I boarded the plane at JFK in New York to Madrid, found my seat, tucked my luggage into the compartment, sat down and began reading a book that I had brought. I get a tap on my shoulder, and I look up to see the frightened face of a middle-aged lady who asked me in Spanish if this was her seat. I look at her ticket and indeed she was supposed to sit to my left. She was short, and could not put her luggage in the overhead compartment, so I put it up there, and got everything situated. I sat down and watched her struggle for a few minutes trying to buckle her seatbelt backwards, and then I asked if I could assist her. After I buckled it and handed her her blanket and pillow, she burst into tears and began sobbing into a crumpled napkin that was so old and used that it was ripping into pieces as she attempted to blow her nose and blot her eyes. I handed her my bandanna and she covered her face while bursting into a fresh bout of sobs that were more intense than the first round. I put a hand on her shoulder and patted it gently. Suddenly, she turned to me and began speaking wildly in Spanish while still continuing to sob. From what I could gather from the pieces that I could understand, I found out that she was 56 years old and is originally from Ecuador but now lives in Italy. This tip was to drop off her daughter (her only child) at a university in New York, and they were both crying , she said. Also, this trip to New York is also her second time on a plane in her life. The only other plane was when she flew one-way to Italy from Ecuador. She blew her nose again into the bandanna and sat there with her tear-streaked face, looking at me earnestly. I felt as though she were asking me for some sort of answer to her situation, but I had none. All I could do what begin asking her questions to about her daughter and asking her to tell me stories (which I barely understood, but did the best I could to respond appropriately). Eventually she calmed, but had intermittent tearful bursts for the next six hours. I made sure she ate, but she hated the food so she nibbled at the disgusting food, and then I finally got her to doze off twice during the flight. I also had to track down one of the flight attendants to ask for a glass of water so she could take her blood pressure pill. The flight attendants were NOT in any sort of hurry to do anything. They brought food and drinks, and then you did not see them again until the next time you ate. At which time they would scowl at you if you still had your plate or cup from the last meal, as if it were your fault that they did not come around to collect the trash. It was actually quite humorous, and I laughed every time they came around and I watched their disgusted faces float down the isle, and the looks they gave their compadres across the way in the other isle, who responded with a similar expression. I feel that it distracted my companion, too, because she would look at me over her glasses and roll her eyes at their 'disgust'. If I were to fly Iberia again, I would do it only because I found it humorous. The service was as I described above, and the food left a lot to be desired. The only tasty thing was the whipped cream on the apple pie, which was thick and heavy as the consistency of icing on a cake.
Once we landed, and exited the plane, I was looking to see where my next gate was when I felt a gentle little tug on my sleeve. I looked over to see my flight companion, Patricia, standing there, holding out her boarding pass for her next flight, looking completely lost and asking me where to go next. I assisted her up 8-10 escalators, through several hallways, and then on and off the train, and then up 5 more escalators to the hallway where she could then find her way. Madrid airport is incredibly confusing. We landed in 4S and had to get to 4 somehow. As I walked towards my terminal, I saw 88-90 on my right, and 95-96 straight ahead. I needed 92. Oh! I found it hiding at the far left of the wide open space in a little nook that no one would ever look at. And, well, there were no seats at my gate...so we all had to sit on the floor or stand. It was really interesting. I wish that I had pictures, but I did not want to take one of my accidental travel companion while she was crying, and I was exhausted by the time I arrived at gate 92. I sat down and thought of nothing.
I am unsure if our pilot in the small plane from Madrid to Malaga was drunk or a newbe (I am going with New) because it was one of those flights where if anyone was reading at take-off, 10 minutes into the flight all books were replaced into their bags, and all headphones taken out of ears, and most people were trying to look calm and collected while clutching the armrests of their seats, and the flight attendants sat in their seats and buckled their harnesses. When the wheels hit the runway in Malaga, a loud cheer arose and everyone clapped and whooped and you could feel all of the tension leave with the skid-marks we left on the runway as we fishtailed to a stop, and then coolly proceeded to our appropriate gate as if nothing had happened. The pilot is usually at the door as you exit the plane, to thank you for riding with them. This time there was no sign of the pilot. Only a flight attendant.
So, I am now in Granada!
