Occasionally, I find a book I like to read over and over again. Most of Anne Lamott's books are like that for me- she's got the tattered Christianity over the previously messed up life that seems to fit me quite well, too. And this poem by W. S. Merwin was the epigram in one of her books. No matter how many times I read this, it speaks to something visceral in me, and touches deeper every time.
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on the stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is
W. S. Merwin
printed from "Travelling Mercies" by Anne Lamott, Anchor Books, a Division of Random House.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
off-gassing on earth day
I woke up at 0700 yesterday, after only two hours of sleep. I’d gotten off a 12 hour shift at 0415, and getting out of bed was sheer torture—until I remembered why I was doing it. We have a burn to learn scheduled. I drag my sorry tuckus into the shower and out to the car, slam a few shots of coffee, and make my way to station 1, where we pow wow and team up.
We drive up to the burn site in the Rescue just as Leapfrog Towing was dragging—er, towing—the last of the three mobile homes into place. “Mobile home” in the most literal and also most generous sense of the phrase, because these three structures hadn’t been decent living spaces for some time. I vaguely remember going on a chest pain call in one of them a couple of years ago; you know, the typical 300 lb patient naked in the very back bedroom, hallway barely big enough to walk through even before it was stuffed full of tchotchkes and National Geographics.
It’s a small crew today; five teams of two or three folks each, and then Incident Command, who has brought his lawn chair, two engineers, the Safety Officer, and the usual light team, who will also act as team leaders inside, since only a couple of us going in have our FFI certs. I’m partnered with a kid I’ll call DogBoy, since his official nickname is BeastMaster for reasons we won’t go into now. DB’s dad is a career firefighter, DB has been a volunteer for a while, he’s a good kid with a good heart and a great sense of humor. He looks dubiously at the third mobile home, a hulking brown mass of metal held up by wood blocks and tires that have been so flat for so long the rims are half-circles. He clears his throat. “That one makes me a little nervous. Why can’t we burn houses instead of mobile homes?” he complains. I point out that 1) we are in Deliverance country, or at least the Northwest version of Deliverance country, and there aren’t any houses out here, and 2) at least we are getting rid of some of the mobile homes. Three in one day, actually. He concedes, and quits whining. Briefly.
We start setting up, laying lines and filling the porta-tank, locating the cooler and the potty, identifying exposures. DB and I are first on exposures, so we get to hose down a couple of tall, moss-covered trees and a beat up old fence with foam that looks like drippy flocking on a Christmas tree. My feet and hose line get tangled in a Judas limb hanging over the side of the fence, and down I go. One thing I love about being a firefighter, though, aside from the fact that I get to squirt lots of water at big fires, is that everyone is klutzy in turnouts, and while I might fall down a bit more often than most, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. And unless you can see the back of my helmet, nobody knows it’s me. (Although on a different fire, I did hear somebody ask where I was, and Chief said, “Look for the firefighter who fell on her butt. That’s Firefighter Girl.” So maybe turnouts aren’t as anonymous as I’d like to think. . .) Anyway, one of the firefighters on RIT, or Rapid Intervention Team, whose only purpose is to rescue downed firefighters, came at me and the tree branch with his axe raised. Rescuing a firefighter downed by a renegade tree branch may have been stretching his job description a tad, but he rose to the occasion, and the branch was kindling after a few whacks.
DogBoy takes this opportunity to tell me that he had a small bout of diarrhea this morning. I’m not quite sure why he feels the need to share this with me. I ask him if he’s nervous, and he gets that guy thing going—you know, the squared shoulders, the look of disbelief and aloofness on his face. As if. By this time, it’s our turn for attack team, and I’m kind enough to let DogBoy have the nozzle for the first couple of attacks, and he’s new enough to not realize that later lights have better fire. Heh heh heh.
The teams managed a couple rotations each through the first mobile home, and then the second, which I would describe more as a hovel, had four lights before our turn comes up again. Captain Snappy and Chief lit the second of the two rooms, and Dog Boy and I sat and waited to go in. I watched our three-person back up team check each others’ gear, and nudged DB. They looked like nothing more than a bunch of chimps in a line, grooming each other. DB started laughing. I started having doubts about their competency. But then DB started poking around my mask and hood, under my helmet, and I made him promise to eat any bugs he found. He crossed his heart, hoped to die, and stuffed my errant ponytail down into my coat. Then we sat, and watched the light take hold.
A usual training light is nothing special. Maybe a couch or a pile of pallets on fire, lots of smoke, some good, controlled flames. But Captain Snappy knew it had been a while since I’d seen fire. And he also knew I’d let DogBoy have the nozzle the first few lights. I was about to head in, and Snappy held his arm across the doorway. “Oh, no, FFG. Wait.” So we watched as flames climbed the walls, and smoke billowed out the vents and windows. “Now?” I asked. Snappy shook his head. Flames started rolling over on the ceiling. “Now?” I asked. Snappy shook his head again. We backed away from the heat of the doorway, flames poured out the top, and Snappy said, “Take it whenever you want, FFG.” Whoot whoot!! And I got it. I got it all, and then they let the whole thing burn.
Afterwards, sitting in rehab, sipping on a Gatorade and munching on M&Ms that had only slightly melted in my turnout coat pocket, DB finally got it, finally realized that perhaps good things come to those who wait; ie, better fire. I promise him the nozzle for all the lights in the hulking brown thing. They’ve just started lighting it, and it goes faster than the other two—burning mobile homes is like starting a fire in a big metal box. They burn hard and fast once they catch. DB gets one good light, we’re rotating teams like nobody’s business, and we’re on backup just getting ready to go back in when the tones go off for a severe respiratory distress up valley.
IC points out an engineer—120mph—and DogBoy and I to take the call. We drop our helmets, coats, masks, packs, and gloves, race to the Rescue, climb in, and then race back to the packs to turn off the air and bleed them. Then back to the Rescue, me behind the wheel, 120mph in the officer’s seat, DB in the back. We go enroute, and this is much easier than driving an ambulance code 3 on the coast highway, but 120mph is asserting his testosterone and comments on my cornering. I bite my tongue to keep from mentioning the bucking sawhorse he ran over with the engine last year, or the fact that he tipped the engine into a ditch once. I look down at my mud-splotched, ash-streaked arms, the flotsam coating my turnouts. I slow the Rescue to appease 120mph, see DogBoy in the back with the paperwork, getting our gloves ready. And I feel a sudden flush of comraderie, that feeling you get at family reunion campouts after you’ve been bickering with your relatives all day but then you look at them in the light of the campfire and see how big their hearts are.
We pull in to the residence, grab the gear, and tromp in. Our patient is sitting in his LazyBoy watching his big screen TV. His new caregiver hovers nervously. I recognize this guy, seen him in the ER a couple of times, and he turns, looks at me, points his finger like a gun and winks like he’s some kind of dapper Rico Suave instead of an overweight, chronic respiratory train wreck. The caregiver may have exaggerated slightly when she called 911. I laugh, bat my mud speckled eyelashes at the patient, and get his vital signs. We chat until the Meth Central medics get there.
Once we wrap things up, we head back to the burn. DB seems anxious, and I ask him if three lights wasn’t enough for him. But he’s more concerned about missing lunch, and we pull up just in time for fried chicken, potato salad, and cookies with little tiny m&ms in them. It wasn’t just a good day; it was a great day, and even after two hours of clean up back at the station, when I knew exactly where my body would be aching the next day, and I knew I’d need 14 hours of sleep, 6 advil and a whole tube of BenGay to even move the next morning, I wouldn’t have changed a dang thing.
