crazy."
I could only reply with "Ma'am, I'd have to agree."
We clear from that call, only to be immediately dispatched to another call at an urgent care office, literally within sight of where we're standing at the ER entrance. We copy the call, mark enroute, and mark onscene, all with the same radio traffic. It's the little pleasures that make life great.
This urgent care office is notorious for abusing the hell out of the EMS system, and the doctors here are officially fucktards, who don't know there ass from a hole in the ground, much less how to treat acute emergencies. I forgive them when I see how cute our patient is.
She's 4 years old, with a history of asthma, and her mom has been unable to control her wheezing all day. She's been getting breathing treatments, and IV steroids, but the docs there didn't think about putting her on oxygen. Whoops. 4 years of medical school, for what?
I end up carrying her from the bed in the room to our stretcher in the hallway, and for 15 seconds, I am this little girl's hero come to life. Try not to let your heart melt when a sick four year old manages a "thank you" as you lay her down. I dare you.
A looooong ride to WakePeds later, and we're done with cutie pie. We head back to the station, and I'm ready to resume lessons with the students.
Unfortunately, Christian, who is one of the funniest people I know, (Today, watching TV "Dude, they're making a show about midgets! Hell Yeah! I love midgets!") is snoring like it's his job on my favorite couch. Undaunted, I proceed to the bedroom, and manage one of the best 2 hour naps of my life. It's slightly ruined when we get a call, but we're quickly cancelled from that, and I decide it was for the best anyway. I don't want to seem sloth-like in my daily re-tellings of my life.
Christian gets back from a call soon after this, and we decide it's time for dinner. (5pm. We didn't eat lunch. Mistake.) Stupidly tempting fate after it was kind enough to let us nap this afternoon, we decide to try for a nice meal at The Olive Garden, rather than the usual quick-meal-that you're-almost-guaranteed-to-be-able-to-eat.
I managed to order a water before the tones went off.
We roar through town again, off to save an "unconscious person". We arrive to find the meanest old patient I've ever had, seated in a chair, asking "Who the hell is that now?" when we walk in the door. I quickly decide that he can be my partner's problem, and I ask his wife all the questions she can answer, to avoid having to deal with him. I probably missed out on some good material for this thing, but I didn't get in trouble for putting my boot to his larynx either.
Since I had little to do with him, I have little to write about, except that he was an asshole, and made me miss my dinner.
We clear up from his bullshit, and we're pulling into the parking lot of Boston Market (note the progression down the food chain as we become more desperate for food) when the next set of tones goes off. Back to the urgent care place we'd already been to once today (they eventually called 3 times) this time for a 14month old male, who's dehydrated, and had a low blood sugar.
The same dumbass doc tells me that they can't treat him here, since they only have D50 (50% dextrose in water) and a kid his age can only take D10 (10% dextrose in water, but you knew that.) I don't bother asking if they didn't teach her enough math in medical school to learn how to dilute a solution, opting instead to take the kid and go to WakePeds. I'm grumpy. I haven't had dinner. Sue me.
An hour later, we make it back to our district, and stop at the first option we see. CookOut, how I love thee. $6 later, I have a chicken sandwich, hushpuppies, onion rings, a coke, and a chocolate cherry shake. There is a God, and he loves me.
Back to the station, and I catch the end of Carolina's domination of Maryland, which makes me a happy boy. Shortly thereafter, we're dispatched to a hemorrhaging call.
We race across town, nearly dying when the teenage girl in front of us decides red lights and a siren behind her mean "Lock the brakes, and sit in the middle of the road." We arrive at the address given by our dispatcher, and knock on the door.
No answer.
Knock some more.
No answer.
Knock REALLY HARD.
*thump thump thump*
There's now a breathless indian man wearing only a towel standing in front of me.
Me- "Did you call 911?"
IM- "No sir."
Me- "You sure?"
IM- "Yes sir."
Me-"Okay."
We walk down to the next apartment, and get the same response from a lady with 2 very large dogs. I don't argue with her. We call central back, and ask them to call the complainant back, and figure out what the hell is going on.
After some calling, and asking around, it turns out that the indian guy's mother-in-law called 911, from Ohio, because her daughter (his wife, apparently estranged) has been unable to contact him all day. I want to call her back to tell her that just because this guy doesn't want to talk to his bitchy ass wife is no excuse to call 911 and say he's bleeding to death, as I almost did die when the Teenage Drama Queen in the Ford Focus flipped her shit and forgot how to drive.
Rant over. In the end, karma is great, running that call meant that I missed the next one, and got to see all of Grey's Anatomy. She hurt George, but I can't really be angry with her. She's just too damn cute. It's the eyes ladies. It's all about the eyes for me.
I'm about ready for bed shortly after midnight, so of course, *deet deet* "Pre-alert, back pain."
