Stop Grimacing

Took a nurse from a nursing home to the hospital for an infected dog bite. She was feeling a little woozy, so her boss ordered her to go to the hospital by ambulance. She had a little banadage on her arm. The bite occured two weeks ago, and she had been taking antibiotics, but the arm still seemed infected. She was embarassed to go by ambulance. My general attitude is you want to go to the hospital, I'll take you to the hospital. Fly the friendly skies. Then she pulled off the bandage and showed me the bite. It was nasty. Big punture wound, all white and red and ulcerous. She was afraid she might have gotten some nursing home germs in it. Like MRSA.

We did a routine kid choking, okay, he's not choking anymore, and when we get there, he is smiling and giggling. Nothing wrong with that.

Went to a business for a man who'd had a stent put in a week ago after a stress test revealed ST elevation on exertion. Healthy young guy, younger than me. No prior problems. He said he had a 95% blockage in his LAD becfore he got the stent. The LAD. Left Anterior Descending artery. The Widowmaker. Anyway, he hadn't been feeling well for a couple days with occasional chest tightness so the nurse at his job said they had talked to his cardiologist and he might have to be recathed so they could check the stent to see if it was working properly.

Last call was for a guy with a hernia that had popped out and he wasn't able to reduce it as he sometimes could. He said it would have to be resewn -- he knew the jargon. He was in a fair mount of pain. I thought this would be a great test case for me to call to ask for morphine, but he said he would wait until the hospital. He wasn't that bad. I felt like saying, then don't tell me you're in pain, and stop grimacing if you don't want me to help you.

I taped the World Cup today and instead of missing it while out on calls, I was able to watch both games, which were very exciting.