We drive up to the burn site in the Rescue just as Leapfrog Towing was dragging—er, towing—the last of the three mobile homes into place. “Mobile home” in the most literal and also most generous sense of the phrase, because these three structures hadn’t been decent living spaces for some time. I vaguely remember going on a chest pain call in one of them a couple of years ago; you know, the typical 300 lb patient naked in the very back bedroom, hallway barely big enough to walk through even before it was stuffed full of tchotchkes and National Geographics.
It’s a small crew today; five teams of two or three folks each, and then Incident Command, who has brought his lawn chair, two engineers, the Safety Officer, and the usual light team, who will also act as team leaders inside, since only a couple of us going in have our FFI certs. I’m partnered with a kid I’ll call DogBoy, since his official nickname is BeastMaster for reasons we won’t go into now. DB’s dad is a career firefighter, DB has been a volunteer for a while, he’s a good kid with a good heart and a great sense of humor. He looks dubiously at the third mobile home, a hulking brown mass of metal held up by wood blocks and tires that have been so flat for so long the rims are half-circles. He clears his throat. “That one makes me a little nervous. Why can’t we burn houses instead of mobile homes?” he complains. I point out that 1) we are in Deliverance country, or at least the Northwest version of Deliverance country, and there aren’t any houses out here, and 2) at least we are getting rid of some of the mobile homes. Three in one day, actually. He concedes, and quits whining. Briefly.
We start setting up, laying lines and filling the porta-tank, locating the cooler and the potty, identifying exposures. DB and I are first on exposures, so we get to hose down a couple of tall, moss-covered trees and a beat up old fence with foam that looks like drippy flocking on a Christmas tree. My feet and hose line get tangled in a Judas limb hanging over the side of the fence, and down I go. One thing I love about being a firefighter, though, aside from the fact that I get to squirt lots of water at big fires, is that everyone is klutzy in turnouts, and while I might fall down a bit more often than most, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. And unless you can see the back of my helmet, nobody knows it’s me. (Although on a different fire, I did hear somebody ask where I was, and Chief said, “Look for the firefighter who fell on her butt. That’s Firefighter Girl.” So maybe turnouts aren’t as anonymous as I’d like to think. . .) Anyway, one of the firefighters on RIT, or Rapid Intervention Team, whose only purpose is to rescue downed firefighters, came at me and the tree branch with his axe raised. Rescuing a firefighter downed by a renegade tree branch may have been stretching his job description a tad, but he rose to the occasion, and the branch was kindling after a few whacks.
DogBoy takes this opportunity to tell me that he had a small bout of diarrhea this morning. I’m not quite sure why he feels the need to share this with me. I ask him if he’s nervous, and he gets that guy thing going—you know, the squared shoulders, the look of disbelief and aloofness on his face. As if. By this time, it’s our turn for attack team, and I’m kind enough to let DogBoy have the nozzle for the first couple of attacks, and he’s new enough to not realize that later lights have better fire. Heh heh heh.
The teams managed a couple rotations each through the first mobile home, and then the second, which I would describe more as a hovel, had four lights before our turn comes up again. Captain Snappy and Chief lit the second of the two rooms, and Dog Boy and I sat and waited to go in. I watched our three-person back up team check each others’ gear, and nudged DB. They looked like nothing more than a bunch of chimps in a line, grooming each other. DB started laughing. I started having doubts about their competency. But then DB started poking around my mask and hood, under my helmet, and I made him promise to eat any bugs he found. He crossed his heart, hoped to die, and stuffed my errant ponytail down into my coat. Then we sat, and watched the light take hold.
A usual training light is nothing special. Maybe a couch or a pile of pallets on fire, lots of smoke, some good, controlled flames. But Captain Snappy knew it had been a while since I’d seen fire. And he also knew I’d let DogBoy have the nozzle the first few lights. I was about to head in, and Snappy held his arm across the doorway. “Oh, no, FFG. Wait.” So we watched as flames climbed the walls, and smoke billowed out the vents and windows. “Now?” I asked. Snappy shook his head. Flames started rolling over on the ceiling. “Now?” I asked. Snappy shook his head again. We backed away from the heat of the doorway, flames poured out the top, and Snappy said, “Take it whenever you want, FFG.” Whoot whoot!! And I got it. I got it all, and then they let the whole thing burn.
Afterwards, sitting in rehab, sipping on a Gatorade and munching on M&Ms that had only slightly melted in my turnout coat pocket, DB finally got it, finally realized that perhaps good things come to those who wait; ie, better fire. I promise him the nozzle for all the lights in the hulking brown thing. They’ve just started lighting it, and it goes faster than the other two—burning mobile homes is like starting a fire in a big metal box. They burn hard and fast once they catch. DB gets one good light, we’re rotating teams like nobody’s business, and we’re on backup just getting ready to go back in when the tones go off for a severe respiratory distress up valley.
IC points out an engineer—120mph—and DogBoy and I to take the call. We drop our helmets, coats, masks, packs, and gloves, race to the Rescue, climb in, and then race back to the packs to turn off the air and bleed them. Then back to the Rescue, me behind the wheel, 120mph in the officer’s seat, DB in the back. We go enroute, and this is much easier than driving an ambulance code 3 on the coast highway, but 120mph is asserting his testosterone and comments on my cornering. I bite my tongue to keep from mentioning the bucking sawhorse he ran over with the engine last year, or the fact that he tipped the engine into a ditch once. I look down at my mud-splotched, ash-streaked arms, the flotsam coating my turnouts. I slow the Rescue to appease 120mph, see DogBoy in the back with the paperwork, getting our gloves ready. And I feel a sudden flush of comraderie, that feeling you get at family reunion campouts after you’ve been bickering with your relatives all day but then you look at them in the light of the campfire and see how big their hearts are.
We pull in to the residence, grab the gear, and tromp in. Our patient is sitting in his LazyBoy watching his big screen TV. His new caregiver hovers nervously. I recognize this guy, seen him in the ER a couple of times, and he turns, looks at me, points his finger like a gun and winks like he’s some kind of dapper Rico Suave instead of an overweight, chronic respiratory train wreck. The caregiver may have exaggerated slightly when she called 911. I laugh, bat my mud speckled eyelashes at the patient, and get his vital signs. We chat until the Meth Central medics get there.
Once we wrap things up, we head back to the burn. DB seems anxious, and I ask him if three lights wasn’t enough for him. But he’s more concerned about missing lunch, and we pull up just in time for fried chicken, potato salad, and cookies with little tiny m&ms in them. It wasn’t just a good day; it was a great day, and even after two hours of clean up back at the station, when I knew exactly where my body would be aching the next day, and I knew I’d need 14 hours of sleep, 6 advil and a whole tube of BenGay to even move the next morning, I wouldn’t have changed a dang thing.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
not really my idea of a great date. . .
I came off a 16 hour shift at 0415 this morning, driving to pick up my son with my head hanging out the window in the rain so I wouldn't fall asleep. Busy, busy for the first few hours, then steady the rest of the shift. A dozen IVs, and I only missed one, and that was because the patient's PCP was bedside, and I get performance anxiety. But I got it on the second try, although I cheated and went AC with an 18g. But, yeah. A sixteen hour shift.
What was I thinking?
Oh, yeah. I was thinking about paying rent, and insurance, and car; fuel, power, phone, and that one slightly important thing for little ol' hypoglycemic me. Food.
Of note to male hospital patients (I think I'm going to type this up and hand it out when I put op sites on IVs): While starting an IV and drawing blood are, by their very nature, intimate, just because I'm sticking you with a very big needle doesn't mean I'm coming on to you.
