Annoyance Meter

Let me start off by saying, no one working in EMS should ever be annoyed by anything. The job is a privledge, we are there to help people in distress, as one of my teachers once said, it may not seem like an emergency to you, but it is always an emergency to the patient, etc. etc.

Now that I have gotten the PC stuff out of the way, I will admit that I do get annoyed (as anyone reading my posts can see). Not that I am proud of it. I'm not, but I still get annoyed.

What tricks my Annoyance Meter?

How about this?

"You do have oxygen? Don't You?"

or

"Let me put a jacket on him. He can't go out like that. It's cold out there."

or

"Don't lose his paperwork. The hospital will need it."

I know people are nervous and concerned for their loved ones and on my best days I just let it go. On my tired, cranky days, I say very slowly, "Yes, we have oxygen and we have blankets, and no we won't lose his paperwork. First we are going to undress his top so we can properly assess him, then we will put him a hospital top, then carefully bundle him against the cold. After I've listened to his lungs and thoroughly assessed his respiratory needs, I will do all I can as I always do to see that any difficulty he has is relieved as well as I am able. And the paperwork I need to review because it will help me determine my treatment and assist me in the medical report report I make to the physician at the hospital who will want to know my profesional assessment of your family members condition. It is all part of our job that we do everyday, giving oxygen as needed, keeping the patient comfortable and warm and providing a thorough and detailed history."

Most of the time, I keep it simpler. I look at them and say. "Yes, we have oxygen." or "We intend to bundle him up." Or "We need the paperwork to do our jobs."

Sometimes I just stare for a moment to let their words sink in to them, then I go back to doing my job.

Here's another one that torks me. I drive to the hospital and the family comes up to me and says, "You sure do take the long way."

I look at her and say, "We go all over the greater area. Everyone has their secret way from their home to their hospital. I go the way I know."

I've thought about saying. "Well, I thought about taking the shortest, quickest way, but then I thought, Naw, I'll go the long way."

Okay. Enough. I resolve today, even though I am tired and slightly cranky, to be above all the petty stuff. Today I banish my annoyance meter.

Stay tuned...

***

Call #1 Code Three Lights and Sirens Chest Pain at nursing home. First, a preface: many nursing homes nowdays have patients who are fully ambulatory, who seem to be in nursing homes for no reason other than there is no one to take care of them. We find a 70-year-old Spanish speaking gentleman standing in his room watching a tall long haired brunette beauty with big red lips, a low cut dress and major cleavage singing "No puedo controlo" (I can't control it)on the Spanish TV station. She is very hot. Caliente. The nurse says the man told an aide he had right-sided chest pain this morning, but when I talk to him, he denies any pain, says he is fine and does not want to go to the hospital. He will not take his eyes off the beauty on TV. I confer with the nurse and she agrees with me that the man seems to be fine. His skin is warm and dry. His vitals are 118/70, 64, 18. I suggest that maybe they can just call us back if anything develops. She is agreeable and we leave with a refusal. Simple enough. Haven't been called back yet.

Call #2 Minor motor vehicle. Guy refuses. The other car's passengers says no injuries. We clear. Just as we get back to the base we are sent back to the accident. The two people in the other car, including the driver who just got a ticket, are now claiming injuries. We go back. The driver has shoulder pain, her daughter neck pain. We c-spine the daughter and put the mother, who was ambulatory when we first arrived on scene, in the captain's chair. When the mother sees the daughter being put into the back of the ambulance, the woman, still holding the ticket the officer has written her, requests a collar too. She says she doesn't want the board, she just wants a neck collar. I calmly explain to her why she does not need a neck collar. We take her and her daughter to the hospital.

Annoyance Meter: Still reading zero.

Call #3 Take my first bite of steaming hot pizza. the tones go. 12 year old difficulty breathing. Lights and Sirens. Yeah, right, I think. Anxiety attack, no doubt. Get an update, keep coming, it sounds bad. The address is on the same street where there are some group homes. I'm thinking maybe some kid with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair, choked on plegm, is turning blue, and is going to be a code by the time we get there. We go charging in. It's an anxiety attack. "I got pnemonia, I've got pnemonia!" the boy shouts, clutching his chest.

"No, you don't, you got anxiety," his father says. "This happened two three times a week. The boy's was medication."

"But he's grabbing his chest," his mother says. "He's grabbing his chest."

"Listen, we've been through this. He's got anxiety. This is just like what happened in church. He got anxiety."

"But he's grabbing his chest."

"I want to go to the hospital," the boy says.

The kid is fine. warm and dry skin, lungs clear, sat is 100%. the kid was playing in the basement when suddenly he said he couldn't catch his breath. He's breathing fine watching his parents argue with each other. We end up with a refusal, the father saying he will take the boy down to the hospital if he continues to get upset.

Call #4 No sooner have we gotten back and I have gotten my plate of pizza, the tones go again. Difficulty breathing. Lights and sirens. We get half way there and we hear the cops go out and they say an ambulance is already there. It's not us. Somehow a commercial ambulance was dispatched. Whatever, we're canceled.

Get back, get some pizza.

Annoyance meter: Still hanging at zero because I am in a no annoyance, no whinning zone.

And I am rewarded by no late call. Who hoo!