Spring Evening

Busy day. Doing 12 hours in the city during the day not much time for a break. They paged us with a call at 8:32. The shift starts at 8:30. We hadn't even got the ambulance keys. Eight calls.

A basic unit was sent to a fall. They called for a medic. I arrived to find an elderly black woman seizing on the bedroom floor, eyes deviated to the left, left side seizing. I gave her two of Ativan and it stopped the seizure. I had my intubation kit out, ready to tube her, but she was breathing okay, satting in the high 90's. I just put a nasal trumpet in. They got her right up to CAT Scan.

Did a lot ot transfers. Everybody was doing them, even the precepting car.

We were called for an abdominal pain. 18 year old intercity girl. Skin hot, upper right quandrant very tender to touch. Heart rate 120. She'd had an abortion two weeks before. No bleeding. Turns out she had a bad infection. Very elevated white blood cell count.

Went to an elderly retirement apartment complex for a man who'd falled backwards in his chair, and hit his head on the ground. He had a small lac. Nothing suturable. He'd been sitting out under the trees with a group of his neighbors. It was a beautiful day yesterday. The woman next to him was asking how to get the blood out of his hair. "Just some soap and water," I said. "Treat him to a sponge bath tonight. He'll like that."

"A sponge bath? We're not together."

"He'll like that," another neighbor said.

"Yeah, Bessie. I always thought you two should hook up. Nice couple you'd make."

"Huh?" the guy with the cut head said. He was a little deaf.

"Bessie gonna give you a sponge bath."

"A what?"

Everyone was laughing.

I was thinking if I'm lucky, when I'm eighty or ninety as this man was, I will consider myself fortunate to be able to sit out under the trees and have neighbors like these, to have a cookout, listen to a ballgame on the radio, to feel the Spring blossoming all around me.