Repeat after me: IVS ARE NOT FOREPLAY.
On the other hand, I think one of the reasons I love my job is it allows me so much human contact. I used to be such a touchy feely person, but somewhere along the way, even hugs from friends started making me uncomfortable. In any case, the contact of another human, even through purple nitrile gloves, is nothing to sneeze at. We all need it. And patients appreciate the human aspect of a caregiver who is willing to touch them, hold their hand, offer support more compassionate than empty words. I've watched medics, nurses, and doctors with patients, and the ones who have the greatest rapport with people are the ones who are willing to touch.
Near the end of the 16 hour shift, when an ambulance brought in a patient for nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea after eating at Taco Bell, the charge nurse made a small, snide comment about the slightly expanding waistlines of some of the older medics. One of said medics, in the middle of ordering a tasty breakfast sandwich from the night kitchen, who actually bikes 40 miles a week, and who obviously has lost no hearing whatsoever from almost two decades of sirens, abruptly hung up the phone. He glanced at me. I glanced at the charge nurse. She and I snickered. The medic shook his head, then shook his finger at me, and said, "You be a good girl, now."
There must be some sort of blue light special lately for comments on my behavior. Which is, I might add, always good.
What was I thinking?
Oh, yeah. I was thinking about paying rent, and insurance, and car; fuel, power, phone, and that one slightly important thing for little ol' hypoglycemic me. Food.
Of note to male hospital patients (I think I'm going to type this up and hand it out when I put op sites on IVs): While starting an IV and drawing blood are, by their very nature, intimate, just because I'm sticking you with a very big needle doesn't mean I'm coming on to you.
Repeat after me: IVS ARE NOT FOREPLAY.
On the other hand, I think one of the reasons I love my job is it allows me so much human contact. I used to be such a touchy feely person, but somewhere along the way, even hugs from friends started making me uncomfortable. In any case, the contact of another human, even through purple nitrile gloves, is nothing to sneeze at. We all need it. And patients appreciate the human aspect of a caregiver who is willing to touch them, hold their hand, offer support more compassionate than empty words. I've watched medics, nurses, and doctors with patients, and the ones who have the greatest rapport with people are the ones who are willing to touch.
Near the end of the 16 hour shift, when an ambulance brought in a patient for nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea after eating at Taco Bell, the charge nurse made a small, snide comment about the slightly expanding waistlines of some of the older medics. One of said medics, in the middle of ordering a tasty breakfast sandwich from the night kitchen, who actually bikes 40 miles a week, and who obviously has lost no hearing whatsoever from almost two decades of sirens, abruptly hung up the phone. He glanced at me. I glanced at the charge nurse. She and I snickered. The medic shook his head, then shook his finger at me, and said, "You be a good girl, now."
There must be some sort of blue light special lately for comments on my behavior. Which is, I might add, always good.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
sisyphus in my own back yard
Yesterday, the angst that has been building all week came to a head. When I get angsty, I need to get outside and dig in the dirt, plant flowers, turn compost, whatever. The day showed promise early on; you know, sun breaking through the clouds and all that. I lingered over coffee, finished a book, headed out to the garage for my gardening tools. As soon as I unlocked the garage door, thunder crashed and a wall of rain hit the pavement.
Okay, it wasn't quite that dramatic, but it might as well have been. So I sighed one of those long-suffering sighs and headed back in. I decided to be optimistic about the whole thing, and poured another cup of coffee. The sun came out. I headed outside. See above. Rinse. Repeat.
Back to the whole angst thing. Like I said, it's been building all week. The kids and I have been working in the back yard, building raised beds for an herb garden, digging into the hill to lay a patio. The wheelbarrow perched precariously on the hill no matter which way I tilted it, and so for every successful load of dirt carted to the compost pile, another tiiiiiiiiips back into the hole with a boomcrash. Just like Sisyphus, only my rock is a flippin' wheelbarrow. Anyway, that's what I'm working on, shovel in hand, sweat pouring off me, when I hear the sound of 4 boys, all around 12 years old, giggling and saying, "heeeeeere, kitty kitty." I look up and see them crouched around a car, rocks and very large sticks in hand. I should mention that I don't lose my temper often. But the few things that make me see red involve bullying and cruelty to animals and children. I charged up the hill with shovel in hand, screaming at the top of my lungs, red faced and, quite likely, frightening to look at. MixMan and Miss Diva paused briefly in their playing and stared, gape mouthed. The boys and cat scattered in opposite directions. There was a brief moment of silence, and then Miss Diva said, "Mama. You said the f-word."
Whoopsie.
So when I found the pet rat dead on my front porch yesterday morning, I just assumed the little 12 year old punks had left it there, even after the neighbor who disposed of it declared the predator must have been a hawk. Miss Diva and I headed to the garden center to buy some flowers to cheer us up, and came away successful. The day was brightening, at least until I bent to get into the car and smacked my head on the roof. My immediate reaction was to jerk away, and I bonked the other temple on the door. I showed great restraint in the language I spewed at full volume there in the parking lot, you'll be happy to know. I double checked with Miss Diva, and she confirmed I hadn't cursed once. Good thing I've been practicing with make-up, because I have a positively stellar bruise on the side of my forehead.
Firefighter Girl, thy middle name is Grace.
Miss Diva is adept at conversation. So much so that I forget sometimes she's only 4. She sang in the shower this morning, some made up song with the refrain, "I'm a grumpy old soul, yeah, yeah!!" I shake my head in wonder. She is so demonstrative, too- huge hugs, sloppy lip-gloss kisses. Sometimes, she comes up behind me, pats my tuckus rather hard, and says affectionately, "I love your great big butt!"
Ohh. Thank you.
So we wait for the rain to pass. The kids play Plinko behind the futon with the round wooden coasters; MixMan builds impossible block towers and reads Dr. Seuss out loud, vrooms his cars and trains on the floors and up the walls. Miss Diva flounces around in her princess dresses and crooked crowns. She declares today a blue day, and will wear only clothing items in shades of blue. I write poetry, listen to music, clean muddy footprints and puddles of water from the doorways, sneak bites of chocolate from my hidden stash while the kids aren't looking.
On the Meth Central Med Center front- my IV skills are getting better, and I've managed a couple of tough ones on the maternity and surgical wards. I was congratulating myself on a tough foot stick in the ER- this guy had one, and I mean only one, vein, and it was sitting there on his foot, and I stuck it with no hesitation with a 22g, got a great flash, advanced, it was in, I was ready to tape it down, and he started screaming. Whoa. I wasn't even touching the damn thing at that point. There was a reason he didn't have any other veins, and I'm pretty sure he was hoping for some pain drugs, and I let him know that this was his one chance for IV meds, and he told me to f--- off and get it out. So I calmly removed the catheter, smiled politely, and left him there.
My new car is finally growing on me. Well, not really, because that would be kind of bumpy and make jeans even harder to wear. But I'm learning its moods, when it doesn't like starting, what makes it happy.
Going really, really fast makes my car happy.
Itemized list of things found behind the futon while vacuuming today:
2 slightly battered wooden coasters
1 catnip mouse
feather collection (I thought the pillows were feeling a bit less plump)
1 gameboy game (Yoshi's Egg, I believe, and it found its way behind the couch rather forcibly when MixMan got frustrated with it)
2 markers in colors very similar to the fresh markings on the wall of the stairwell
1 very frightened cat
2 hairballs
Guess what? The sun just came out. I think I'll sneak up on the garage, see if I can get some digging done in the back yard.