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Thursday, January 29, 2015
EMS Beginnings
I hear a gentle guitar strum and Eddie Vedder's deep raspy voice softly singing, 'It won't be the last...won't be the first. To find my way to where the sky meets the earth. It's all right and all wrong, for me it begins at the end of the road. We come and go...' and I realize it is my phone alarm waking me up. Time to go to work again. It is dark outside though it is only 1800. Winter can be so cruel sometimes: working nights is difficult enough, but not allowing me to even see the sun is sometimes so disheartening. I jerk myself out of bed, into cold ambient air, scuttle down the ladder to the floor and stick my feet into my slippers...except....gosh darn it, I forgot to put my slippers beside my ladder again. Oh well, Life goes on! I reach up on my bed and grab my sweater and pull it on and shiver my way out into the hallway and into the kitchen to make some food. I have an hour before I leave, so I get dressed, and have just enough time to stuff my food into some containers before I trot out the door and drive away onto dark streets to the station.
At work, we always have to check off the truck first thing. The worst feeling in the world is when you respond to a call and realize you've forgotten to restock monitor paper, and this is a cardiac call! Or the shift before you used all of the IV supplies and you respond to a multiple GSW or a dehydration call. Or you forgot to change the main Oxygen tank out and you respond to a respiratory distress call. You are supposed to be a medical professional, and that means you have to make every effort to ensure that you have everything on that truck that you may need in order to respond to whatever is thrown at you. We are called Emergency Medical Technicians, and so we respond to all emergencies - not simply medical ones, but any true emergency has the potential to have medical issues. So we respond to emergencies with potential medical issues as well.
The ambulance is parked outside, so we get the keys, and I grab my narc-box and sign it out on the sign-out sheet, grab our coats, and head out to the truck. He starts the engine and turns up some music, while I hop into the back and turn on the lights and the heater. He checks the main Oxygen tank and all of the outside compartments on his way to the back of the ambulance, and we commence the laborious process of counting every single item on the truck and logging it. After we check off the truck, we contact dispatch,
Brooks: '23 to dispatch...'
Dispatch: 'Go ahead 23.'
Brooks: '6823, Brooks and Maurice, ALS, truck SIX-ZERO-ONE, till ZERO-EIGHT HUNDRED. Starting milage THREE-FOUR-SEVEN-FIVE-SIX-SIX. THREE-FOUR-SEVEN-FIVE-SIX-SIX. In service.'
Dispatch: 'Affirmative 23. I have you in service.'
Then we wait....we wait for the next call. 'I am hungry.' I say, 'Are you hungry, Brooks?' 'I am not hungry, but I'm not opposed to going to get something for you.' He responds. 'Let's go get some food before we get a call.' I say, and we drive to wherever a good place to eat happens to be open. We also have to choose somewhere that does not take a very long while to get the food...just in case we get a call and have to leave the food before we get it. This has happened more times than I would like to count, so fast-food joints are usually the best go-to spots...unfortunately. Unless you want to call ahead. But then you inevitably get a call on your way there and your food is cold by the time you actually get it, and it is not worth the money you pay for it. Also, options are limited when one works 2000-0800. In the morning, if we are on the West Side of Nashville, we will stop at Breuger's Bagels and get some bagels for breakfast.
We finally return to the station after a series of ALS calls. ALS means that I have tech'd all of the calls while my partner Brooks has driven us in the ambulance. I finish my last report, and we each fall onto our beds in exhaustion, and are just about to fall to sleep when the tones go off again! Another call, '23...' [beep]......'23...' dispatch rings in. 'This is 23.' we respond. '23, we have a call...' and the rest is a little jumbled as we halfway listen, paying attention for important words like, 'Respiratory distress' or 'GI Bleed' or 'PD is on scene' while walking out to the ambulance to check in route and give them our miles. 'That's affirmative. I have you enroute 0215.' The general misconception from television productions is that all emergency personnel RUN when we get calls. Well, we hurry, but we never run...for several reasons. 1) We need to conserve as much energy as possible. We never know exactly what the call is, so we need to have as much energy as we possibly can by the time we reach the patient. 2) If we run, we risk the chance of injuring ourselves on the way to the vehicle, and this would do no one any good. If I sprain my ankle, how am I going to help the patient? I am not. So we do not RUN. We hurry, but do not run. You can always tell 'The New Guy' because they RUN to the ambulance! and are sitting there looking anxious as we mount into the vehicle. My partner and I usually get a big chuckle out of seeing them run, and then seeing their baffled faces sitting in the ambulance. I usually let them run for the first few calls and see if they notice that my partner and I are not running. Maybe they will ask why? If not, and they continue to run, I will eventually say something like, 'Slow down there, big guy. You only have so much energy to expend. Might want to save that for the patient and let the ambulance get us there quickly, ok?' They usually nod their heads in an, 'Oh! But they always run on TV...' kind of confused look. Nope, we don't run.
