Tiring

We get called for an ETOH downtown. A forty-year old man laying in the lobby of a office building. He stumbled in looking for spare change, says the security guard. I recognize him right away. He’s the guy we found not breathing downtown, who I gave the narcan too, and when he didn’t respond, intubated, only to have him wake up and yank the tube, and then puke all over himself. I ask if he remembers me or the episode. He doesn’t. At least I’m glad his voice sounds normal. I was worried he damaged his vocal chords yanking the tube out. Today he has just been drinking vodka.

We do a psych who wants to go to the hospital for an evaluation. We pick her up at a shelter, and run her over to the hospital.

They send us downstate with a VA run.

We do a seizure, a patient who has regular seizures, who refuses.

It is cold today. I eat cerdo asada, yucca, and tostones with garlic oil over them. Very good on a cold day.

We do a lot of driving around from one post to the next and back. It is more tiring than doing calls.

We get called for an assault in the north end. A teenage girl has been out drinking with a guy who picked her up after school. When she refuses to have sex with him, he whacks her in the face with a gun. When we arrive she is hysterical, her face and lips swollen. She is spitting mucus and blood, screaming that she has asthma and can't breathe. It is hard to get her to sit still. I initially ask her if she has neck pain, and she says only on the side, then she gasps that she has asthma and can't breathe. I try to dance gingerly around her frequent spits. We get her on the stretcher and I listen to her lungs. She has some wheezing so I give her a breathing treatment. Once in the back of the ambulance, I check her from head to toe again, and now she is complaining of midline neck pain, so we cspine her on the stretcher, which just causes her more anxiety. She starts screaming that she is dying and don't let her die. Her vitals are all fine. My job is to just calm her and wipe her spit off her face. There is no need to go lights and sirens and the traffic is bad so it takes us forever. She keeps thrashing around. I try to tell her not to move her neck, but she does a fine job of dislodging the head supports. I hate calls like this. I like quiet manageable patients. "Why aren't we there yet!" she screams. "I'm dying! I'm dying! My face! My face!"

In the triage line at the hospital, the nurse comments on our cspine job. "Looks like you didn't do it very well."

"She's ETOH," my partner says.

An ER tech walks by. "Nice cspine job."

"Gang up on us now," he says.

Once she gets in the room, and her mother shows up, she calms down considerably. The hospital lets her get off the board, but keeps the collar on her.

They send us in one time. Today is the deadline for putting in vacaton requests for the next six months as well as bidding for open shits in January.

I have never had to formally put in for vacation before, but they have a new system and the worry is they are going to start getting hardline with us, so I put in for days that I had expected to be able to cover with shift swaps.

As far as the open shifts, I decide not to put in for any of them. I’ll just carry my pager and take openings as they occur only if I feel like working. January is going to be a break month for me. I need to get back in the gym and need to spend some time cleaning my house, and working more on my writing. I'm going to try to limit my overtime for awhile.

I can’t wait for Saturday when I am off.