Sweaters

I'm posting this from a Kinko's work station for .20 a minute so I'll keep it short. Got my teef fixed yesterday. Good news was I didn't need a root canal and won't have to go to a peridontist, but the bad news is the bill was still huge. Still, if you are going to spend money, I guess your front teeth have to be high on the priority list.

Last night I went to the Red Sox game, and Big Papi hit a walkoff home run in the 9th. A great game. You have to enjoy moments like that.

I was going to do some chores around the house today, but they paged out an open shift so I am on my way into work. I just stopped at the State armory and unloaded five bags of clothes for the hurrican victims. I was ruthless going through my closet. Every Christmas I get a sweater from my father and his wife. They sit in my closet because I rarely wear anything besides my work clothes and then jeans or workout clothes when I am off. I piled a bunch of them into the bags. When I got to the armory, I felt good, but thought I should go back and get the rest of my clothes and bundle them up to.

I'm on a list at work to be sent down to Mississippi/Alabama to help out, but don't know if I will get deployed. They are sending five people every five days. I think the problem with me going is I work six days a week so it is like having to replace two people. We'll see.

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Did five calls today.

An anemic lady from a nursing home with CHF history. Her H and H was low.

We got called to a local nursing home that also calls itself a "Hospital" for a patient unresponsive with a low BP and bradycardic. They had the patient in Trendelenburg and had two tiny bore IV's running (curiously one through an IV med pump, the other had a BP cuff wrapped around it). In the room were two nurses and a doctor. The doctor was giving a fairly long winded report to our fly car medic who had just gotten there. I got out the atropine and the flycar medic asked the doctor if he had given the patient any atropine. He looked befuddled. I gave the lady the atropine and and that picked her pulse up and got her BP up to the 90's from the 60's. She was hemodynamically stable after that, but still sluggish. We took her in and the hospital said she was hypothermic. Other than that, she was okay.

Did a similar syncope questionable vagal call later, a lady passed out on her way to the bathroom, and was hypotensive, but not bradycardic. She was unresponsive when we got there, but soon was back to alert and oriented. A little fluid and her BP was fine.

We were sent from the far northern part of our territory to the far southern part for a wait and return transfer. I was working with a small woman. We got out at the address and the door opened and out hobbled this man walking with two canes. He looked sort of like a giant dwarf with a long white beard. By giant I mean close to 600 pounds. The two canes and the shape of his body made it look almost like he was two people fused together. There was no way we were going to be able to lift him up on the stretcher, much less get him on it and into the ambulance. I guess there was a screwup and he was supposed to be sent the big ambulance we have that can accomadate out larger clients. Because it was already late, he had to reschedule his appointment.

The last call was "difficulty breathing" which turned out to be a Russian Lady who is on portable oxygen and was worried she didn't have enough oxygen to get home. The call took place outside a limmo company where the woman was involved in a shouting match with the limmo driver who was also Russian. Let's just say she was getting plenty of air to be able to shout at the limmo driver, who she has been having long running disputes with, the police officer and us. We cleared it no medical emergency as it looked like she had at least a two hour supply of 02 left.

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I heard a third hand report about the conditions in Mississippi where some of our division employees have been sent. Our company has been deploying employees from across the company to help out down there. I guess a lot of people are getting sick from the water. They have been told to wash their hands with commercial sanitizer only. The devestation I guess has to be seen to truly understand. Hurricane victims are walking around like zombies -- they have no jobs, no homes. I also heard that the five day deployments are going to be changed to ten day.