Firefighter Girl. Digger of hills, champion of stray cats and snails.
Okay, it wasn't quite that dramatic, but it might as well have been. So I sighed one of those long-suffering sighs and headed back in. I decided to be optimistic about the whole thing, and poured another cup of coffee. The sun came out. I headed outside. See above. Rinse. Repeat.
Back to the whole angst thing. Like I said, it's been building all week. The kids and I have been working in the back yard, building raised beds for an herb garden, digging into the hill to lay a patio. The wheelbarrow perched precariously on the hill no matter which way I tilted it, and so for every successful load of dirt carted to the compost pile, another tiiiiiiiiips back into the hole with a boomcrash. Just like Sisyphus, only my rock is a flippin' wheelbarrow. Anyway, that's what I'm working on, shovel in hand, sweat pouring off me, when I hear the sound of 4 boys, all around 12 years old, giggling and saying, "heeeeeere, kitty kitty." I look up and see them crouched around a car, rocks and very large sticks in hand. I should mention that I don't lose my temper often. But the few things that make me see red involve bullying and cruelty to animals and children. I charged up the hill with shovel in hand, screaming at the top of my lungs, red faced and, quite likely, frightening to look at. MixMan and Miss Diva paused briefly in their playing and stared, gape mouthed. The boys and cat scattered in opposite directions. There was a brief moment of silence, and then Miss Diva said, "Mama. You said the f-word."
Whoopsie.
So when I found the pet rat dead on my front porch yesterday morning, I just assumed the little 12 year old punks had left it there, even after the neighbor who disposed of it declared the predator must have been a hawk. Miss Diva and I headed to the garden center to buy some flowers to cheer us up, and came away successful. The day was brightening, at least until I bent to get into the car and smacked my head on the roof. My immediate reaction was to jerk away, and I bonked the other temple on the door. I showed great restraint in the language I spewed at full volume there in the parking lot, you'll be happy to know. I double checked with Miss Diva, and she confirmed I hadn't cursed once. Good thing I've been practicing with make-up, because I have a positively stellar bruise on the side of my forehead.
Firefighter Girl, thy middle name is Grace.
Miss Diva is adept at conversation. So much so that I forget sometimes she's only 4. She sang in the shower this morning, some made up song with the refrain, "I'm a grumpy old soul, yeah, yeah!!" I shake my head in wonder. She is so demonstrative, too- huge hugs, sloppy lip-gloss kisses. Sometimes, she comes up behind me, pats my tuckus rather hard, and says affectionately, "I love your great big butt!"
Ohh. Thank you.
So we wait for the rain to pass. The kids play Plinko behind the futon with the round wooden coasters; MixMan builds impossible block towers and reads Dr. Seuss out loud, vrooms his cars and trains on the floors and up the walls. Miss Diva flounces around in her princess dresses and crooked crowns. She declares today a blue day, and will wear only clothing items in shades of blue. I write poetry, listen to music, clean muddy footprints and puddles of water from the doorways, sneak bites of chocolate from my hidden stash while the kids aren't looking.
On the Meth Central Med Center front- my IV skills are getting better, and I've managed a couple of tough ones on the maternity and surgical wards. I was congratulating myself on a tough foot stick in the ER- this guy had one, and I mean only one, vein, and it was sitting there on his foot, and I stuck it with no hesitation with a 22g, got a great flash, advanced, it was in, I was ready to tape it down, and he started screaming. Whoa. I wasn't even touching the damn thing at that point. There was a reason he didn't have any other veins, and I'm pretty sure he was hoping for some pain drugs, and I let him know that this was his one chance for IV meds, and he told me to f--- off and get it out. So I calmly removed the catheter, smiled politely, and left him there.
My new car is finally growing on me. Well, not really, because that would be kind of bumpy and make jeans even harder to wear. But I'm learning its moods, when it doesn't like starting, what makes it happy.
Going really, really fast makes my car happy.
Itemized list of things found behind the futon while vacuuming today:
2 slightly battered wooden coasters
1 catnip mouse
feather collection (I thought the pillows were feeling a bit less plump)
1 gameboy game (Yoshi's Egg, I believe, and it found its way behind the couch rather forcibly when MixMan got frustrated with it)
2 markers in colors very similar to the fresh markings on the wall of the stairwell
1 very frightened cat
2 hairballs
Guess what? The sun just came out. I think I'll sneak up on the garage, see if I can get some digging done in the back yard.
Firefighter Girl. Digger of hills, champion of stray cats and snails.
Friday, March 30, 2007
quaking in my boots. . .er, um, sensible shoes
Sorry my posts are so erratic, folks. Had to cancel my home phone, and with it my dial-up. Yes, dial-up. In any case, this is a loooooong one, so grab a beverage of choice, put up your feet, and enjoy the story.
Last week, my first preceptor came in with a patient. (Long story short, she and I had a serious personality conflict, although I still haven't figured out why. Luckily, I was moved to a different preceptor for the end of my internship, and I did fine.) I didn't know she was even in the ER until the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up, and I sensed EEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVIIIILLLLL. I turned around, caught a glimpse of her, started shaking, did a quick soft shoe routine behind a curtain, and made like a stack of laundry. Or equipment cart. Anything to avoid her. But she caught up with me in the cafeteria, damn it all. Our exchange was very. . .um. . .polite.
Cleaning beds after an ER rush, one of the new nurses asked me where to dispose of bio waste. I pointed mutely at the large red garbage can in the corner. She giggled. "Whoops. Guess my blond is showing." I asked if the streak of blond framing her face in otherwise brunette hair was like a blondometer that increased in width when she was having a blond moment. (I can't help it. Sometimes these things just shoot out of my mouth.) She looked at me and then laughed. A deep, long belly laugh that shook her from her blond roots all the way to her toes.
thank goodness.
I did CPR for the very first time last week, and was sore for days after. Pt was a 36 yo female found down in a field. The entire code team and half the ER nurses were in there, but I shoved my way to the bedside, climbed up on the stool, and started compressions. That craaaaaack as her ribs separated from her sternum was one I was expecting, but it felt icky. Weird icky. Not at all like the dummies we practice on. Damn good upper body and ab workout, though. Maybe I'll get to add it to my regimen.
Only had two marriage proposals in my last few shifts. It's been a slow week. Maybe it has something to do with my self-tanning moisturizer accident. You know, the stuff that is supposed to be fool-proof. Apply it like lotion, it builds up color gradually. Somehow, I managed to get streaky, anyway. I wonder if I'll ever get the hang of this girl thing.
My parents came to visit this week. My mother apparently had an issue wiping with kleenex instead of Charmin (ahem. . .I'm a bit low on funds lately), because on the second morning of their visit, they showed up with a Mack truck sized package of toilet paper. It doesn't fit under any of the sinks, so for now, it's taking up valuable shoe space on the floor of my closet. I think Mom is hoping that it'll last until their visit next year.
Patient highlight of the week (aside from amusing myself with conversations with little old ladies who have been given Morphine. . .what a hoot!!) was the girl who came in POV after a fight with her boyfriend. They'd been discussing breaking up while they were driving on the freeway, and she decided the discussion was over, opened the door, and jumped out of the car.
Ouch.
Damage incurred: broken shoulder, cracked T1, several abrasions, and a deep, messy lac extending from her right eyebrow all the way to a hematomato in her hairline. The surgeon stepped in to take a look, and his only comment (he's a man of few words) was, "Oh, damn."
