18 August 2006

Time out

Just so you know, I haven't been ignoring you. I mean, it's just that I've been out of town and kinda busy, right? I've been thinking of you even if you didn't know it, that's gotta count for something...okay, maybe it doesn't count for much, but that doesn't make it untrue.

Monday through Wednesday this week I was away at a "conference retreat" with one of the groups I still do statistics for. This yearly gathering is held at a spectacular lake house where they serve gourmet food and give you free run of canoes, kayaks, etc. for enjoying the lake. But the payment is that you have to sit in presentations and meetings and actually accomplish some stuff while you're there. I've had several people comment on how miserable it must've been to go and listen to people all day, but really it isn't that bad. I enjoy listening to smart people talk about interesting things. It is why I like school. And smart people who think that I have something interesting to say - well, even better.

Thursday I turned down an offer to work an extra shift on the ambulance because one of the local hospitals was running a continuing education seminar on heart attacks brought on by illegal drug use. So I sat for another 4 hours listening to smart people talk about interesting stuff. I learned that you should NEVER NEVER NEVER give someone on cocaine and having a heart attack a beta-blocker because it will make everything worse and probably kill your patient, and you should give them some valium or something to settle them down a little. Good to know, but kinda useless personally since I can't administer any of those meds.

Last night was also my volunteer night and my two favorite paramedics were both working even though it wasn't either of their shifts. We only did a couple of calls, but one of them was interesting for me because there were two calls dispatched within a couple of minutes of each other. Meaning the ambulance was heading to the first one, and they were sending the engine from across town to the other and sending in an ambulance from another town. So I pulled a quick U-turn and headed to the second call because I knew the other 2 volunteers were heading to the first (one of them was right behind me). I was with the patient for almost 5 minutes before the engine got there, which would've been great if I'd had any equipment. The patient decided not to go to the hospital, so I ended up doing all the paperwork for the refusal - including the 40 minutes to enter all the info into the computer. The Lt. on the engine definately had some say on-scene as he had to decide whether to cancel the ambulance, which we didn't because we felt like she should probably go to the hospital and were trying to talk her into it. But this was pretty much my patient, all mine, and I'm greedy like that.

No comments: