The Drive

I stayed over last night at the ambulance barn so I wouldn’t have to brave the storm, getting up early to shovel the drive, then drive twenty minutes along ice filled roads. I hate driving my car in winter storms. I’ll drive anyone else’s car, I just don’t want to skid out and smash my car. Every winter I have one or two episodes where I lose control for a brief moment and am lucky there is no one there to hit or someone else will lose control and just miss me.

A couple days ago I was driving along in the evening. It had been snowing maybe a half and hour. I was going down a hill when I started to slide. I was going like two miles an hour, but I could not stop the car. I kept getting closer and closer to the car in front of me. I tried taking my foot off the brake, then tapping it. Nothing was working. I finally managed to steer the car up onto a sidewalk, and only there did I find traction to finally stop. I looked down the hill and saw two other cars had wiped out and smashed up. It’s just not worth the risk for me to drive when I can avoid it.

I slept okay – not as well as if I had been in my own bed, but at least I didn’t have to get up early and shovel the drive.

All told there was about eight or ten inches. The morning was quiet. I was more tired than usual because I am trying to quit Diet cola cold turkey. In recent weeks I have been getting this acidy taste in my throat. The only thing I can think of that is causing it is my increasing reliance on Diet cola to keep me going. I am drinking it steady from six in the morning to two in the afternoon. This web site I went to said carbonated soda and caffineted drinks are leading causes of acid reflux. I want that taste in my throat to go away so I will quit my Diet cokes.

Did three calls. I felt like I was doing them in slow motion. A lady with Alzheimer’s and hematuria (blood in the urine) – while were driving to the hospital I couldn’t for the life of me remember what the medical term for blood in the urine was. I knew I could get it in multiple-choice situation; it just wouldn’t come to me. Finally at triage out of the blue it popped into my head . Hematuria. Of course.

We did a chest pain at a retirement community and a fall at elderly housing. Like I said I was in a slow motion daze. It wasn’t like I wasn’t proficient, I just moved like I was in no hurry at all, like I done it a thousand times and there wasn’t anything to be concerned with. I think the patient’s found it very comforting. Now how I would have handled a real emergency, I don’t know.

Three more hours to go.

I am glad I am off tomorrow. I need some serious day off do nothing at all time, not day off run around all over the place time.

And I still have to shovel my drive when I get home tonight.