Last Monday was a great day. RevMedic brought a patient over from the coast, and stopped by my house after the drop off. I'm pretty sure I squealed like a girl when I saw him, I was so excited. Oh, wait. I am a girl. It's a good thing he wasn't hungry, because all I had to offer was my trademark chewy coffee, but hey, he drank it without complaint. We got caught up on work stuff ("how's everybody?" "same as usual." "The ocean?" "Still there.") and headed briefly into the personal, and then he told me all about his trip to Baltimore. I sighed wistfully a few times. I'm proud to call RevMedic family, and honored to have been his trainee. Of all the folks from that job, it's him I miss the most. Now if he'd just send me that employee movie. . .
They headed out after a bit more conversation. RevMedic rolled down the window and waved. "Be safe!!" I yelled. He grinned, wiggled his eyebrows like Groucho, and yelled back, "be good!"
I have absolutely no idea what he was referring to. I'm always good.
Don't look at me like that.
Last week, my first preceptor came in with a patient. (Long story short, she and I had a serious personality conflict, although I still haven't figured out why. Luckily, I was moved to a different preceptor for the end of my internship, and I did fine.) I didn't know she was even in the ER until the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up, and I sensed EEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVIIIILLLLL. I turned around, caught a glimpse of her, started shaking, did a quick soft shoe routine behind a curtain, and made like a stack of laundry. Or equipment cart. Anything to avoid her. But she caught up with me in the cafeteria, damn it all. Our exchange was very. . .um. . .polite.
Cleaning beds after an ER rush, one of the new nurses asked me where to dispose of bio waste. I pointed mutely at the large red garbage can in the corner. She giggled. "Whoops. Guess my blond is showing." I asked if the streak of blond framing her face in otherwise brunette hair was like a blondometer that increased in width when she was having a blond moment. (I can't help it. Sometimes these things just shoot out of my mouth.) She looked at me and then laughed. A deep, long belly laugh that shook her from her blond roots all the way to her toes.
thank goodness.
I did CPR for the very first time last week, and was sore for days after. Pt was a 36 yo female found down in a field. The entire code team and half the ER nurses were in there, but I shoved my way to the bedside, climbed up on the stool, and started compressions. That craaaaaack as her ribs separated from her sternum was one I was expecting, but it felt icky. Weird icky. Not at all like the dummies we practice on. Damn good upper body and ab workout, though. Maybe I'll get to add it to my regimen.
Only had two marriage proposals in my last few shifts. It's been a slow week. Maybe it has something to do with my self-tanning moisturizer accident. You know, the stuff that is supposed to be fool-proof. Apply it like lotion, it builds up color gradually. Somehow, I managed to get streaky, anyway. I wonder if I'll ever get the hang of this girl thing.
My parents came to visit this week. My mother apparently had an issue wiping with kleenex instead of Charmin (ahem. . .I'm a bit low on funds lately), because on the second morning of their visit, they showed up with a Mack truck sized package of toilet paper. It doesn't fit under any of the sinks, so for now, it's taking up valuable shoe space on the floor of my closet. I think Mom is hoping that it'll last until their visit next year.
Patient highlight of the week (aside from amusing myself with conversations with little old ladies who have been given Morphine. . .what a hoot!!) was the girl who came in POV after a fight with her boyfriend. They'd been discussing breaking up while they were driving on the freeway, and she decided the discussion was over, opened the door, and jumped out of the car.
Ouch.
Damage incurred: broken shoulder, cracked T1, several abrasions, and a deep, messy lac extending from her right eyebrow all the way to a hematomato in her hairline. The surgeon stepped in to take a look, and his only comment (he's a man of few words) was, "Oh, damn."
Last Monday was a great day. RevMedic brought a patient over from the coast, and stopped by my house after the drop off. I'm pretty sure I squealed like a girl when I saw him, I was so excited. Oh, wait. I am a girl. It's a good thing he wasn't hungry, because all I had to offer was my trademark chewy coffee, but hey, he drank it without complaint. We got caught up on work stuff ("how's everybody?" "same as usual." "The ocean?" "Still there.") and headed briefly into the personal, and then he told me all about his trip to Baltimore. I sighed wistfully a few times. I'm proud to call RevMedic family, and honored to have been his trainee. Of all the folks from that job, it's him I miss the most. Now if he'd just send me that employee movie. . .
They headed out after a bit more conversation. RevMedic rolled down the window and waved. "Be safe!!" I yelled. He grinned, wiggled his eyebrows like Groucho, and yelled back, "be good!"
I have absolutely no idea what he was referring to. I'm always good.
Don't look at me like that.
Monday, March 19, 2007
the sweet smell of singed flesh
yesterday's 12 hour shift started out like any other. Night folk meet in the break room before the shift change, we all tease each other, DT attempts to show me various pressure points on my wrist and behind my ears. "Does it hurt? Does it hurt? Huh does it?" And I have flashbacks to my older brother doing the same dang thing right before he broke my wrist. I slap DT on the shoulder and give him a quick jab to the ribs, and that's the end of that. We saunter out to the triage desk (if it's possible to saunter in ill-fitting scrubs and sensible shoes) and check the board. Busy, busy day. My first patient is a twentysomething female with a "3 inch vertical lac to forehead." Easy. She shuffles back to the bed, holding a blood-smudged towel to her forehead, boyfriend in tow. I get her settled and she pulls away the towel to show me a thick gash that goes from her hairline down to the bridge of her nose. I nod, impressed. Then-- flop flop-- the skin on both sides of the lac sort of slip, revealing a lovely, smooth, blood slicked expanse of skull. Spurt spurt go various blood vessels onto my clean scrub shirt. I hastily replace the towel with a lot of 4x4s, report to the RN and the doc, and get the lac tray and sutures ready. The doc meets me back at the bed with the cautery gun.
Oh, horrors.
Brief digression:
Last week, it was a warm sunny day. I'd used up most of the energy from my caffeine and Boomi Bar (it's hippie food, and that's all you need to know) chasing my best friend's cat around the front yard, into the neighbor's back yard, and into a tree, which I then climbed to perform a five o'clock newsworthy rescue. I got to work still a bit out of breath and sweaty from the chase, and headed to the back bed to help out the MD with the suturing of a dangly, hanging-by-a-thread finger of a squirmy, screaming, pissed off 18 month old boy. I'm helping hold the patient. Mom has the kiddo on her lap. They're both crying, we're all sweaty, the heat from the spotlight is almost unbearable. We're all doing remarkably well until the doc pulls out the cautery gun and burns two holes in that itty, bitty fingernail. The smell was bad enough, but then I realized the doc was using the fingernail like a lacing card, and sewing up through the holes.
Ewwww. Grody.
Suddenly, the smell of the. . .and the idea of the. . .and the squirming and the sweating and the screaming and the hot light and the lack of carbs all became a bit much. My vision narrowed, my ears started buzzing, and I informed the doctor in a very pleasant voice that I needed to leave post haste. He took one look at me and ordered me out of the room, and I didn't hear the end of it for the next two shifts.
How embarrassing.
End of digression.
Imagine my dismay when I saw that cautery gun. But I mostly held direct pressure with one hand and fanned the stinky smoke back at the doctor with the other, and we all came out of it just fine.
The holy spirit came in again, this time with the story of how she lost all three of her children when the sun imploded in Jesus' chest earlier in the day. God told her to come to the ER to get some rest, and that's exactly what she did. There was some mention of spaceships and demons, and she wouldn't stop fidgeting until we told her none of it was her fault. After that, she slept easy.
I guess sometimes, it's just nice to have somebody tell you everything's going to be okay.
Oh, horrors.
