Category: Humor

The Chair

The Chair

On Location

My first real job out of college wasn’t in medicine, or anywhere near an ambulance. It was in lighting — the kind that makes concerts glow, trade shows sparkle, and corporate galas look like the Grammys. The company was called On Location Lighting Systems, or OLLS, based out of northern Kentucky just south of Cincinnati.

That place was equal parts magic and madness. The shop always smelled like sawdust, gaff tape, and dust from road cases that had been halfway around the country. I was mostly broke — just out of school, living mostly on PB&Js, takeout food, and overtime — but for the first time, I felt like I was part of something creative. I was the shop manager, which meant I handled all the rental gear going out and coming back in, did minor repairs, kept the chaos somewhat organized, and still found myself out on shows and short tours whenever they needed an extra pair of hands.

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A Mental Health Odyssey – Still Here

A Mental Health Odyssey – Still Here

Gratitude and Light in the Dark

When I wrote A Mental Health Odyssey, I honestly didn’t know what would happen. Hitting “publish” felt a little like standing naked in the middle of traffic — raw, exposed, and bracing for impact. I wasn’t sure if anyone would read it. I wasn’t sure if anyone would care. And if they did care, I half-expected whispers, judgment, or polite distance.

What I got instead was the opposite. Messages from colleagues in EMS who admitted they’d been in the same hole. Supervisors who could have looked the other way, but didn’t. Members of Marina’s congregation who reached out with warmth I didn’t see coming. Even people I barely knew told me they saw themselves in my words. It felt like people started handing me candles in the dark, one by one, until the room didn’t look so terrifying anymore.

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Out with the old…

Out with the old, and in with the new, they say, right? It’s a small thing, but the red penlight on the right has been with me for the better part of 15 years. I think it maybe was a gift when I graduated from paramedic school. It’s been in my sleeve pocket or shirt pocket on literallyevery single EMS call I’ve gone on since then, and has assisted me with assessing thousands of patients. It recently started malfunctioning, and despite having survived several trips through the wash, untold rolls under the stretcher wheels, drops down stairs, and being forgotten in ambulance footwells, patient homes, and on sidewalks, somehow it always managed to find its way back to me. Tonight it finally gave up the ghost, and I replaced it with a new blue one of the same model, a Streamlight Stylus Pro. (why in the world would I look for a new model after such good service from the original?)

I know many of my colleagues trust the disposable penlights handed out by the service they work for, but there’s something meaningful and tangible to me of having my own diagnostic tools available and at the ready. I think my wife rolled her eyes a little when I expressed some sadness at the idea of moving on from ol trusty rusty here, and I get it. It is, after all, just a thing, an inanimate object that I have assigned meaning to over the years. It has no feelings or thoughts and won’t know that I have replaced it with a cleaner, shinier, better-working version of itself. And yet…. there’s a tiny part of me that will miss ol’ red, it won’t be the same penlight I’ve had for all these years in my pocket. There’s something to be said for consistency, and I find great comfort in it. Anyway, can’t help patients with a broken penlight, so I must move forward and start another 15 year adventure with blue here, and see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into!

Thanks for reading my ramblings. If you got this far… are there any tools or gadgets you hold on to despite their obvious replace-ability?

I owe some of you an apology…

Throughout my EMS career, I’ve often wondered why a certain subset of people call 911 so often. Seemingly minor concerns are blown way out of proportion, and, throwing logic and reason to the wind, they demand that the patient be taken to a specialty ER for examination by a specially trained physician.

Who are these people? What subset of the patient population could I be referring to?

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Siren Malfunction?

ambulance-siren-lights-07012015I’ve been working in EMS in one form or another for about 10 years. So, although I am new to the system I currently work in, I am not new to EMS. I had still never encountered this issue before.

My partner, Bob, a true veteran of both EMS and of the system I work in, was in the passenger seat. I was driving the ambulance as we responded Code-3 to a call in a neighboring city for a fallen person/lift assist call. It was early evening rush hour, and traffic was heavy. The way our system works, when we respond to other cities, we switch to their radio channel and identify our unit and our ETA so that first responders know that EMS is enroute to their location. As we were heading down a busy state highway, I changed the siren tone a couple times to help move traffic along. My partner (again, keep in mind, a veteran with over 30 years of service in EMS) selected the proper channel on the radio and picked up the mic to call the neighboring city on the radio. He keyed up and said (city names changed for anonymity) “Anytown Fire, this is Main City EMS Medic 3, enroute to 123 Main Street. ETA 15 minutes.” Continue reading “Siren Malfunction?” →