It's a no lights and sirens response, but we still drive fast because it's late, and we're tired. We walk in to find out patient sitting in a chair and smiling at us. Supposedly, she's experiencing excrusciating back pain that's making it impossible for her to walk. I ask her to describe the pain, and she says "It's a 10!". Hello drug-seeker. My name is Chris. You will be receiving zero pain medication on the way to the hospital. Thanks for flying "I'm not an idiot" airlines.
This lady is in no distress, at all, and has a UTI. That's about it. She was even sent home from the ED last night with Oxycodone, but no no. She wants the good shit.
Oh, and rememeber how it's impossible for her to walk, due to the pain? Well she forgot, because when we ask if she can walk to the truck, she says "Sure!" and springs to her feet. On the way down the stairs, she hollers back at her sister "Bring my word puzzle book!" 10 out of 10 pain my achin' ass.
Since we're not allowed to refuse patients in Wake county, we're obligated to give her a ride, but I literally check her blood pressure, and then sit and look at her, and there was a lot to look at. She was about 300lbs.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 300 pounder to 300 pounder. As my day began, so it ends. Goodnight all, I hope there's nothing to add to this in the morning.
I walked in the station at about 6:45, because even though we're not required to be there until 7, it absolutely sucks to take a call 15 minutes before you're supposed to go home. Today, it bit me though. I'd barely managed to set my stuff down before the tones went off. I grabbed a radio, and off we went.
The first call of the day was for a 300lb woman with knee pain. She'd had surgery in the first part of January, and got an infection in her incision site. Today, the pain has become "unbearable" (even with 2 oxycodone) and she can hardly survive. At least half of this lady's problems stem directly from the fact that she's a bipolar lardass with hairy legs. Ick. Also, she smelled.
Take her to the hospital, and drop her off. She hurt my back. It should be a law that if you weigh more than 250lbs, you can't call 911 unless you plan on walking your ass out to my truck.
Done with that lady, my partner and I head back to the station, and meet up with the oncoming crew so he can go home. We check the truck off, and head for breakfast. Here, you can find one of the rare benefits to EMS. Some wonderful places decide that emergency personnel in uniform deserve free, or discounted food. These are the best people of all time. I had a great breakfast at Barry's Cafe, and paid $4. That means a lot when you're poor like me.
We made it back to the station, popped in some Family Guy DVDs, and began instructing the students who're riding with us today on the finer points of sleeping on the couch.
Like all good things though, this comes to an end relatively quickly, when we're paged for a "head injury" down the road at an apartment complex attached to one of the nicer neighborhoods in Cary. While we're enroute, we're informed that we'll be met on the scene by law enforcement. You smell that? It's trouble.
Our patient is a 51 year old female, who is out of her freaking gourd insane. The first words out of the CPD officers mouth are "Good luck" followed closely by "She says she was assaulted by the FBI Wednesday night."
Our gal is sitting on the couch, moaning to herself, and is absolutely covered in bruises. True to her (obviously false) story, they do appear to be a few days old. She's quietly moaning-
CrazyLady- "Ohhhhh, who could do this?"
Me- "Ma'am, what's going on?"
CL- "They tied me with poofy string!"
You can imagine how the rest of our conversation went. I check out everything I can think of that could possibly make this lady act crazy (short of her just being crazy) and nothing pans out. There's no family around, and no neighbors. Essentially, we're killing time while we wait for the police officer to get in touch with some member of her famiy. During this time, I'm treated to several courses of psycho babble, all of which involve many fantasies of strange men coming and tying her up.
Me- "Ma'am, did these men hurt you?"
CL- "No! They just tied me in ludicrous positions! With poofy string!"
Word for word. No lie.
Law enforcement finally gets hold of this lady's father, who says that she has a history of psychotic breaks like this, and that we should take her to the hospital. He also says that the bruises came from her. She's used a hammer on herself in the past. He has custody of her 3 sons, all of whom are autistic and bipolar. Honestly now, who can blame this lady for being crazy?
We load her into the truck, and ride her into the hospital. While we're pulling up to the bay, the lady says "Who would do this to themselves? They'd have to be crazy."
I could only reply with "Ma'am, I'd have to agree."
We clear from that call, only to be immediately dispatched to another call at an urgent care office, literally within sight of where we're standing at the ER entrance. We copy the call, mark enroute, and mark onscene, all with the same radio traffic. It's the little pleasures that make life great.
This urgent care office is notorious for abusing the hell out of the EMS system, and the doctors here are officially fucktards, who don't know there ass from a hole in the ground, much less how to treat acute emergencies. I forgive them when I see how cute our patient is.
She's 4 years old, with a history of asthma, and her mom has been unable to control her wheezing all day. She's been getting breathing treatments, and IV steroids, but the docs there didn't think about putting her on oxygen. Whoops. 4 years of medical school, for what?
I end up carrying her from the bed in the room to our stretcher in the hallway, and for 15 seconds, I am this little girl's hero come to life. Try not to let your heart melt when a sick four year old manages a "thank you" as you lay her down. I dare you.
A looooong ride to WakePeds later, and we're done with cutie pie. We head back to the station, and I'm ready to resume lessons with the students.
