Three sets of footprints in the snow. Two with fully defined treads. Mine barely register. I’m twelve years older than the two of my partners combined. This is my fifth pair of boots and the soles have gone smooth. I walk carefully. We do a call and I can’t make it up the icy driveway….
Month: December 2015
Pain Myth
In my standard talk urging paramedics to be generous with pain management, I have a section called pain myths. One of the myths is entitled Fear of Creating Addicts On the powerpoint I have two pictures, one of an all-American housewife, the other of a skanky drug-addled prostitute. Here is the text from the slide:…
Same Old Song and Dance
When couples get old, they communicate with fewer words or sometimes just a look. I am feeling that way about my EMS reports at the ED. Where I used to rattle off every detail I could think of (from brand of cereal they had for breakfast to the number and locations of the moles they had…
10 Cardiac Arrests!
I once did 10 cardiac arrests in one day. They were all v-fib arrests. I managed each code from the moment I arrived to find CPR in progress to the moment the patients were whisked off to the cardiac cath lab. I got 10 successful ET tubes, and despite the studies that show ET intubation…
Down Time
A few days ago on our employees only Facebook page, someone posted a picture another person had taken of one of our crews while they were parked by the side of a street. The driver leaned against the window, arms folded, eyes closed. The passenger had his eyes open, but he was slouched down in…
Legends
On Sports Radio this morning they were talking about the decline of three sports legends – Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant. The radio host, a retired athlete himself, was saying how no one who hadn’t played professional sports could possibly understand what these three were going through. He said they dedicated their lives…