It's Monday morning, and I'm home alone. Well, except for the two cats and the dog, but they're all asleep at the moment, so they don't count. My wife's at work, the kids are at school, and I'm on day three of my normal four days off.
About those four days.... Almost nobody that doesn't work in Fire or EMS can figure out my schedule. My agency works what's known as a Berkeley schedule. (Yes, after the city in California. No, that doesn't mean we spend our time at work smoking dope and protesting. Most days, anyway.) I usually describe it as a nine day work week, with a four day weekend. I work a 24 hour shift every other day, and after the third shift, I have four days off. So last week, I worked Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm off Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Next week, I will work Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, and so on. It makes sense once you actually start working it. The point of all this is that MY weekend doesn't necessarily correspond to the rest of the world's weekend. As a result, if my wife is working, which she normally does on at least some of my days off, and the kids are in school, I wind up at home alone after the kids get on the school bus.
I don't really mind the peace and... well, that brings us to our title, doesn't it? One of the greatest taboos in EMS is saying the word "quiet". Bad things happen when someone does that. It angers the Call Gods, who bring their wrath down upon us, usually in the form of a VERY busy day, or a really bad wreck, or worst of all, the phenomenon known as "explode-a-poo". Needless to say, the wrath of the Call Gods can be minimal when compared to the wrath of the Coworkers, and EMS providers are noted for creative problem solving on the fly. Anger us at your own risk. So we NEVER (OK, almost never.) say that word in reference to our day. It's OK to use it in the generic, particularly when the topic of conversation is noise, but not when you're talking about how the day is going. So don't do it. And don't polish your boots while on duty, and don't make plans to watch a TV show you've really been looking forward to but didn't bother to set your DVR for at home, and most of all, NEVER, NEVER plan to go to bed early and sleep all night. The Call Gods hate it when you do that, and will punish you severely for your sloth.
I like my days at home alone. Once the kids are gone, I can eat a leisurely breakfast and drink my coffee in peace. I've already gotten two loads of laundry done, and the last one is about to go into the washer. The dishwasher has been unloaded, and the few dirty dishes that wouldn't fit last night are in it and ready to be washed. Meals are planned for the day, and all the prep is done. (Actually, we're having Dr. Pepper Pulled pork tonight, so it's already cooking. It's a recipe from The Pioneer Woman, and it already smells AMAZING. Go to her site, it's well worth your time.) Animals are fed. The giant mat on Zoe's (Cat #1) side is worked loose, and if she'd quit biting me, I would be able to clip the last little bit of fur holding it on. I'm showered and dressed, and last but not least, I have complete control of the TV remote.
I'm bored.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Bad Coffee! Down!
This morning, as I was driving home from what turned out to be a 27 hour shift, I was struck by a thought. (Or a mild seizure. I often have difficulty distinguishing between the two.) How much bad coffee have I consumed in my 42 years? I probably don't really want to know an actual quantity. After all, we all know that there is no beverage served more often than Bad Coffee. You can get it nearly everywhere, and there is really no way to tell without tasting it.
A couple disclaimers first. I really began drinking coffee during my time in the Marine Corps, so my personal "bad coffee" bar is set exceptionally low. Military issue coffee, like all other military issue items, is produced by the lowest bidder. As always, the bid is low for a reason. Canadian grown coffee, anyone?
The second disclaimer- I have been working the streets since I got out of the Corps in 1993, and spent a big chunk of that time working the graveyard shift. Some of those nights, the need for caffeine outweighed all other considerations. That meant gas station coffee, and I highly doubt I will ever be that desperate for caffeine again. Once more, the bar has been lowered.
It's also worth noting that EMS is a caffeine saturated profession. Think about it folks, your lives are in the hands of a bunch of at least partially burned out adrenaline junkies all jacked up on coffee, Mountain Dew, Red Bull, and any food that can be either easily reheated or eaten cold. (Preferably one handed. Easier to drive that way.) Makes you want to start taking better care of yourselves, doesn't it? On my shift at work, we've joked more than once that our official mascot should be a hummingbird.
We do occasionally get good coffee. One of the perks (Sorry, I know. It's a lame pun, even for me. Nothing else works.) of the county I work for is coffee. It's Folger's, which one of our firefighters refuses to drink. He's a coffee snob, so he brings his own from home. It's normally something good like Costa Rican Tarrazu or Sumatran. You can always tell when Dave's working, because everyone drinks the coffee. At the other end of the spectrum is the coffee made by one of our EMT-I's. You can tell when SHE made the coffee by trying to put a spoon in the cup. If it either stands up or melts, Cindy made it. It's funny to see the firefighters come in when she's working. They always hesitate before pouring coffee, then ask if it's Cindy's coffee. Sometimes, just for fun, I lie and tell them "No." Most of us are immune by now, but the reaction of the susceptible few is always fun to watch.
