Field Trip

I spent the morning getting my butt dragged over hill and dale by a friend of mine. The quarry...shed deer antlers. We found two, well, Eli found two. The trip was for me nothing more than exercise. That's not true. It was a good time with good company. Saw a lot of deer and a coyote.

Love School

"Back to school, back to school, to prove to dad that I'm not a fool..." I didn't like school the first four years and I'm pretty sure nothing has changed since. I have four months of school left plus an internship and then I'm done. That is, of course, until the boss tells me to go back.

The wife will be upset for my not getting my chores done before playing, but I remembered a great story that just had to be shared.

We get called to a clinic to assist in lifting someone off the floor. This isn't an unusual call for us. We frequent a lot of nursing homes to help the elderly back into beds or their wheelchairs. We didn't have any reason to think this was any different. That was until we opened the door.

On the floor of the men's room was 625 lbs. of back injury waiting to happen. This gentleman had found his way between the toilet and the wall. For reasons unknown to me, this is a common place for people to get lodged. His pants (tent) were around his ankles. Again, the usual place for people in his situation. The concept of emergency medicine goes right out the window when something like this presents itself. We are no longer firefighters and paramedics, but rather all turn into a collective mind of contortionists, engineers, plumbers, and magicians passing ideas around the group like mashed potatoes around the dinner table.

We break from our huddle and take our respective positions. Strategically placing one on the toilet, two at the feet and a floater to make sure we don't break and arm (the patients--we aren't afforded such courtesy) or pull a chuck of flesh off.

With a good coordinated attack and a little KY, our patient is pulled free. A job well done, right? Wrong. Somehow our task morphs into us following the patient home and helping him up the stairs and onto a couch.

Across town we engineer a new battle plan. Two above pulling and two below pushing get the job done. Home we go to choke down a few Motrin and a Pepsi.

You all thought that was the story. Guess again!! That was just the intro. Here we go.

Last day of the set. Always a good feeling to know that in less than 24 hours you can disappear for 4 days and no one need know where you are or when you'll return, except the wife of course.

We are called to a patient with difficulty breathing a few blocks away. Ambulance goes, engine stays.

The smell is something that very few will ever experience and describing it does it no justice. Infection, urine and filth all rolled into a foul and potent stogie.

As we come up the stairs, we see the kids running back and forth in the living room. It isn't until we reach the top of the stairs that we realize what or who it is that they are jumping/sliding on. It's our patient from earlier in the week lying face down on the floor, unable to move.

We ask him if he's injured and how he got where he is. The story is that he slid off the couch the day we put him there and hasn't moved since. This is where I asked myself, "What the ****!!?" He tells us he slid down and was sitting reclining for about a day. His leg fell asleep so he tried to reposition and rolled onto his face, where he remained for 3 more days.

Don't worry though, he wasn't alone. He spent these 3 days face down on the floor of his BROTHER'S HOUSE!!!!! His trash brother had brought him food and a mug to drink water out of while he lay unable to move on his floor. It wasn't until his own crushing weight made it difficult for him to breath that he asked his brother to bring him a phone and he called 911 himself.

We were able to roll him over to ease his breathing, but that's when things got real tough. He couldn't hold himself up, so we put a sheet under his armpits and held him in a sitting position. The source of the stench became morbidly apparent after we rolled him over and watched the maggots crawl over his gangrenous leg. You see, his weight had led to the lack of circulation in his leg and that along with his own excrement had sped the process of decay.

There was no way we'd get him out as just the two of us, so we called the engine. Once they arrived, we rolled him onto a tarp and dragged him out like an elk that had fallen into a tight spot. We eased him down the stairs, infection and urine pooling on the tarp in front of our faces. The entire time we were working, the captain, having exercised his right as most senior and highest ranking individual, waited outside.

To wrap things up, we got him to the hospital where he lost his leg and nearly 100 lbs of adipose tissue that had rotted. We also informed child protective services of the conditions those children were living in.

Guinea Pig

Ayden volunteered to come to school with me today. By volunteer I mean I didn't have to drag him down the hall kicking and screaming.

My first class on Mondays is a scenario based class teaching field diagnosis and treatment. Ayden was playing the part of a toddler that had gotten into a bottle of bleach. He was a natural at playing the toddler part and by the time the last group came through he was coughing rather violently and telling them his tummy hurt. He's a natural!

He totally stole the show, which is par for the course with this little man.

Tangled Web

I found a great post on a blog that I frequent. It's a fair assessment of where I stand and where we stand as a nation. These are Xavier's Thoughts.



Looking at Conquest
It has happened. What Syd so succinctly dubbed the Electoral Apocalypse has occurred. Gun rights advocates lost in the 2008 election. What do we do now? Where do we go from here?

First, accept defeat with dignity and grace. We must do that. An individual or a group is not characterized in how they achieve victory, but rather in how they accept defeat. We were whooped. Our asses are on a silver platter in front of us. But we do not have to eat. We must determine how this happened and not allow it to happen again.

I was not surprised that some of my readers would be bemused at my using a MSNBC widget to keep up with the 2008 Presidential election results. But what better way to assess the situation than observing the opponent? The bias that we have seen in the mainstream media will be exposed as they turn on their anointed superhero of 2008. By 2010, Barack Obama will suffer many more slings and arrows than George W. Bush ever did. The mainstream media is not about providing information. They are about power. The power to get someone elected, and then the power to tear them to shreds. Who the President is matters little to these power mongers. Since they felt the taste of power in the taking down of Richard Nixon, they have systematically tried to dismember every President that has held office, whether they helped him achieve that office or not. Barack Obama will not survive this onslaught. His followers are too fickle.

