Never cease to be amazed

The ER must be one of the most amazing places to work. You see some folks during what might be the worst moments of their life, or maybe the most embarrassing moment. It's amazing to observe how differently various people react to their own emergency. Some folks make a big deal out of something that seems minor, while a few rooms away might be a person who has a very serious condition, or an injury that looks like it must really hurt, but that person hardly lets out a wimper, or tries to downplay the pain or severity of it all. One old gent was cracking jokes left and right today while we were treating him. Really funny ones too, but now I cant remember them. Bummer! Then he started quoting Bible verses too, with the references. Good ol' boy. Feeble as he was, the old bugger was so much more full of life in his old age than some folks who come in with all kinds of depression issues and whatever else. I think every shift I see at least one or more patients with a completely different condition than what I've seen before. Anything. Weird rashes, unexplained seizures, trauma of all kinds, swelling where it's not supposed to swell, shrinking where it's not supposed to shrink, crooked where it's not supposed to be crooked, oozing or spewing where it's not supposed to ooze or spew, stinking in ways it shouldn't stink, and so on. You name it, we got it. I don't think you can ever possibly say that you've seen it all because we get so many different things that you never would have guessed would happen. People get stung, bit, burnt, stepped on, smacked into, pinned in, infected, dislocated, neglected, drunk, high, and who knows whatever else, and then they come to us by all means of car, truck, camper, cops, taxi, bus, ambulance, helicopter, covered wagon, or slingshot from afar. OK, just kidding about the last two. Something I saw in EMS is that if it isn't a major trauma, or something dramatic that required a lot of aggressive interventions, then it was dubbed a "boring medical call." Although it's great to be able to do that kind of intervention, I'm seeing more and more that figuring out what is really going on inside of a patient with a medical problem, not a trauma, is just as intriguing. Well that is easy for me to say, because I'm not the doctor or nurse doing all of that figuring out right now, but I'm learning a lot. I guess that's the difference between working in an ambulance where equipment, space, resources, and time, in some cases, to help you figure it out are more limited. I guess that's the difference of definitive care. Not to underestimate the capabilities of EMS - I still insist that EMT's and Paramedics do things that many nurses would tuck their tails and run the other way if they had to deal with - however, EMS still eventually transfers their patients to someone else to deal with it. This is where the rubber meets the road, where the buck stops, where the figgerin' out gets figgr'd. That's one of the things that we often wonder in EMS, but don't usually get to find out - what ever became of so-and-so patient? What were they diagnosed with, and how were they treated. It's good to be able to see both sides of the picture, both pre-hospital and in-hospital. Sometimes I wish I could follow a few cases the whole way from their onset of a medical or traumatic event through the follow up visits they do with their own physicians after being discharged from the hospital. Not a likely thing to happen. Oh well....

AND GOD CREATED...

On the first day, God created the dog and said, "Sit all day by the door of your house, and bark at everyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of 20 years." The dog said, "That's a long time to be barking. How about only 10 years, and I'll give you back the other 10?"
So GOD agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey, and said, "Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a 20 year lifespan." The monkey said, "Monkey tricks for 20 years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back 10 like the dog did?"
And GOD agreed.

On the third day, GOD created the cow and said "You must go into the field with the farmer all day long, suffer under the sun, have calves, and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a lifespan of 60 years." The cow said, "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for 60 years. How about 20 and I'll give you back the other 40?"
And GOD agreed again.

On the fourth day, GOD craeted man and said "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you 20 years." But man said, "Only 20 years? Could you possibly give me my 20, the 40 the cow gave back, the 10 the monkey gave back, and then the 10 the dog gave back - that makes 80, okay?" "Okay," said God, "You asked for it."

So that is why for our first 20 years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next 40 years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next 10 years we do monkey tricks to entertain our grandchildren. And the last 10 years we sit on the front porch and BARK at EVERYONE.

Happy Huckleberry Hunting

Had a hankerin' for huckleberries, just happened to be high time for harvesting, so I hurriedly hauled off to go hiking, hunting, hoarding, heaping and keeping. Here's what I have, a huckleberry heaven! Haven't counted, however, would have to hypothesize that there are hundreds. Honked my horn when I handled a hornet or honeybee or whoever. He had his hind-end on my hand, now i have a huge hurt. Hocked all his huckleberries though. Hahahahahaha!



We were at the cabin this weekend.