Perhaps the worst coffee I encounter on a regular basis is the dreaded ER Night Shift Special. At best, it's barely tolerable when it's fresh. Caffeine content seems to be the primary concern. What gives ERNSS its distinctive bouquet is nothing more than time. Normally, coffee is one of the first activities of the shift, just like everywhere else. The degradation occurs when the night rush happens. Every ER has one, especially on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When it hits, it hits hard, and the coffee just sits and stews, sometimes for hours. Every EMS provider knows the rest. The pot's sitting there, half empty not because anyone has been drinking coffee, but because half the water has boiled away. If you inhale deeply when walking past the pot, the airborne caffeine is enough to get your heart rate well into the 200's. By about 7 in the morning, that last little bit of coffee in the pot is sufficiently concentrated to make it the drug of choice for cardiac arrest. Hell, a couple tablespoons spilled on the floor is enough to make the tiles beat most of the time. You know the shift is over when the guy in the hazmat suit grabs the pot and heads toward the sink. Don't tell the EPA, and don't pour it into a styrofoam cup if you decide to drink it. They've been known to dissolve on contact.
Good or bad, we need that coffee. It may be to keep us awake, it may be to GET us awake after a long night. Or it may just be that we need a few minutes to sit down, collect ourselves, push some images out of our head, and get ready for the next one. The coffee's just a prop.
A couple disclaimers first. I really began drinking coffee during my time in the Marine Corps, so my personal "bad coffee" bar is set exceptionally low. Military issue coffee, like all other military issue items, is produced by the lowest bidder. As always, the bid is low for a reason. Canadian grown coffee, anyone?
The second disclaimer- I have been working the streets since I got out of the Corps in 1993, and spent a big chunk of that time working the graveyard shift. Some of those nights, the need for caffeine outweighed all other considerations. That meant gas station coffee, and I highly doubt I will ever be that desperate for caffeine again. Once more, the bar has been lowered.
It's also worth noting that EMS is a caffeine saturated profession. Think about it folks, your lives are in the hands of a bunch of at least partially burned out adrenaline junkies all jacked up on coffee, Mountain Dew, Red Bull, and any food that can be either easily reheated or eaten cold. (Preferably one handed. Easier to drive that way.) Makes you want to start taking better care of yourselves, doesn't it? On my shift at work, we've joked more than once that our official mascot should be a hummingbird.
We do occasionally get good coffee. One of the perks (Sorry, I know. It's a lame pun, even for me. Nothing else works.) of the county I work for is coffee. It's Folger's, which one of our firefighters refuses to drink. He's a coffee snob, so he brings his own from home. It's normally something good like Costa Rican Tarrazu or Sumatran. You can always tell when Dave's working, because everyone drinks the coffee. At the other end of the spectrum is the coffee made by one of our EMT-I's. You can tell when SHE made the coffee by trying to put a spoon in the cup. If it either stands up or melts, Cindy made it. It's funny to see the firefighters come in when she's working. They always hesitate before pouring coffee, then ask if it's Cindy's coffee. Sometimes, just for fun, I lie and tell them "No." Most of us are immune by now, but the reaction of the susceptible few is always fun to watch.
Perhaps the worst coffee I encounter on a regular basis is the dreaded ER Night Shift Special. At best, it's barely tolerable when it's fresh. Caffeine content seems to be the primary concern. What gives ERNSS its distinctive bouquet is nothing more than time. Normally, coffee is one of the first activities of the shift, just like everywhere else. The degradation occurs when the night rush happens. Every ER has one, especially on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When it hits, it hits hard, and the coffee just sits and stews, sometimes for hours. Every EMS provider knows the rest. The pot's sitting there, half empty not because anyone has been drinking coffee, but because half the water has boiled away. If you inhale deeply when walking past the pot, the airborne caffeine is enough to get your heart rate well into the 200's. By about 7 in the morning, that last little bit of coffee in the pot is sufficiently concentrated to make it the drug of choice for cardiac arrest. Hell, a couple tablespoons spilled on the floor is enough to make the tiles beat most of the time. You know the shift is over when the guy in the hazmat suit grabs the pot and heads toward the sink. Don't tell the EPA, and don't pour it into a styrofoam cup if you decide to drink it. They've been known to dissolve on contact.
