Busy, again

Suddenly, it's summer.  In the alpine, in the meadows.  It's here.
Normally when the rest of the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing triple-digit weather we are still bringing our tomato plants in at night.
Calls, constantly inconsistent, but calls keeping us busy.  In particular Mr. Medic has been running crazed, as have EMT-I's George and Sid.  In our surrounding area many of our ALS providers (half, or more) are not in service - on vacation, sabbatical, out on medical or family leave.  And the people are here, having their medical issues despite that!
Some crazy calls...my first "real" pediatric patient for instance...but that will just have to wait for a bit.

Will type more later, promise.

And I'm doing OK with the loss of my buddy.  Getting better every day.

Losing a friend

He was in pain, there at the end.

We knew that the pain meds he took for chronic arthritis were taking a toll on his liver.  That, and surgery made the pain tolerable for years, but not forever.

Over the last few weeks we watched the changes.  Urine turning orange, increased thirst, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, finally jaundice and acites.  Liver failure.  It came on too quick.

I had to make the decision for him, my good friend.  He couldn't say the words, but his eyes told me.  There would be no transplant, no saving him.

Ten years was not long enough.  He died in my arms, on the grass, listening to the water play along the creek bed.  Under the clear blue sky.

I will miss my friend.

on irrigation and irritation

OK, I'm all done whining...for now.

Still very few to no calls going on - how can this many people stay so healthy?  We need a good lightning strike, or emu attack, or...

So we had our weekly training night and 'cause I was the idiot who brought up the subject of wound irrigation last week, Mr. Medic said, "well great!  Next week, Ambulance Ranger will be doing the teaching on the wound care protocol."

Should have kept my big mouth shut.

Actually, though, we had a ton of fun.  We kinda McGyvered what we thought would be the best pressure-irrigation setup out of what we had - syringe, 18 guage IV catheter, IV tubing, and normal saline.  Floyd will no longer go on any runs unless there's a wound to irrigate.

Actually, the whole thing became a lesson in 'how to spike an IV' - something I was pretty sure everyone already had done several times.  Apparently not.  I think we got it down by the end of class.

We took the last 15 minutes to play with the ring cutters.  Found out that only one of them actually worked.  This is the stuff we need to do more of.  Every week we work on moving patients, backboarding, c-collaring, KED use, etc.  Which yes, we do need to practice.  But we gotta do the 'fun' stuff too, or people get bored.

On call this weekend, so no beers for me :( - just hope those tones go off and I'm actually needed and wanted on a call.

[crossing fingers]

Otherwise I swear, I'm going back to playing World of Warcraft...

Useless

I'm just another EMT in the bin of EMT's.

Working on the paperwork - senseless paperwork where databases that should work well with each other...do...not...relate.  Checking credentials.  Hand-entering NREMT data (how stupid is that?)

Between one and two hundred providers in our system, maybe a double handful of them are actually good at their jobs.  Who want to do medical calls.  Who care.

Studying, training for the big calls.  Not getting called.  Budgets are down, people are circling the wagons.  We don't need all those resources, you see.  Don't bother paging out the call.

So I sit.  Waiting.  Working.  For what?

We are broken.  EMS is broken.  Why am I putting my time and energy into the ridiculousness of this?