aluminum pot poisening....

this was a new one for me.... a woman and her daughter were cooking noodles and soup in a stainless steel pot that they had had for years, while enjoying the noodles the mother got dizzy and spit her noodles out and told the daughter she wasn't feeling well and that it must have been the noodles, the daughter stopped and eating and agreed she felt ill too, therefore they agreed the pot must be aluminum and must have poisoned the soup. They both come into the ER with the poisoning pot and pace around the waiting room, sure that they are dying, asking continuously when they will be going in the back, meanwhile we have a full house in the ER... They finally get a room and the doctor goes in to talk to them and hears the story, he does a couple of tests and determines the older woman experienced some vertigo while the daughter has absolutely nothing wrong. As they were leaving the nurse goes to give the mother some meds for the dizziness and she asks what its for, when told for vertigo she states" whats that? I ain't never had that before, I ain't got no vertigo" and the nurse talks her into taking the medicine to go and a prescription but the woman refuses to take the pot back home with her....evil aluminum poisoning pot.... and these people reproduce??

:/

Well Emily and I made it to Baltimore on Friday and then it took forever to find a place to park that wasn't going to cost us 20 bucks for 2 hours. Once at EMS Today Ems and I both wished we had more time to look around. This place had over 4000 booths of all kinds of neat EMS stuff. We only got to see a fraction of them due to our time constraints. Although, I did get to meet Kelly Grayson, a paramedic and the author of one of my favorite books, and I scored an autograph in my copy of the 1st edition of his book, Life Death and Everything in between. (I would recommend this book to any EMS provider!)

Friday night I got to see Mike, although it was only for about 5 hours, it was great to see him. (Hopefully next weekend we get to spend a little more time together)

I spent the majority of Friday and Saturday dogsitting Mox, the 100+ wannabe lap dog of a good friend of mine. We had a good ole time, like we always do.

Now I am back at work, nothing exciting to really write about. I need a new hobby...

Oh I did recieve a letter yesterday from an old girlfriend from high school who is in the Peace Corp in Mongolia. That kind of made my day.

Well, Im outta here for now...

hanging out at the station

Here I am back at my volunteer station in WV for the weekend. I figured now that I am off duty and have a few days off I would take the time to visit old friends here in WV. I got the "official blessing" from my chief and I got my shiny brand new key to the drug boxes (since they updated them while I was out) and I got fresh copies of all of my alphabet soup cards and certificates of all the classes I got in while on light duty.

Well it's been almost 8 hours since I have gotten here and not a thing on the radio. I tried playing hide n seek with the police officers like I used to and could not even find them. Finally found the only one on tonight, and turns out I don't even know who it is...It's amazing the turnover in policemen here....we have lost quite a few great men and women. Well, Im off to bed as I am making the short road trip to Baltimore tomorrow with Emily for our first peek at the JEMS EMSToday exhibits I have heard about....maybe I'll even run into one of my paramedic "idols" and score an autograph in a book he wrote...hope so!!

Keep it safe!

virginal moment and an exciting ending, what more could a girl ask for?

so my last shift for the week is winding down and I am trying to figure out the rest of my week.

Last night I had my very first pediatric IV stick. Poor kid...I had to stick him twice because he wiggled his arm loose while I was attempting to draw labs from the first stick, but I got the stick again on the second try and got all the labs I needed. My fellow medics and nurses were amazed I had never had one before. 2 years in a paramedic course and almost 2 years in the field as a medic now and this was another virginal moment for me. I explained to them that I am as far from a shit magnet as one can be. I have this shit reflector apparently. I have a white cloud that follows me from every job I have worked in this business and every place I have volunteered. As a student my preceptors absolutely LOVED me and would beg me to come back or stay longer, which I did, trying to get more experience to no avail. Im sad to admit that although I love my job I feel inadequate a lot. I have only ever had one field intubation, and maybe a dozen total counting my OR rotations in medic school. Damn...

I was hired with my boss knowing just how green I am. Im not so sure my fellow commrades know this... Everytime there is a call and Im not the medic up in rotation I pull out my protocol book and read through the appropriate protocol and jump up and look for the call on the map. But dont really know if its helping yet... The doc on tonight did say he would try to remember that when I am working Id like to do some of the more intricate things like IOs, tubes, and needle decompressions. At least I know I have decent IV skills...I get tons of time to perfect those skills working in a hospital based system.

I need a part time job, one to help me on those aformentioned skills, two to help pay some bills off and buy groceries... and 3 to keep me busy and out of trouble on my days off....

Well 35 more minutes and Im outta here....I have to admit, while researching online to see if a second book from a very talented author was coming out anytime ir if he was just a one hit wonder I came across his blog. I began reading it during some down time we had tonight to realize he would be in the town I work in this morning. I decided to take the chance of sounding slightly stalkerish and emailed him to see if I might recommend a place to eat and perhaps meet him and get an autograph. To my surprise and delight he not only responded to my email but suggested giving him a call and seeing if we might be able to meet up. I am dorkishly excited about this. So I am going to hang around town at my friends place for a few hours to save me some gas expenses of driving home for 2 hours and driving back here. Downfall is Im stuck in my uniform for the majority of the day unless Sara has something I can wear.... we shall see...