It is 0945 and we finally pull into the ambulance bay at work to find Alex and Beegee (our relief crew) standing there waiting for us. I get out of the ambulance, handing the narc keys off to Alex (the medic) and give him report of my night. Brooks gives Beegee a report of what we used on our shift, and we go to finish paperwork while they check off the truck and get into service. The day is musty, but musty means it will be a good day for sleeping, and I won't be tempted to stay up and do things around the house, or take a walk through the woods. Musty means that I will go home and sleep until I hear Eddie Vedder's voice softly wake me up again that night at 1800. Then I will start the whole process over again. Of course there are days when I need to stay up, and those days make it so difficult to be alive. I have found that the only way to survive days like that are to think about everything I can but sleep, and to munch on as much food as I can. Munch, meaning not big meals. Big meals will make me more tired. Coffee is good, but you have to have had a substantial meal in order for it to have an effect on you by this point. Otherwise you begin to shake and are exhausted beyond comprehension because you are using your last energy resource reserves to metabolize the caffeine. Water. Water is the best resource you will ever have. Drink LOTS of water ALL OF THE TIME. If you are dehydrated, again, your body will use more energy than usual by trying to fill your vascular system with fluids, draining your other areas (intracellular and interstitial) and your muscles and lungs and brain will not have enough fluid to metabolize the resources for energy production. Plus, you might get a UTI because your urine is so concentrated, and UTIs are hateful. Drink water. The days that I need to stay up, I admit that I can feel frustrated at more than I would usually get frustrated at, and things seem magnified beyond their normal state. I do not have as much control over my faculties. When you work nights, sometimes there is no other option but to resist sleep and force yourself to stay awake in order to do things that need to be done during 'normal people hours.' I am such a morning person, and I am such a day-time person, that working nights really does have major affects on me. But I can do it as long as I remember that it is not forever. It is only for a short time, and then I will be somewhere else. Having a good partner is the ONLY thing that keeps me here, working nights rather than days. Having a good partner who respects me and works well with me makes ALL of the difference in the World. Kudos to Ed Brooks for working nights with me. There are times when he is a jerk, but that comes when you spend 12+ hrs in a confined space with the same person 60+ hrs q/wk. You deal with it then and there and move on. You have a sense of humor. You yell it out, talk it out, stop the ambulance after a call and duke it out! Whatever helps. Just get it out...fix it. Otherwise, you are going to drive yourself crazy and hate your life. Not everyone follows this policy, and they are miserable. I find it difficult to follow in my personal life. But at work, I have absolutely NO problem confronting something that I think is unjust, unfair, or something that flat out offends me.
At the county service, things are so different. I have more down-time to do things...like sleep, for instance. Wonderful thing, Sleep. Sometimes I forget what it is or what it feels like. The first time I watched 'The Lord Of the Rings: Return Of the King' and I heard Frodo say, 'Grass....I have forgotten what it feels like.' I scoffed because I could not relate. How can someone forget what grass feels like? Well, I will tell you that I have had this realization so many times....but mostly about sleep. What does it really feel like to sleep? Sometimes I 'forget' because I have spent so long forcing myself to 'forget' and to focus everything I have on 'staying awake'. This was mostly while I was in medic school, but it still happens every now and again. I am thankful to have gone through medic school, but I wouldn't go back through it if you paid me. Thank God that I am now on the other side. I love the county service...it is such a familial environment, and if we respond to a 'bad' call, we usually have time to recoup before the next call. You have time to actually cook food, and if you get called away while cooking, then there is always someone else there to finish the cooking until you return. Unless it is a really messy call, of course (like a cardiac arrest, or a structure fire that takes hours to contain.) I hope to soon have a full-time position at a county service, and drop to part-time at Lifeguard..or just quit all together.
There are SO many paths that I could take at this point, and I know that there will always be more than I can have at any one time. I want to get my Search and Rescue, I want to do tracking, I want to work at a full-time 911 county service, I want to work all over the world in remote places and help people who have no other help, I want to fly, jump out of the plane and hike to my destination! I want to teach, I want to be a flight medic! I want to live on a small houseboat or a cabin in the woods and have time to do my own things! Like carpentry, or gardening....or, cooking meals. Ha! What is it like to have free-time? That is another thing that I have forgotten about. Frodo, you silly Hobbit! Tolkien, You must have known what it was to forget such basic things....things that ordinary people take for granted. When I have 'free-time' now, it is usually spent doing either everything that I have to catch-up on, or I spend it doing mindless nothings because I am too exhausted to do anything but sit.