Brief digression:
Last week, it was a warm sunny day. I'd used up most of the energy from my caffeine and Boomi Bar (it's hippie food, and that's all you need to know) chasing my best friend's cat around the front yard, into the neighbor's back yard, and into a tree, which I then climbed to perform a five o'clock newsworthy rescue. I got to work still a bit out of breath and sweaty from the chase, and headed to the back bed to help out the MD with the suturing of a dangly, hanging-by-a-thread finger of a squirmy, screaming, pissed off 18 month old boy. I'm helping hold the patient. Mom has the kiddo on her lap. They're both crying, we're all sweaty, the heat from the spotlight is almost unbearable. We're all doing remarkably well until the doc pulls out the cautery gun and burns two holes in that itty, bitty fingernail. The smell was bad enough, but then I realized the doc was using the fingernail like a lacing card, and sewing up through the holes.
Ewwww. Grody.
Suddenly, the smell of the. . .and the idea of the. . .and the squirming and the sweating and the screaming and the hot light and the lack of carbs all became a bit much. My vision narrowed, my ears started buzzing, and I informed the doctor in a very pleasant voice that I needed to leave post haste. He took one look at me and ordered me out of the room, and I didn't hear the end of it for the next two shifts.
How embarrassing.
End of digression.
Imagine my dismay when I saw that cautery gun. But I mostly held direct pressure with one hand and fanned the stinky smoke back at the doctor with the other, and we all came out of it just fine.
The holy spirit came in again, this time with the story of how she lost all three of her children when the sun imploded in Jesus' chest earlier in the day. God told her to come to the ER to get some rest, and that's exactly what she did. There was some mention of spaceships and demons, and she wouldn't stop fidgeting until we told her none of it was her fault. After that, she slept easy.
I guess sometimes, it's just nice to have somebody tell you everything's going to be okay.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
from hippie chick to firefighter girl
I was a bookwormish tomboy growing up. Bonafide, dyed in the wool, jeans, tennies, and t-shirt kind of tomboy. I did have waist length red hair, but always kept it up in two tight pigtails. The dusting of freckles across my nose and deep tan during summertime completed the picture. Granted, the jeans were hand-me-down bell bottoms with flowers embroidered around the bells, but they did have respectably worn knees. I announced to the world (at the tender age of 7) that I wanted to be a firefighter when I grew up. Grown ups smiled, and several boys in the neighborhood told me, in no uncertain terms, that I couldn't be a fireman, because I was a girl. Whatever. My mother, to her credit, allowed me my overflowing bookcases, Hot Wheels, cap guns, tree houses, and shunning of the color pink, but insisted that I wear a dress each week on one day in addition to sunday so I wouldn't forget I was a girl.
Ha! As if.
I did like playing dress up, and had a fairly large collection of cast-off makeup from my three older sisters. I never quite got the hang of it, though, and so my essential makeup kit as I went through my teen years consisted of mascara, powder, and lip gloss. Sundays, I wore dresses and flats, but went defiantly bare-legged, which my mother pretended not to notice.
She cringed and almost cried when she saw my first tattoo. I was in no hurry to tell her that I had a couple of others hidden under my clothes. By the time she noticed my pierced tongue, all she could do was cluck hers and shake her head. I think by that time, she realized I probably wasn't going to turn out quite like her other daughters. Late teens and early twenties, I slipped into hippie chick mode; I never did wear patchouli or tie dye, but I was big on the no makeup/no high heels/all cotton wardrobe. At the age of 24, I got a job as co-manager of a clothing store. My parents were ecstatic- Firefighter Girl picks a career! In a female dominated field! Doing girl things! But that only lasted a few months.
After I went through academy and my first year of school, I was still hell-bent on being a paramedic/firefighter. Interestingly enough, the more time I spend in this field, the more girly I get. I now own 5 pink shirts (yes, I do). I have a few pairs of high heels, and as mentioned in a previous post, I can even walk in them. I'm still getting the hang of this whole girl grooming thing, though. I make Miss Diva say the waxing mantra with me in between screams as I peel strips of hair off my legs: "Beauty is Pain! Beauty is Pain!" She laughs at me, but she's girly-girl all the way through- I don't think she has a single shirt in her dresser that isn't pink. She'll be begging for a razor and wax strips by the time she's 10. Heck, she already paints her nails, and it's not really her fault when half the purple nail polish ends up on the carpet. She's only 4, after all.
I think I figured out how to pluck my eyebrows symmetrically. That was a big milestone a couple of years ago. Hair styling beyond shampoo, conditioner, and a sloppy bun still eludes me, which is why I frequently look like an unbraided Pippi Longstocking. My staple cosmetics are still mascara and lip gloss, although for a special occasion (and if I have the time to putz around in front of the bathroom mirror) I'll put on lipstick and foundation, and if I'm feeling really brave, I'll try eyeshadow. Like this morning.
Here's how it went. I got a girl magazine (no, you pervs, not a girl-y magazine-- it was Allure, one of those magazines filled with advice for girly-girls-- makeup, fashion, tricks and tips for everything from faking a fabulous tan to horoscopes for you and your guy). In said girl magazine was this season's hottest new looks for eyes. I spread the magazine on the bathroom counter, prepared my arsenal, and set to work.
I look like I have two black eyes. Seeeeeeexxxxxxxyyyy.
Ha! As if.
I did like playing dress up, and had a fairly large collection of cast-off makeup from my three older sisters. I never quite got the hang of it, though, and so my essential makeup kit as I went through my teen years consisted of mascara, powder, and lip gloss. Sundays, I wore dresses and flats, but went defiantly bare-legged, which my mother pretended not to notice.
She cringed and almost cried when she saw my first tattoo. I was in no hurry to tell her that I had a couple of others hidden under my clothes. By the time she noticed my pierced tongue, all she could do was cluck hers and shake her head. I think by that time, she realized I probably wasn't going to turn out quite like her other daughters. Late teens and early twenties, I slipped into hippie chick mode; I never did wear patchouli or tie dye, but I was big on the no makeup/no high heels/all cotton wardrobe. At the age of 24, I got a job as co-manager of a clothing store. My parents were ecstatic- Firefighter Girl picks a career! In a female dominated field! Doing girl things! But that only lasted a few months.
After I went through academy and my first year of school, I was still hell-bent on being a paramedic/firefighter. Interestingly enough, the more time I spend in this field, the more girly I get. I now own 5 pink shirts (yes, I do). I have a few pairs of high heels, and as mentioned in a previous post, I can even walk in them. I'm still getting the hang of this whole girl grooming thing, though. I make Miss Diva say the waxing mantra with me in between screams as I peel strips of hair off my legs: "Beauty is Pain! Beauty is Pain!" She laughs at me, but she's girly-girl all the way through- I don't think she has a single shirt in her dresser that isn't pink. She'll be begging for a razor and wax strips by the time she's 10. Heck, she already paints her nails, and it's not really her fault when half the purple nail polish ends up on the carpet. She's only 4, after all.
I think I figured out how to pluck my eyebrows symmetrically. That was a big milestone a couple of years ago. Hair styling beyond shampoo, conditioner, and a sloppy bun still eludes me, which is why I frequently look like an unbraided Pippi Longstocking. My staple cosmetics are still mascara and lip gloss, although for a special occasion (and if I have the time to putz around in front of the bathroom mirror) I'll put on lipstick and foundation, and if I'm feeling really brave, I'll try eyeshadow. Like this morning.