Good or bad, we need that coffee. It may be to keep us awake, it may be to GET us awake after a long night. Or it may just be that we need a few minutes to sit down, collect ourselves, push some images out of our head, and get ready for the next one. The coffee's just a prop.
Friday, January 27, 2012
12 Rules For Calling 911.
Tonight's post is brought to you as a public service announcement.
Most people will never interact with their local EMS providers. As a result, a lot of folks are very intimidated by the thought of having to call an ambulance. In the interest of public safety, I'd like to offer a few helpful hints that might make your ambulance call a more fulfilling experience for all involved.
1. Verify the presence of an actual medical emergency. Not a WebMD indicated emergency, I mean a real illness or injury. These can be easily recognized by the appearance of symptoms BEFORE reading the description of your condition. (You live in Kansas, the likelihood of you actually having Ebola is extremely low.)
2. The 911 operators are trained professionals that are there to help you. Do not yell, curse, swear, or otherwise abuse them. They don't have any control over how long it takes us to get there, who shows up, or what we do when we get on scene. You may only be on the line with them for a few minutes, I have to work with them every day. Please try to keep them in a good mood.
3. Have your residence marked in some visible way. At 3 A.M., I will be unable to recognize "the empty lot where the barn burned back in '76" as the entrance to your driveway. House numbers are relatively inexpensive. Go get some. I'll wait here.
4. I like dogs and cats, but pen yours up before we get there. A cold, wet snout in the back of the neck is very distracting when I'm trying to save your life.
5. We do appreciate the people that call in the car on the shoulder as they whiz past, but do you really think you should be making a phone call while you're driving? Here's a thought- pull over to make that phone call. That's what the guy driving the car you're calling about did.
6. In rural areas, "wavers" are nice. Having someone stand at the end of the (Unmarked. See #3.) driveway to flag us down is actually very helpful. Having six people standing there drinking beer and all waving at once is not. Neither is having a line of a dozen people waving us in for a landing along the entire length of the driveway. It's distracting, and you all look stupid when you do it, so stop.
7. Unlock your door if it's at all possible. We don't have a key. We DO have an axe. You figure out the rest.
8. Bathe regularly. Seriously.
9. It would be greatly appreciated if you could manage to have a medical problem I've actually heard of. If I can't figure out what's really wrong with you, I will simply treat you for something more easily dealt with. Please make every effort to develop that alternate condition before we get you to the hospital. The paperwork is much simpler that way.
10. At some point, I will ask you to rate your pain on a 1-10 scale. Don't say 12. If you are with it enough to joke, you don't need pain meds. I can tell when you're pain is real, and when it's not. Someone that says their pain is a 7 is WAY more likely to get medicated.
11. At the other end of the scale, we do not award bonus points for bravery. As stated above, I can tell when you're in pain. If you insist your pain is a 2, I will eventually stop offering you meds.
12. When we get you to the hospital, try to give the doctors and nurses the same story you gave me. It's embarrasing for me to have you tell them something completely different than the story I got, and it's embarrasing for you to get admitted on a 48 hour psych hold for the hallucinations you are clearly having. Why else would your story change so radically?
I hope these tips have aided you in your 911 calling experience. Thank you, and good night.
Most people will never interact with their local EMS providers. As a result, a lot of folks are very intimidated by the thought of having to call an ambulance. In the interest of public safety, I'd like to offer a few helpful hints that might make your ambulance call a more fulfilling experience for all involved.
1. Verify the presence of an actual medical emergency. Not a WebMD indicated emergency, I mean a real illness or injury. These can be easily recognized by the appearance of symptoms BEFORE reading the description of your condition. (You live in Kansas, the likelihood of you actually having Ebola is extremely low.)
2. The 911 operators are trained professionals that are there to help you. Do not yell, curse, swear, or otherwise abuse them. They don't have any control over how long it takes us to get there, who shows up, or what we do when we get on scene. You may only be on the line with them for a few minutes, I have to work with them every day. Please try to keep them in a good mood.
3. Have your residence marked in some visible way. At 3 A.M., I will be unable to recognize "the empty lot where the barn burned back in '76" as the entrance to your driveway. House numbers are relatively inexpensive. Go get some. I'll wait here.
4. I like dogs and cats, but pen yours up before we get there. A cold, wet snout in the back of the neck is very distracting when I'm trying to save your life.
5. We do appreciate the people that call in the car on the shoulder as they whiz past, but do you really think you should be making a phone call while you're driving? Here's a thought- pull over to make that phone call. That's what the guy driving the car you're calling about did.