So, that is the end. We will see what happens.
At work, we always have to check off the truck first thing. The worst feeling in the world is when you respond to a call and realize you've forgotten to restock monitor paper, and this is a cardiac call! Or the shift before you used all of the IV supplies and you respond to a multiple GSW or a dehydration call. Or you forgot to change the main Oxygen tank out and you respond to a respiratory distress call. You are supposed to be a medical professional, and that means you have to make every effort to ensure that you have everything on that truck that you may need in order to respond to whatever is thrown at you. We are called Emergency Medical Technicians, and so we respond to all emergencies - not simply medical ones, but any true emergency has the potential to have medical issues. So we respond to emergencies with potential medical issues as well.
The ambulance is parked outside, so we get the keys, and I grab my narc-box and sign it out on the sign-out sheet, grab our coats, and head out to the truck. He starts the engine and turns up some music, while I hop into the back and turn on the lights and the heater. He checks the main Oxygen tank and all of the outside compartments on his way to the back of the ambulance, and we commence the laborious process of counting every single item on the truck and logging it. After we check off the truck, we contact dispatch,
Brooks: '23 to dispatch...'
Dispatch: 'Go ahead 23.'
Brooks: '6823, Brooks and Maurice, ALS, truck SIX-ZERO-ONE, till ZERO-EIGHT HUNDRED. Starting milage THREE-FOUR-SEVEN-FIVE-SIX-SIX. THREE-FOUR-SEVEN-FIVE-SIX-SIX. In service.'
Dispatch: 'Affirmative 23. I have you in service.'
Then we wait....we wait for the next call. 'I am hungry.' I say, 'Are you hungry, Brooks?' 'I am not hungry, but I'm not opposed to going to get something for you.' He responds. 'Let's go get some food before we get a call.' I say, and we drive to wherever a good place to eat happens to be open. We also have to choose somewhere that does not take a very long while to get the food...just in case we get a call and have to leave the food before we get it. This has happened more times than I would like to count, so fast-food joints are usually the best go-to spots...unfortunately. Unless you want to call ahead. But then you inevitably get a call on your way there and your food is cold by the time you actually get it, and it is not worth the money you pay for it. Also, options are limited when one works 2000-0800. In the morning, if we are on the West Side of Nashville, we will stop at Breuger's Bagels and get some bagels for breakfast.
We finally return to the station after a series of ALS calls. ALS means that I have tech'd all of the calls while my partner Brooks has driven us in the ambulance. I finish my last report, and we each fall onto our beds in exhaustion, and are just about to fall to sleep when the tones go off again! Another call, '23...' [beep]......'23...' dispatch rings in. 'This is 23.' we respond. '23, we have a call...' and the rest is a little jumbled as we halfway listen, paying attention for important words like, 'Respiratory distress' or 'GI Bleed' or 'PD is on scene' while walking out to the ambulance to check in route and give them our miles. 'That's affirmative. I have you enroute 0215.' The general misconception from television productions is that all emergency personnel RUN when we get calls. Well, we hurry, but we never run...for several reasons. 1) We need to conserve as much energy as possible. We never know exactly what the call is, so we need to have as much energy as we possibly can by the time we reach the patient. 2) If we run, we risk the chance of injuring ourselves on the way to the vehicle, and this would do no one any good. If I sprain my ankle, how am I going to help the patient? I am not. So we do not RUN. We hurry, but do not run. You can always tell 'The New Guy' because they RUN to the ambulance! and are sitting there looking anxious as we mount into the vehicle. My partner and I usually get a big chuckle out of seeing them run, and then seeing their baffled faces sitting in the ambulance. I usually let them run for the first few calls and see if they notice that my partner and I are not running. Maybe they will ask why? If not, and they continue to run, I will eventually say something like, 'Slow down there, big guy. You only have so much energy to expend. Might want to save that for the patient and let the ambulance get us there quickly, ok?' They usually nod their heads in an, 'Oh! But they always run on TV...' kind of confused look. Nope, we don't run.
