Nine Calls

Nine calls in tweleve hours today.

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Called to a MD's office for a patient with altered LOC and a blood sugar of 18. The doctor was very cool and helpful. He admitted it was interesting for him. While he had many diabetic patients, he rarely got to actually see one in insulin shock, and then see how quickly they come around with D50. I asked the patient if she wanted us to take her to the hospital. Do I have too, I'm at my doctor's office, she said. Dooh! The doctor got her a cookie and called a relative to come pick her up.

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We did an assault where a woman got in an altercation with her boyfriend, and he ended up getting peppersprayed and she got some in her eyes -- the kids were okay, but they were upset they were going to get taken away from their mother. The mother was upset DCF was going to find out that she had put the kids in a dangerous situation (again).

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We were sent on a priority one for severe pain to a nursing home. They got all bent out of shape that we parked in fron and not around back where the ambulance entrance was, so we had to drive around to the back. It was pouring rain and there was no awning there. The patient had fallen at six in the morning, and it was now four in the afternoon. They had done an x-ray that showed in the nurse's words, a fractured left lateral femoral condoyle." So we go to the hospital -- not one we routinely transport too. When we arrived, the harried triage nurse was being very sarcastic to a patient who was using her telephone. "You need to get off the phone, get off right now. Off, off off. I need to use the phone. You're supposed to be dizzy, you need to lay back down." She looked at me and asked what we had.

I try to keep my answer short and sweet to start because it seems she just wants to know the down and dirty while she digs among a stack of papers for a triage report form. "A fractured leg," I say.

"And how do we know that?" She says it in such away like I can't say she has a fractured leg because I am just an ambulance person.

"An x-ray."

"How do you have an x-ray?"

"They took one already, read it, and determined she had a fracture."

"And what time did this all happen?"

"This morning. She was being walked to the bathroom and she tripped and fell."

"And it's four o'clock now." I am not certain whether her sarcasm is directed at me, at the patient of life in general, but the sarcasm is so thick, I can't resist.

"Is there something unusual here?"

"Well, yeah. She fell this morning. Let's say she fell at 11:59. Its now four o'clock."

"And that's unusual?"

"Yes. Why didn't she come when she fell?"

"She's from a nursing home."

"So?"

I am tempted to say, "Is this your first day as a triage nurse?"

Normally, the fall occurs several days before and they don't get an xray for a day or two and don't get it read for another day, and don't transport till the day after that when the patient's leg is massively swollen and bruised, and the patient is crying in pain.

"And where is the fracture?" she asks.

"Left lateral femoral condoyle."

She looks at me blankly.

I point to the spot just above her knee. "Right there," I say.

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We do a presumption. Old woman last seen last night, riggored with livitity lying on the Persian rug. Probably got up from the couch, but never made it to her medic alarm.

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A syncopal episode at a bar where a bunch of young people were drinking and eating. The woman vomited up her dinner. She talked all the way to the hospital, suggesting possible reasons why she might be sick. Worked out too much, was in a car accident last week, taking a new supplement, had a glass of champange, suffers from anxiety, starting her period, her cousin has low blood sugar, she passed out once five years ago and they couldn't figure out why, she is allergic to nuts she thinks maybe there were nuts in the food, on and on and on.

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Did a diaylsis transfer and took another patient back to her nursing home after she was brought in for seizures.

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A fall where a woman slipped off a chair, then wacked her head on the table when she tried to get up.

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A woman with lung cancer and a recently discovered brain tumor suddenly develops difficulty speaking and right sided weakness. We took her in on a priority. When we got the the hospital, she started having focal seizures.