Thats it for now....

another day another dollar

Ok, so being new the blogger world I am not sure what people write or why they write, I personally have no followers...not that I really mind...I write for my own personal being. I have been living in the state of Pennsylvania for 2 months now. I have been off light duty at the new job for a week now and to my surprise have not forgotten any important skills that I noticed yet. I didn't realize just how much I miss getting out and being on the truck. So far this week I have been specializing in breathing problems and have become a pro at giving neb treatments to the elderly. I got excited last night about a psych pt who was supposed to come in POV who was supposed to be a little rowdy. He wasnt when he first came in and we got him settled in a room. It kinda went downhill after that, lighting a cigarette and then refusing to change into a gown and then he started picking on my boss man...a man who was at least twice his weight and about as tall as the pt. It was entertaining to say the least to watch on the monitor we have installed in the psych room. But after 10 of Haldol and 4 of Ativan he was sleeping like a baby. I of course, was on triage desk duty for my boss while he was using his omnious IV skills on a pt that had already been used as a pin cushion for the last 8 hours, but the admitting doc HAD to have a line....

Because I spent the last 5 months sitting in front of a computer, what little bit of the area I had begun to learn was forgotten. I made what could have been a MAJOR mistake the other day. I was working day shift on Friday ( I still havent figured out what I did to be put on a day shift yet but I have at least 3 more coming this schedule) and a cardiac arrest came out at a local nursing home. Well considering there are a plethera of them here I asked my coworker if that was the one out on Rt. 30 and she confirmed it was, and said she would go back me up. Off we go, we get to Rt 30 and I take a left to here ask for confirmation on the road name, and then ask me if I copied that, it was at that moment I realized I should have taken a right (we have 2 nursing homes on Rt 30 you see) and had to circle the block. Thank goodness when she arrived she found the wonderful nursing staff doing great compressions on a woman who was talking to them and of course her chief complaint was chest pain...well my partner told our 3rd partner (we have 3 medics on every shift) who gave a call to my boss and told him of my little mishap and in turn I ended up chauferring the 3rd partner around for about an area while he quizzed me on where some vital landmarks are in town. I fully expected a talking to from the boss man, but I worked 8 hours with himlast night and he never said a word, the unit secretary on the other hand couldnt resist pointing out my fault....

blah blah blah

Went to the orthopedic Monday morning and got the official release back to work. I am currently sitting at work, waiting for my relief that wont be here for another 2 hours...oh my!! This has been my best shift at work in 5 months. It felt so good to be back out on the street and helping people. I almost got lost...no thanks to the GPS unit that cant keep it's satelites in check....thank goodness for dispatch and my co-workers!!

I have realized tonight just how much I absolutely love my job. I dont neccesarily love evrything ABOUT my job, but I love the job itself! I also realized just how much I miss the variety of patients I get to deal with, with sweet old guys who just want to feel better and feel bad for complaining, to the crazy old ladies completely out of their mind but will be the first to remin you it is not polite to laugh at their off the wall comments.

As far as the personal life goes I am still taking it one day at a time. I have good days and bady days and even an occasional really good or really bad day. I still havent really made any new friends. I have the people I work with and that makes work enjoyable, but its not the kind of relationship where we call each other to "hang out".

I miss my friend Sara...and although I stay at her house to save gas money each week, I feel like I never see her. She is the only "friend" I have here, and she moved up from WV shortly after I did. I feel like I am slowly losing her....losing her to her own life, her new life, her new friends (who I have met and even "hung out" with but dont feel the friendship connection with.) I feel almost betrayed sometimes by her. I have been by her side faithfully through a few rough spots, yet it seems almost impossible to open up and tell her my problems lately.

I have realized lately I have not made the best decisions and I have not handled things as well as I thought I could, but I dont want to give up and I want to fix them on my own. They are MY mistakes and I want to fix them. I know they dont affect only me and as much as help would be appreciated I dont want to ask for it and I wont and I am sorry for hurting the people who would help me if I only would ask.

I miss my family. Most off all I miss my dad and my little sister (not that no one else matters or the rest dont mean the world to me, but I just miss them) I miss the little sister I used to play barbies with for hours on end, the little sister who used to sneak snacks with me and hide the candy wrappers in the couch with me. I miss our all night conversations, with every other sentence being, "Ok, I'm going to sleep now..."(we seem to have more of those since we have so much to catch up on and its usually when we are both should be going to sleep in that cold basement...me with my 7 blankets and you with your sheet...)

I am thankful for the few friends who still keep in touch. I try to see them every once in a while.

I made a couple new friends at a conference a few weeks ago, cant wait for them to come up for the training in Martinsburg so I can go down and see them again.

ok I guess thats enough random ranting in this post...
as always I am glad you dropped in, feel free to comment but please dont criticise....I do enough of that to myself that I dont need it or want it from anyone else....

First blog...

so this is my first blog outside of Myspace. My life is pretty mundane, nothing exciting, but I feel I need an outlet. I work in Gettysburg PA as a paramedic and I love it. I have been on light duty for the last 4 and 1/2 months and boy has it sucked. I should be getting released back to full duty on Monday the 16th. I recently moved from WV to Chambersburg, PA. I thought it was going to be a freeing experience, but it seems like more of a challenging experience. I up and left all of my friends and the family that was nearby for a new place where I know nobody and let me tell ya, its scary at times and almost always lonely.

A very disturbing thing happened yesterday...I was sleeping and several times throughout the day while sleeping I was woken by loud screaming of the people in the apartment building next to mine. The 3rd time it woke me the arguing was very loud and heard some loud noises as well. In fear of the woman I heard crying and the baby I have heard there before I called the police. The police got there quickly but the patrol car was parked outside for literally 3 whole minutes before they pulled away. I dont think the officer could have made it into that building up to the 2nd floor and talked to anyone in 3 minutes. No one even asked to talk to me or called me back. I just hope everyone was ok. Later last night I heard voices again but they were only talking this time and didnt sound like arguing. But no one should have to live with violence...

Thats my bit for now...I have to get back to the work I am supposed to be doing....