6. In rural areas, "wavers" are nice. Having someone stand at the end of the (Unmarked. See #3.) driveway to flag us down is actually very helpful. Having six people standing there drinking beer and all waving at once is not. Neither is having a line of a dozen people waving us in for a landing along the entire length of the driveway. It's distracting, and you all look stupid when you do it, so stop.
7. Unlock your door if it's at all possible. We don't have a key. We DO have an axe. You figure out the rest.
8. Bathe regularly. Seriously.
9. It would be greatly appreciated if you could manage to have a medical problem I've actually heard of. If I can't figure out what's really wrong with you, I will simply treat you for something more easily dealt with. Please make every effort to develop that alternate condition before we get you to the hospital. The paperwork is much simpler that way.
10. At some point, I will ask you to rate your pain on a 1-10 scale. Don't say 12. If you are with it enough to joke, you don't need pain meds. I can tell when you're pain is real, and when it's not. Someone that says their pain is a 7 is WAY more likely to get medicated.
11. At the other end of the scale, we do not award bonus points for bravery. As stated above, I can tell when you're in pain. If you insist your pain is a 2, I will eventually stop offering you meds.
12. When we get you to the hospital, try to give the doctors and nurses the same story you gave me. It's embarrasing for me to have you tell them something completely different than the story I got, and it's embarrasing for you to get admitted on a 48 hour psych hold for the hallucinations you are clearly having. Why else would your story change so radically?
I hope these tips have aided you in your 911 calling experience. Thank you, and good night.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
How do you do it?
One of the things they don't always teach you in paramedic school is that true life threatening emergencies don't really happen all that often. (Relatively speaking. Looking at the entire population, they are extremely rare. Working as a paramedic means that you get called to life and death situations with something approaching regularity.) As a result, the majority of patients we wind up transporting either don't need any particular care on the way to the hospital, or require something simple that doesn't take up a lot of time. That's fine with me, even though the paperwork is more or less the same regardless of how much I do en route, and as any of my partners can tell you, I tend to leave pretty much the same degree of mess in the back of the ambulance whether the patient is truly sick or not. (I'm getting to the point, I promise.) What all this actually means is that we can wind up with a LOT of time to kill while we're on the road. I'd even venture to say that most of the people we transport really don't need much more than a ride to the hospital with someone to keep an eye on them, just in case.
The end result of all this is that we wind up making a lot of small talk to keep the patient entertained, informed, and most importantly, DISTRACTED. Kids are easy. Being emotionally immature myself, I can relate to them. Bring up the finer points of Spongebob, start talking video games, and draw a face on an inflated glove, and you're golden. Keep them occupied until you get to the ER, and you're three quarters of the way to fixing them. Teens and adults, on the other hand.... Not so simple. They keep asking intelligent questions that demand real answers. Most of the time, they just want you to reassure them that everything's going to be OK, which it usually is. Sometimes you're worried about them, and you really need to be honest with them about that, too. They don't want to hear it, but the truth is your only option. Fortunately those folks are the minority, and a subject for another day.
The largest group is the not all that sick folks, and eventually they all ask the same question: "How can you do this every day?" Good question. So good, in fact, that even after doing this for years, I still can't answer it to my own satisfaction. I usually come back with something along the lines of "Well, they keep paying me, so I keep coming back." Most people are satisfied by that, even if it IS a cop-out. The truth is that most of us keep doing the job because we can't NOT do it. EMS has become what's termed an "ego investment profession". Put simply, the job becomes not just your job, but your identity. If you ask me what I do for a living, I'd never tell you "I work in EMS." I'm more likely to tell you "I am a paramedic." See? There's a difference. The job is psychologically addicting. Deep down every one of us in the field is an adrenaline junkie to a certain extent. We still get a rush when the call comes in, and it's still fun to go tearing through town with lights and sirens. It's a huge ego boost to show up on a scene and have your first responders tell a patient that everything's going to be all right now, the paramedics are here. It's exhilarating to watch someone that was nearly dead a couple minutes ago open their eyes and look at you with gratitude. I still get a kick out of having someone walk up to me in the gas station and tell me that I saved their life, or their spouse's, or child's life five years ago. I probably won't remember it, of course. Only the failures stick with you. But even if we can't save them, someone ALWAYS comes up and thanks us for trying. That's a good feeling, too.
So how do I do this job every day? Easy. I love it.
