Author: Moby

To Meet or Not To Meet

Today was meetings from hell. Productive meetings but OMG were they long. My first started at 9:00am. Yes, you guessed it, very early for me. I usually roll out of bed around 10/10:30 since I work the swing shift. A one hour meeting meant to sort of introduce our local union officers to the new director turned into 4 hours. All productive but much much longer than anticipated. Of course, this ruined any chances of getting to my chiropractor appointment. I called and delayed it and then finally had to cancel. As soon as one meeting ended, I was due in a Phase 4 meeting involving classroom training for dispatchers not yet trained on the new dynamic deployment for the fire department. I didn’t really need to be there as I already instruct the classes in question but it was a good refresher. I’m loathe to admit I did learn a few things. I finished just in time to start my regular shift. Being Friday, of course it was busy as hell. I ended the night w/not one but two 187’s (homicides).

This is one day, I’m glad to see come to an end. I’m at home now with my feet propped up catching upon Tivo.

Smackdown

Wow! So many of you rushed to my defense. I’m honored and greatly appreciate the support. I wasn’t really offended by the few negative comments. I just gathered from the varied responses maybe I needed to clarify a bit. I’m by no means discouraged from blogging. Puh-lease! You can’t get rid of me that easy. hehehe.

I will add the one negative email was followed up w/another rather sarcastic one that I had an obligation to explain myself the first time. Well, that might be true but if you read more often Mr. ANON you might not have jumped to the wrong conclusion so hastily. And, I might add, making such quick judgements from one post on a blog of person you’ve never met doesn’t really show much for your intelligence. It sorta gives the impression of just the opposite. But, hey what do I know right?

Anyway, moving on. I got a call from one of my classmates from EMT class this morning. He is working for one of the privates. We talked about different cases, happenings, etc. When he told me how much he makes, my jaw hit the floor. A fraction of what I’m making now. Absolutely no way in hell I could quit my current gig to work as a private EMT full time. They get paid squat. Thankfully, he is doing other stuff to help pay the bills. What does this mean for me? Just that I have to stay on my current course.

It was so much fun talking shop w/someone at my level of experience. He works mostly BLS (basic life support) calls so he doesn’t see much heavy stuff. But as emergencies are never predictible, he’s had some good calls. He was amazed to hear about my last call. Overall, I’m still very much the novice but I learn quick. It’s not so much the actual work I’m doing while riding along but the exposure and understanding it imparts. Sadly, the city has put hiring for EMT positions on hold so I’m having to switch gears a bit. I’ll keep doing ride alongs until I get enough hours to go back to school. The current goal is to start classes in the spring semester.

Life or Death

Ok, so after a flurry of emails/comments regarding my last post, I feel the need to clarify.

No, I am not happy people die or get sick. Nor do I take joy in it. Howver, people die every day. In my line of work, I’m bound to see it and often. If you thought that I was rejoicing in someone else’s loss for even a moment, I suggest you read here more often. I do however, take joy in learning a new job skill. Especially one that I enjoy. My enthusiasm is borne from a desire to help those around me. Duh!

One particular email compared me to Satan which I find HIGH-larious. First of all, if the mythical hell really did exist, I’m sure the gays would move in, fix it up, make it hip and then all the straights would want it again. As if.

For the rest of you, yes he lived. I rarely know the outcome of my patients however, I happened to know one of the interns so she emailed me. It was a clot, as suspected, and it was successfully removed. The patient has already moved to standard care bed and will be out of the hospital soon.

Remember the tweaker chick I told you about? Apparently, she got one fix too many. She ran out in front of a muni bus. Witnesses in the area said she was yelling that gaint bees where chasing her. She is no longer w/us. Still think meth is fun?

C3 & C3

Code 3 and Code 3 (again)

OMG! I had a fantastic ride along today on the ambulance. Even better than this one. The day started off pretty slow. About midway thru it, we get a standard call w/a complaint of chest pain. We go 97 (onscene) to discover a 49yom w/a classic case of MI (heart attack). He responds well to treatment enroute to the hospital and we arrive, make the transfer w/no difficulty. As we turn to leave, the guy literally goes into full arrest on the ER bed. It was awesome! We got to help the ER crew work him up not once, twice, three times. OMG! What a learning experience. It is very very VERY rare for first responders to witness someone go into full arrest. Not to mention right in the hospital. We ususally see before and after scenarios.

