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.
No comments:
Post a Comment