The end result of all this is that we wind up making a lot of small talk to keep the patient entertained, informed, and most importantly, DISTRACTED. Kids are easy. Being emotionally immature myself, I can relate to them. Bring up the finer points of Spongebob, start talking video games, and draw a face on an inflated glove, and you're golden. Keep them occupied until you get to the ER, and you're three quarters of the way to fixing them. Teens and adults, on the other hand.... Not so simple. They keep asking intelligent questions that demand real answers. Most of the time, they just want you to reassure them that everything's going to be OK, which it usually is. Sometimes you're worried about them, and you really need to be honest with them about that, too. They don't want to hear it, but the truth is your only option. Fortunately those folks are the minority, and a subject for another day.
The largest group is the not all that sick folks, and eventually they all ask the same question: "How can you do this every day?" Good question. So good, in fact, that even after doing this for years, I still can't answer it to my own satisfaction. I usually come back with something along the lines of "Well, they keep paying me, so I keep coming back." Most people are satisfied by that, even if it IS a cop-out. The truth is that most of us keep doing the job because we can't NOT do it. EMS has become what's termed an "ego investment profession". Put simply, the job becomes not just your job, but your identity. If you ask me what I do for a living, I'd never tell you "I work in EMS." I'm more likely to tell you "I am a paramedic." See? There's a difference. The job is psychologically addicting. Deep down every one of us in the field is an adrenaline junkie to a certain extent. We still get a rush when the call comes in, and it's still fun to go tearing through town with lights and sirens. It's a huge ego boost to show up on a scene and have your first responders tell a patient that everything's going to be all right now, the paramedics are here. It's exhilarating to watch someone that was nearly dead a couple minutes ago open their eyes and look at you with gratitude. I still get a kick out of having someone walk up to me in the gas station and tell me that I saved their life, or their spouse's, or child's life five years ago. I probably won't remember it, of course. Only the failures stick with you. But even if we can't save them, someone ALWAYS comes up and thanks us for trying. That's a good feeling, too.
So how do I do this job every day? Easy. I love it.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Opening Day
OK, let's try this again. I've attempted a blog in the past, and just couldn't stick with it. After reading many EMS related blogs over the past few months, I decided that my earlier problem was a lack of focus. So I'm taking a new approach, and sticking to a subject I know well enough to fool someone into giving me a job.
Since this is the first post, an introduction is in order for those of you that don't know me. (Lucky you!)
My name is Mike Hasty. I'm 42 years old, married to an ICU nurse, with two kids. (Girl, 8 and boy, 5. More about them later.) We live in rural Kansas, where I work for a county ambulance service, and Cassie, my wife, works for a local hospital. I've been a paramedic for the past 10 years, and have been with my current employer for the past 6 1/2 years. That time on the job actually makes me one of the senior paramedics at this agency. I'm a USMC veteran, and served in Desert Storm. (The OTHER Gulf War.) I can be sarcastic, cranky, and intolerant of other people's stupidity. I hate politics, but generally consider myself a somewhat left of center independent. Deal with it. Or not, it's not my problem. (See? I TOLD you I could be cranky.)
I have stories to tell. Some I want to tell, and some I NEED to tell. You may or may not be able to pick out which story is from which group. I probably won't specify. I hope people will read and comment. I love to hear from others, and let's face it- the EMS providers that read this stuff can probably use the group therapy. We are not generally recognized as the most psychologically stable group of people out there, and can use all the help we can get. Especially if it's free.
So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. The road could get twisted...
Since this is the first post, an introduction is in order for those of you that don't know me. (Lucky you!)
My name is Mike Hasty. I'm 42 years old, married to an ICU nurse, with two kids. (Girl, 8 and boy, 5. More about them later.) We live in rural Kansas, where I work for a county ambulance service, and Cassie, my wife, works for a local hospital. I've been a paramedic for the past 10 years, and have been with my current employer for the past 6 1/2 years. That time on the job actually makes me one of the senior paramedics at this agency. I'm a USMC veteran, and served in Desert Storm. (The OTHER Gulf War.) I can be sarcastic, cranky, and intolerant of other people's stupidity. I hate politics, but generally consider myself a somewhat left of center independent. Deal with it. Or not, it's not my problem. (See? I TOLD you I could be cranky.)
I have stories to tell. Some I want to tell, and some I NEED to tell. You may or may not be able to pick out which story is from which group. I probably won't specify. I hope people will read and comment. I love to hear from others, and let's face it- the EMS providers that read this stuff can probably use the group therapy. We are not generally recognized as the most psychologically stable group of people out there, and can use all the help we can get. Especially if it's free.
So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. The road could get twisted...
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