But it gets even better. The hospital didn’t have a cath lab so we had to transfer him to another hospital. We stood around for about 20 minutes while the ER staff pumped him full of drugs and plugged all the extra machines in. With all the extra apparatus we had to have one of the ER nurses ride w/us to the 2nd hospital. At the 2nd hospital, I got to watch them prep the patient for surgery. The docs were cool and commented on what a great job we’d done.

It blew all my other calls away. So now, I’m back at the call center for my regular shift. Kind of anti-climatic but that’s the way it goes I guess.

How was your day?

Chatter Box

I discovered a very nifty new widget that allows me to load a chat box connected directly to my aim/yahoo screennames. The best part is you don’t have to be an aim/yahoo user to use it.

The chat link on the left opens up a chat box. As long as I’m logged in, you can chat w/me.

Cool huh?

Double Trouble

I worked a double yesterday. And let me just tell you, I was a tired nelly come the end of my day. Oy! Sixteen hours, 8 on the ambulance and 8 in the call center. It didn’t help that I only got 5 hours sleep the previous night. But I made it thru ok. Today, I’m back to my normal chipper self.

I had the oddest dream last night. I was racing on my motorcyle. NO, that isn’t the odd part. The odd part was I was naked. It seemed pefectly normal in the dream though. Odder still, I was racing and yet working on the engine at the same time. Somehow, I was able to be on the bike one sceond and then next to it working on it all at the same time. It gets better. I kept bumping my willy on the tailpipe somehow. I can’t really describe it as it doesn’t make sense now. I just remember thinking “why doesn’t it burn?” Weird huh?

I can’t help but think it was somehow related to my last patient yesterday. I’m on the ambulance and we arrive onscene at a gas station. Chica had locked herself in the bathroom, stripped all her clothes off and was tweaking out of her gourd. She kept seeing blood everywhere it wasn’t. She’d just had her fix and was freakin’ the fuck out. We finally get her dressed in the back of the ambulance. But once she discovered we didn’t have any meds for her, she promptly hopped out of the back and trodded off.

What kind of weird dream have you had lately?

EarthQuake!

Speaking of over exaggeration, you’d think I was dead from all the phone calls and text messages I got from out of state friends. We had an earthquake tonight north of the city by about 70 miles. The aftershocks were felt all the way to the city. While stronger than the normal tremors we get, nothing earth shattering (pun intended).

For those of you who have no idea what it’s like living thru an earthquake, it is much like any natural phenomenon. Earthquake 2006You get thru it. People live thru torrential rains, floods, tornados, hurricanes, and yes, earthquakes. Surprise!

Our building is one of the newest city buildings and it’s on rollers so we have sort of a wave affect. We’ve actually taken to standing up and doing a human wave across the room. You laugh but it is a very effective way to relieve tension.

So to all my peeps out in blogland, never fear, I is still here. (and yes I know it’s not good grammar bitches.)

Ignunce Rears It’s Ugly Head II

Why is it in this country we always have to over exaggerate things? Take for example this clip from Towleroad regarding a hate crime.

The home of two gay men living in Aldie, Virginia, just west of Washington, DC was the target of homophobic vandals over the weekend. The vandals spray-painted “FAG” and other homophobic remarks on the lawn, driveway, mailbox, and street in front of their property. They also uprooted over 170 trees and shrubs and poured gasoline on the lawn before fleeing the area. (photos)

Said Equality Loudoun (Aldie is in Loudon County) President David Weintraub: “I am disgusted and saddened. The good news is that the homeowners do feel that this crime is being taken seriously and being investigated by law enforcement as what it is: a hate crime and act of terrorism.”

Webster’s defines terrorism as “..threat of force or violence by an organized group..against person(s) or property w/the intent to intimidate or coerce a soceity or government for ideological or political reasons”.

Someone please explain to me how a hate crime involving graffiti and vandalism of trees reaches the level of “government intimidation”? I’m not trying to belittle the event as it is a serious offense. The perps. caused significant property damage and who knows how much emotional turmoil. But come on folks, let’s keep things in perspective. This is NOT terrorism.

I’m probably overly sensitive to this issue. In my line of work, I hear people throw around the word terrorism all the time. I’m just sick and tired of the “ignunce”.

Technophile

If you know me, you know I’m a tech geek. I love all things techey. I can lose myself for hours in electronics/computer stores.

One of my favorite reads is scifi.com’s tech blog. It’s pretty cool. They give regular updates of all things tech. Surprisingly, it’s a good mix. Not just corporate crap being pushed by the parent company.