Unfortunately, Christian, who is one of the funniest people I know, (Today, watching TV "Dude, they're making a show about midgets! Hell Yeah! I love midgets!") is snoring like it's his job on my favorite couch. Undaunted, I proceed to the bedroom, and manage one of the best 2 hour naps of my life. It's slightly ruined when we get a call, but we're quickly cancelled from that, and I decide it was for the best anyway. I don't want to seem sloth-like in my daily re-tellings of my life.
Christian gets back from a call soon after this, and we decide it's time for dinner. (5pm. We didn't eat lunch. Mistake.) Stupidly tempting fate after it was kind enough to let us nap this afternoon, we decide to try for a nice meal at The Olive Garden, rather than the usual quick-meal-that you're-almost-guaranteed-to-be-able-to-eat.
I managed to order a water before the tones went off.
We roar through town again, off to save an "unconscious person". We arrive to find the meanest old patient I've ever had, seated in a chair, asking "Who the hell is that now?" when we walk in the door. I quickly decide that he can be my partner's problem, and I ask his wife all the questions she can answer, to avoid having to deal with him. I probably missed out on some good material for this thing, but I didn't get in trouble for putting my boot to his larynx either.
Since I had little to do with him, I have little to write about, except that he was an asshole, and made me miss my dinner.
We clear up from his bullshit, and we're pulling into the parking lot of Boston Market (note the progression down the food chain as we become more desperate for food) when the next set of tones goes off. Back to the urgent care place we'd already been to once today (they eventually called 3 times) this time for a 14month old male, who's dehydrated, and had a low blood sugar.
The same dumbass doc tells me that they can't treat him here, since they only have D50 (50% dextrose in water) and a kid his age can only take D10 (10% dextrose in water, but you knew that.) I don't bother asking if they didn't teach her enough math in medical school to learn how to dilute a solution, opting instead to take the kid and go to WakePeds. I'm grumpy. I haven't had dinner. Sue me.
An hour later, we make it back to our district, and stop at the first option we see. CookOut, how I love thee. $6 later, I have a chicken sandwich, hushpuppies, onion rings, a coke, and a chocolate cherry shake. There is a God, and he loves me.
Back to the station, and I catch the end of Carolina's domination of Maryland, which makes me a happy boy. Shortly thereafter, we're dispatched to a hemorrhaging call.
We race across town, nearly dying when the teenage girl in front of us decides red lights and a siren behind her mean "Lock the brakes, and sit in the middle of the road." We arrive at the address given by our dispatcher, and knock on the door.
No answer.
Knock some more.
No answer.
Knock REALLY HARD.
*thump thump thump*
There's now a breathless indian man wearing only a towel standing in front of me.
Me- "Did you call 911?"
IM- "No sir."
Me- "You sure?"
IM- "Yes sir."
Me-"Okay."
We walk down to the next apartment, and get the same response from a lady with 2 very large dogs. I don't argue with her. We call central back, and ask them to call the complainant back, and figure out what the hell is going on.
After some calling, and asking around, it turns out that the indian guy's mother-in-law called 911, from Ohio, because her daughter (his wife, apparently estranged) has been unable to contact him all day. I want to call her back to tell her that just because this guy doesn't want to talk to his bitchy ass wife is no excuse to call 911 and say he's bleeding to death, as I almost did die when the Teenage Drama Queen in the Ford Focus flipped her shit and forgot how to drive.
Rant over. In the end, karma is great, running that call meant that I missed the next one, and got to see all of Grey's Anatomy. She hurt George, but I can't really be angry with her. She's just too damn cute. It's the eyes ladies. It's all about the eyes for me.
I'm about ready for bed shortly after midnight, so of course, *deet deet* "Pre-alert, back pain."
It's a no lights and sirens response, but we still drive fast because it's late, and we're tired. We walk in to find out patient sitting in a chair and smiling at us. Supposedly, she's experiencing excrusciating back pain that's making it impossible for her to walk. I ask her to describe the pain, and she says "It's a 10!". Hello drug-seeker. My name is Chris. You will be receiving zero pain medication on the way to the hospital. Thanks for flying "I'm not an idiot" airlines.
This lady is in no distress, at all, and has a UTI. That's about it. She was even sent home from the ED last night with Oxycodone, but no no. She wants the good shit.
Oh, and rememeber how it's impossible for her to walk, due to the pain? Well she forgot, because when we ask if she can walk to the truck, she says "Sure!" and springs to her feet. On the way down the stairs, she hollers back at her sister "Bring my word puzzle book!" 10 out of 10 pain my achin' ass.
Since we're not allowed to refuse patients in Wake county, we're obligated to give her a ride, but I literally check her blood pressure, and then sit and look at her, and there was a lot to look at. She was about 300lbs.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 300 pounder to 300 pounder. As my day began, so it ends. Goodnight all, I hope there's nothing to add to this in the morning.
posted by C at 4:22 PM
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