It is 0945 and we finally pull into the ambulance bay at work to find Alex and Beegee (our relief crew) standing there waiting for us. I get out of the ambulance, handing the narc keys off to Alex (the medic) and give him report of my night. Brooks gives Beegee a report of what we used on our shift, and we go to finish paperwork while they check off the truck and get into service. The day is musty, but musty means it will be a good day for sleeping, and I won't be tempted to stay up and do things around the house, or take a walk through the woods. Musty means that I will go home and sleep until I hear Eddie Vedder's voice softly wake me up again that night at 1800. Then I will start the whole process over again. Of course there are days when I need to stay up, and those days make it so difficult to be alive. I have found that the only way to survive days like that are to think about everything I can but sleep, and to munch on as much food as I can. Munch, meaning not big meals. Big meals will make me more tired. Coffee is good, but you have to have had a substantial meal in order for it to have an effect on you by this point. Otherwise you begin to shake and are exhausted beyond comprehension because you are using your last energy resource reserves to metabolize the caffeine. Water. Water is the best resource you will ever have. Drink LOTS of water ALL OF THE TIME. If you are dehydrated, again, your body will use more energy than usual by trying to fill your vascular system with fluids, draining your other areas (intracellular and interstitial) and your muscles and lungs and brain will not have enough fluid to metabolize the resources for energy production. Plus, you might get a UTI because your urine is so concentrated, and UTIs are hateful. Drink water. The days that I need to stay up, I admit that I can feel frustrated at more than I would usually get frustrated at, and things seem magnified beyond their normal state. I do not have as much control over my faculties. When you work nights, sometimes there is no other option but to resist sleep and force yourself to stay awake in order to do things that need to be done during 'normal people hours.' I am such a morning person, and I am such a day-time person, that working nights really does have major affects on me. But I can do it as long as I remember that it is not forever. It is only for a short time, and then I will be somewhere else. Having a good partner is the ONLY thing that keeps me here, working nights rather than days. Having a good partner who respects me and works well with me makes ALL of the difference in the World. Kudos to Ed Brooks for working nights with me. There are times when he is a jerk, but that comes when you spend 12+ hrs in a confined space with the same person 60+ hrs q/wk. You deal with it then and there and move on. You have a sense of humor. You yell it out, talk it out, stop the ambulance after a call and duke it out! Whatever helps. Just get it out...fix it. Otherwise, you are going to drive yourself crazy and hate your life. Not everyone follows this policy, and they are miserable. I find it difficult to follow in my personal life. But at work, I have absolutely NO problem confronting something that I think is unjust, unfair, or something that flat out offends me.
At the county service, things are so different. I have more down-time to do things...like sleep, for instance. Wonderful thing, Sleep. Sometimes I forget what it is or what it feels like. The first time I watched 'The Lord Of the Rings: Return Of the King' and I heard Frodo say, 'Grass....I have forgotten what it feels like.' I scoffed because I could not relate. How can someone forget what grass feels like? Well, I will tell you that I have had this realization so many times....but mostly about sleep. What does it really feel like to sleep? Sometimes I 'forget' because I have spent so long forcing myself to 'forget' and to focus everything I have on 'staying awake'. This was mostly while I was in medic school, but it still happens every now and again. I am thankful to have gone through medic school, but I wouldn't go back through it if you paid me. Thank God that I am now on the other side. I love the county service...it is such a familial environment, and if we respond to a 'bad' call, we usually have time to recoup before the next call. You have time to actually cook food, and if you get called away while cooking, then there is always someone else there to finish the cooking until you return. Unless it is a really messy call, of course (like a cardiac arrest, or a structure fire that takes hours to contain.) I hope to soon have a full-time position at a county service, and drop to part-time at Lifeguard..or just quit all together.
There are SO many paths that I could take at this point, and I know that there will always be more than I can have at any one time. I want to get my Search and Rescue, I want to do tracking, I want to work at a full-time 911 county service, I want to work all over the world in remote places and help people who have no other help, I want to fly, jump out of the plane and hike to my destination! I want to teach, I want to be a flight medic! I want to live on a small houseboat or a cabin in the woods and have time to do my own things! Like carpentry, or gardening....or, cooking meals. Ha! What is it like to have free-time? That is another thing that I have forgotten about. Frodo, you silly Hobbit! Tolkien, You must have known what it was to forget such basic things....things that ordinary people take for granted. When I have 'free-time' now, it is usually spent doing either everything that I have to catch-up on, or I spend it doing mindless nothings because I am too exhausted to do anything but sit.
So, that is the end. We will see what happens.
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