Here's how it went. I got a girl magazine (no, you pervs, not a girl-y magazine-- it was Allure, one of those magazines filled with advice for girly-girls-- makeup, fashion, tricks and tips for everything from faking a fabulous tan to horoscopes for you and your guy). In said girl magazine was this season's hottest new looks for eyes. I spread the magazine on the bathroom counter, prepared my arsenal, and set to work.
I look like I have two black eyes. Seeeeeeexxxxxxxyyyy.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
my dogs are barkin
12 hour shifts, 4 days in a row. Awake at 2 a.m. takes some getting used to. . .but at least I only have a 10 minute commute instead of the 2 hour commute of my recent past. 45 IVs started, one pneumothorax chest tap, one pretty dang impressive hemothorax. . .2 1/2 liters drained. I was assisting the doc, and we both watched in amazement at the solid red stream that filled the first, and then the second, and then the third evac bottle.
Had a stubborn a-fib that didn't answer to the cardizem, or the two doses of lopressor, so the doc told me to get ready for a cardiovert. Never done one of those before. . .but the doc said, "hey, why don't you do this one!" so I did. Twice. There was a tense 7 seconds of asystole after the first 50j, 7 seconds while we all held our breath, and at about 6 seconds, the doc and I looked at each other and he kind of cleared his throat and chewed his lip, and the relief in the room was palpable as the first q r s complex blipped across the screen, even though the rate was still at 150. We got him again at 120j, but the man's heart just wouldn't stop its atrial twitter.
Saw a six day old baby that was healthy as a horse. Mom was a bit. . .off. Was very concerned about some of the things baby was doing. Mom looked at me, lower lip quivering. "When she sleeps, her legs twitch." And a big fat tear rolled down her cheek. I was loathe to wake the baby with the rectal thermometer, but I sighed and lubed up the tip, and bit my tongue. I refrained from mentioning that Mom's legs probably twitched when she slept, too.
The usual junkies, migraines, NSO abdominal pains. Two aortic aneurysms in as many days. The patient who came in with a belly the size of a bowling ball from burst divurticuli was very pleasant, smiling and talking to us while we took her blood pressure. . .a couple of times, because the 55/20 measurement was somewhat difficult to believe. But no, it was right. Yikes. Three IVs, 3 L of NaCl, and Trendelenberg for you, ma'am. And she didn't even mess up her lipstick.
My favorite was the patient who showed up insisting she was the Holy Spirit. She kept addressing the numerous imaginary children in her belly and some person in the exam room only she could see. She called him Dad. It took a while to figure out she meant God. Kinda spooky. . .I have no doubt she was seeing and hearing something, but the only thing she had to say to any of us was, "gimme an IV!! My babies are thirsty and Dad says you have to!" And we were trying, but damn if her veins were filled with anything but holy water, because no matter how hard any of us tried, we couldn't get that dark red flash in the cath chamber.
Where the hell do these people come from?
Had a stubborn a-fib that didn't answer to the cardizem, or the two doses of lopressor, so the doc told me to get ready for a cardiovert. Never done one of those before. . .but the doc said, "hey, why don't you do this one!" so I did. Twice. There was a tense 7 seconds of asystole after the first 50j, 7 seconds while we all held our breath, and at about 6 seconds, the doc and I looked at each other and he kind of cleared his throat and chewed his lip, and the relief in the room was palpable as the first q r s complex blipped across the screen, even though the rate was still at 150. We got him again at 120j, but the man's heart just wouldn't stop its atrial twitter.
Saw a six day old baby that was healthy as a horse. Mom was a bit. . .off. Was very concerned about some of the things baby was doing. Mom looked at me, lower lip quivering. "When she sleeps, her legs twitch." And a big fat tear rolled down her cheek. I was loathe to wake the baby with the rectal thermometer, but I sighed and lubed up the tip, and bit my tongue. I refrained from mentioning that Mom's legs probably twitched when she slept, too.
The usual junkies, migraines, NSO abdominal pains. Two aortic aneurysms in as many days. The patient who came in with a belly the size of a bowling ball from burst divurticuli was very pleasant, smiling and talking to us while we took her blood pressure. . .a couple of times, because the 55/20 measurement was somewhat difficult to believe. But no, it was right. Yikes. Three IVs, 3 L of NaCl, and Trendelenberg for you, ma'am. And she didn't even mess up her lipstick.
My favorite was the patient who showed up insisting she was the Holy Spirit. She kept addressing the numerous imaginary children in her belly and some person in the exam room only she could see. She called him Dad. It took a while to figure out she meant God. Kinda spooky. . .I have no doubt she was seeing and hearing something, but the only thing she had to say to any of us was, "gimme an IV!! My babies are thirsty and Dad says you have to!" And we were trying, but damn if her veins were filled with anything but holy water, because no matter how hard any of us tried, we couldn't get that dark red flash in the cath chamber.
Where the hell do these people come from?
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
the agony and the ecstasy
I'd almost forgotten what a 12 hour shift in the middle of the night feels like. It started off like any first shift at a new job, although it's nice that I know the employees, and the equipment, and the layout of most of the rooms. But just enough has changed that I feel I'm in some slightly skewed alternate ER- the beds have been renumbered, the crash carts have been reorganized, the charts have been shuffled. At first I contributed my mild confusion to the early a.m. pre-coffee haze, but then realized that this time, it wasn't entirely me.
first IV of the day is an EJ. No, I didn't get to do it, although I could have- the patient had ropes for veins. With the EJ came a marriage proposal from the patient, my first of two for the shift. DeepThroat, my Medic trainer, teases me a little. I tell him it's a little different in the back of an ambulance, where it's just me, the patient, and a bunch of 14 g needles. That combination tends to curb the flirtation a bit.
With DT hovering over my attempts on the next several patients, I botch 4 out of 5 IVs. Grrrr. Granted, I haven't started an IV in a couple of months, and each patient greeted me with "I'm a tough stick," but still. After lunch, DT decided to leave me be, and hovered outside the room instead of over my shoulder and- ba da bing ba da boom- I'm 7 for 7 the rest of the shift, with only one AC. Hallelujah, the tingle is back in the fingertips.
The cops showed up in the early a.m. with a meth head. The guy had been pounding on his sister/cousin/girlfriend's car at 5 a.m (he wasn't terribly clear on this, so take your pick- although since this is meth central, one person could actually be all three). The guy is barefoot, dirty and bloodstained, with blackened burn blisters at both corners of his mouth from sucking on a hot pipe. He is also about 6 feet of wirey, sinewy muscle. Not an ounce of fat on this guy. The night nurses give him Haldol and Ativan, and we calm him enough to get him to a bed. He's definitely high as a kite, but I think he was less violent than terrified of the cuffs, the bright lights, the restraints in the back of the cop car.
Later in the day, an ambo brings in a homeless guy who is somewhat disagreeable. He was drunk, and got in a fight, and doesn't really want to be here. I am amazed at the disgust his nurse shows him, how rude she is. DT says she's old school, and doesn't like change. Whatever. I can understand getting burned out and sick of the so-called human trash- I live in the middle of it. But I also know that most humans, if given the opportunity, will rise to the occasion when treated like humans instead of pond scum. The guy was lying on the bed, shivering, soaked through from the rain, and his nurse hadn't even given him a sheet. I put my hand on his shoulder, introduced myself. He lowered his arm from his eyes, told me his name. Smiled. I covered him with a couple of dry, warm blankets. He thanked me. The doc shows up, gives the guy a once over, orders dinner for him. Treats him like a human being. Thank god for that doc. I wanted to fwap the nurse over the head with a purple nitrile glove- fwap fwap fwap. But that may not have been my most excellent idea, considering it was only my first day.