Barack Obama cannot possibly fulfill all the deluded promises his devoted followers obviously believe he made. He will not buy anyone gasoline, and he will not pay their mortgage. No FEMA cards are going to be available for the economically and socially ignorant. His inability to become the Sugar Daddy to millions of denizens who feel they have been disenfranchised by the Great Right Wing Conspiracy of Hate and Intolerance will cause them to toss him aside with the contempt of a crackhead tossing aside a baggie full of baking soda when the reality of the illusion sets in. Barack Obama will no doubt be remembered as the most ineffectual and perhaps the worst President the United States ever elected. Two years from now, Obama will no longer have the power base he has mobilized. We must preserve our rights until then.

Gun owners were soundly defeated in this election. Two of the most vehement gun rights abolitionists ever to achieve office are now headed for the leadership of this country. We must examine why this happened.

Gun owners have allowed themselves to be divided. We must not allow ourselves to be conquered. We must accept any one who wants to legally own and use a firearm, regardless of race, creed, religion, or sexual orientation. The gun abolitionists can not vote against gun rights when over half their constituents own guns and vote for their own human right to self defense. The gun abolitionists can not vote against gun rights when those rights are inextricably tied to human rights and civil liberties.

There is a reason that gun abolitionists want to preserve hunting. Hunters are easily marginalized. They do not represent a majority of the vote. The same is not true of people who have a need for self preservation and self determination. Those people constitute the entire strata and constituency of the voting public. They cannot be marginalized. We must introduce them to the purpose and true meaning of the second amendment. I know that meaning, most of my readers know that meaning, but did QJ know that meaning? He does now, and it is something he will vote to preserve.

Gun rights are about self protection, not hunting. We must never allow our opponents to paint us as a group of big game hunters again. We are not just hunters. We must stand up and say who we are. We are mothers and fathers. We are Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Independents. We are black and white, yellow and brown. We are gay, straight, bisexual and asexual. We are Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic, Atheist, and we live in every state in the Union. Our education ranges from doctorates from Harvard and Stanford to GEDs achieved while fighting in the streets of Baghdad. A dusty pick-up truck with a gun rack inside the rear window is not necessary to be one of us. We have one common goal. That goal is the preservation of our right to self defense. That right, that need, is universal. We must never allow ourselves to be portrayed as ignorant rednecks with tobacco juice drooling down our unshaven chins again.

So I challenge each gun owner reading this. Take an Obama supporter to the range. Teach them to shoot. Teach them about the second amendment. Take away the political left's power to destroy our rights through the ambivalence of others. If we fail, our enslavement is inevitable.

Story time!

We were called to the trailer of a family that we know very well. The family consists of a mother and two daughters, all of whom are over 500 lbs.

Generally, our calls are related to a difficulty breathing and this time was no different. We arrived at the address and went inside. Mom and "Daughter A" were sitting in their customary recliners, pizza boxes are scattered about and Jerry Springer is blaring on the TV. It seemed all was right with this morbid part of the world.

"She's in the back." Bellowed one of the pair. So towards the back we go.

A home health nurse of some type is standing in a doorway. As we turn the corner into a tiny bathroom, a whole lot of woman is taking up the back half. "She couldn't get up off the toilet and now she's having a hard time breathing." Manages the nurse.

As I work my way into the cramped quarters, I see a toilet brush in the sink, covered with feces. Catching my attention I hear from behind me a muffled "What's that for?" I am ripped back to reality by a gruff "For wiping my a**!!" Whoa...Didn't see that one coming!

We get our patient up off the pot and into the hall before she says "I still have to go to the bathroom." Before any of us could ever hope to imagine we were hearing things, the nurse says "Just go ahead and go sweetie. We'll take care of it later." My only thought was that I'm certain I didn't just hear those words escape from her mouth. A few shuffles down the hall later the nurse unbuttons her trap and lets its poison pour out again. "Just go ahead and go." Then "Daughter B" says three words that may disturb me for the rest of my career. "I already did."

Here's where you all say "Eeewwwwww!" And this is where I say "You have no idea!"

Our sadist nurse acts as voice for the crowd when she says "Well, where is it?"

Now, I've heard that victims of violent crime as well as those whose house may be burning to the ground feel time slow down to the point where they are able to reflect and actually tell themselves "This isn't happening." I suppose this was a sort of violence, because what happened next will, without doubt, leave a scar.

All I heard was, "I don't know. DIG IT OUT!!" I'm sure I suffered a stroke or something because I don't remeber anything else.

I had a pretty wild night at the hospital last night. I am currently doing my clinical rotations at the hospital for my Paramedic studies and I was working with the ECG techs for the night.

During the shift, a "Code Blue" was called to the ICU, so up we went. A patient had gone into cardiac arrest and they were calling all hands to come and work on him. We arrived just after the doctors, which put us after the nurses, respiratory therapists, lab techs and pharmacy techs (doctors are always the last to arrive).

The patient had had a lung removed earlier and apparently had been bleeding into his chest the whole time. Now he was so low on blood that his heart just stopped beating. Because the blood was all trapped in his chest, he also had a lot of pressure on his heart and other lung.

The docs pulled out his staples and cracked his chest open again. This, I would have to say was the coolest part of the whole procedure. They just opened him up wide and went to work removing the blood and clots. The whole time this doc is up to his elbows inside this poor fellows chest cavity he is asking for some sterile gloves. They never made it.

The doc was literally shoveling blood out of the patient and the whole time, this one lonely fly is buzzing around the place. Finally the doc had to stop and look around. As calm as could be, as if he was welcoming the family to Thanksgiving dinner, he said "Could some one get this fly out of here?" Then he carried on.

They got a pulse back on this particular patient and wheeled him down to the OR. He was still alive when I left.