I can't think of one employee that I don't actually like at Meth Central ER. Most are good people with high standards and excellent training. The nurses generally fall into one of three categories- the ones who appreciate the medics and view us as colleagues, the ones who view us as nothing more than housekeeping with IV skills, and the ones who resent the hell out of us. Luckily, the nurses in the first category far outnumber the other two, but I am only now realizing the intricacies of politics in the hospital setting- the docs are treated with kid gloves, but nudged along by the nurses, who seem to think the docs have no idea what they're doing. The docs tolerate this because, well, it's best to humor the nurses, don't you think?
first IV of the day is an EJ. No, I didn't get to do it, although I could have- the patient had ropes for veins. With the EJ came a marriage proposal from the patient, my first of two for the shift. DeepThroat, my Medic trainer, teases me a little. I tell him it's a little different in the back of an ambulance, where it's just me, the patient, and a bunch of 14 g needles. That combination tends to curb the flirtation a bit.
With DT hovering over my attempts on the next several patients, I botch 4 out of 5 IVs. Grrrr. Granted, I haven't started an IV in a couple of months, and each patient greeted me with "I'm a tough stick," but still. After lunch, DT decided to leave me be, and hovered outside the room instead of over my shoulder and- ba da bing ba da boom- I'm 7 for 7 the rest of the shift, with only one AC. Hallelujah, the tingle is back in the fingertips.
The cops showed up in the early a.m. with a meth head. The guy had been pounding on his sister/cousin/girlfriend's car at 5 a.m (he wasn't terribly clear on this, so take your pick- although since this is meth central, one person could actually be all three). The guy is barefoot, dirty and bloodstained, with blackened burn blisters at both corners of his mouth from sucking on a hot pipe. He is also about 6 feet of wirey, sinewy muscle. Not an ounce of fat on this guy. The night nurses give him Haldol and Ativan, and we calm him enough to get him to a bed. He's definitely high as a kite, but I think he was less violent than terrified of the cuffs, the bright lights, the restraints in the back of the cop car.
Later in the day, an ambo brings in a homeless guy who is somewhat disagreeable. He was drunk, and got in a fight, and doesn't really want to be here. I am amazed at the disgust his nurse shows him, how rude she is. DT says she's old school, and doesn't like change. Whatever. I can understand getting burned out and sick of the so-called human trash- I live in the middle of it. But I also know that most humans, if given the opportunity, will rise to the occasion when treated like humans instead of pond scum. The guy was lying on the bed, shivering, soaked through from the rain, and his nurse hadn't even given him a sheet. I put my hand on his shoulder, introduced myself. He lowered his arm from his eyes, told me his name. Smiled. I covered him with a couple of dry, warm blankets. He thanked me. The doc shows up, gives the guy a once over, orders dinner for him. Treats him like a human being. Thank god for that doc. I wanted to fwap the nurse over the head with a purple nitrile glove- fwap fwap fwap. But that may not have been my most excellent idea, considering it was only my first day.
I can't think of one employee that I don't actually like at Meth Central ER. Most are good people with high standards and excellent training. The nurses generally fall into one of three categories- the ones who appreciate the medics and view us as colleagues, the ones who view us as nothing more than housekeeping with IV skills, and the ones who resent the hell out of us. Luckily, the nurses in the first category far outnumber the other two, but I am only now realizing the intricacies of politics in the hospital setting- the docs are treated with kid gloves, but nudged along by the nurses, who seem to think the docs have no idea what they're doing. The docs tolerate this because, well, it's best to humor the nurses, don't you think?
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
it's a miles davis kind of day
you know, one of those cloudy rainy cold kind of blue days. Give me some Miles, give me some Coltrane, give me something that resonates with the mood of my restless, broken heart.
I'm a single mom, which in many ways is a good thing, although it can be difficult at times. MixMan and Miss Diva are lucky (and by default, I am also lucky) that The Dads (always referred to collectively) are so much a part of their lives. Both I and my two children are truly blessed, in so many different ways.
My son is turning 7 next month. He was born ten days early in Y2K after 23 hours of drug-free labor, 13 of it very, very hard. Nuchal cord, mild distress. Five pounds, 13 ounces. The first few weeks, when he would get colicky, I'd put music on the stereo (he liked just about anything, but jazz, particularly Thelonious Monk and Coltrane, soothed him the most) and we'd dance around my tiny apartment, MixMan tight against my chest. He hated the harmonica, though. My sister tried to play for him (and she's rather good) and he would scream like he was being pinched. Hard. Every single time.
When MixMan was 4 1/2 months old, I noticed a sudden loss in his responsiveness to the sound of my voice. I'd walk into a room and he wouldn't turn his head; he no longer smiled when I sang to him. But it didn't happen all the time, and his dad and I convinced ourselves it was nothing to worry about. But by 8 months, when the random noises he made should have been shaping themselves into vowels and recognizable sounds, he was still shrieking. He got hearing aids 2 months later.
My son is one of the sweetest, most loving little boys in the world. He has a deep, abiding love for animals and his people. He is generous to a fault, although not in ways you might recognize. He terrorizes his little sister, just like any good brother should. He also has autism spectrum disorder.
Watching my little boy collapse in a frantic pile of writhing limbs, screaming the same thing over and over, saying his throat hurts from all the screaming but being unable to stop, and finally covering his own ears because the sound of his own screaming is unbearable. . . it breaks my heart. So I do what any mother would: I sit down beside him. Pull him into my lap. Take out his hearing aids. Press his head against my chest and hum a riff from Miles so he can feel the vibration in his own body. Rock gently. And it's almost like the first few weeks after he was born.
Almost.
I'm a single mom, which in many ways is a good thing, although it can be difficult at times. MixMan and Miss Diva are lucky (and by default, I am also lucky) that The Dads (always referred to collectively) are so much a part of their lives. Both I and my two children are truly blessed, in so many different ways.
My son is turning 7 next month. He was born ten days early in Y2K after 23 hours of drug-free labor, 13 of it very, very hard. Nuchal cord, mild distress. Five pounds, 13 ounces. The first few weeks, when he would get colicky, I'd put music on the stereo (he liked just about anything, but jazz, particularly Thelonious Monk and Coltrane, soothed him the most) and we'd dance around my tiny apartment, MixMan tight against my chest. He hated the harmonica, though. My sister tried to play for him (and she's rather good) and he would scream like he was being pinched. Hard. Every single time.
When MixMan was 4 1/2 months old, I noticed a sudden loss in his responsiveness to the sound of my voice. I'd walk into a room and he wouldn't turn his head; he no longer smiled when I sang to him. But it didn't happen all the time, and his dad and I convinced ourselves it was nothing to worry about. But by 8 months, when the random noises he made should have been shaping themselves into vowels and recognizable sounds, he was still shrieking. He got hearing aids 2 months later.
My son is one of the sweetest, most loving little boys in the world. He has a deep, abiding love for animals and his people. He is generous to a fault, although not in ways you might recognize. He terrorizes his little sister, just like any good brother should. He also has autism spectrum disorder.
Watching my little boy collapse in a frantic pile of writhing limbs, screaming the same thing over and over, saying his throat hurts from all the screaming but being unable to stop, and finally covering his own ears because the sound of his own screaming is unbearable. . . it breaks my heart. So I do what any mother would: I sit down beside him. Pull him into my lap. Take out his hearing aids. Press his head against my chest and hum a riff from Miles so he can feel the vibration in his own body. Rock gently. And it's almost like the first few weeks after he was born.
Almost.
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