Chicken Crap for the Soul Part Two

Dispatched for yet another "psych eval". We arrive on scene at the same time as two cruisers, and it's about ten at night, and there is no moon, so it's very dark. However, we can all make out the shape of a man behind some trees in the front of a house, punching the everliving piss out of himself. I mean, he was really giving himself an asskicking. Cautiosly we approached him and were yelling to put his hands down, and to stop punching himself. He wasn't responding however, then I realized I met this guy before, and I thought I remembered him being deaf. So me being creative, made a sign on a notepad that said "stop punching yourself". So then I approached the schizophrenic Mike Tyson, who took one look at my sign, and starting really wailing on himself.
The police got such a kick out of the whole event, one of them had tears he was laughing so hard. So they just tazed him.

Flashback to five years ago, new to the asian population I had to deal with and their eccentricities, we encountered a call that was strange. An asian family had called 911 for an unknown reason for one of their younger relatives. Not a single one on scene spoke english, and we didn't speak cantonese, so hand motions had to suffice. After we had loaded the patient into the back of the ambulance, an elderly relative wanted to ride with her, so we directed her to the "front" of the ambulance, as by law. She then opened the side door. Once again, we stated and pointed to the front. Meanwhile, working on this young girl, we didn't even notice that the small relative had managed to open an unlocked cabinet about two feet deep and three feet wide and crammed herself in there, thinking that was the front, actually, it's where we keep our drug box. We stared in disbelief, and had quite a chuckle, and also actually debated transporting her that way, but the fear of having a field supervisor see a lady crawl out of an exterior compartment swayed us otherwise.

Another thing I have noticed over the years regarding the asian population, they think everything is absolutely hysterical. I mean, you could walk in to their house to find they chopped a leg off, and all the relatives would be laughing uncontrollably, I don't understand the culture. They also seem to laugh about their own injuries, very odd.

Here is a list of things that parents of small children should NOT do:

1. Don't let your two year old climb large flights of stairs without direct supervision, this results in falls.
2. Don't drop your infant on his face, then tell us that he "must have blown his nose too hard"
3. If your child is constipated, and suppositories don't work, don't use your finger to extract the poo.
4. If you are going out, attempt to at least find out the first name of the babysitter, just in case.
5. If you have one or more young children, and have numerous medications, keep them locked and out of reach.
6. If you call 911 because your infant is in true respitory distress, don't even bother asking me to wait so you can change their diaper, I would rather have a poopy diaper than smurf skin.

This actually reminds of a call I was on a few months back. The mother of a young infant with a rare genetic disorder called 911 when her child developed shortness of breath and vomiting after it's feeding via a tube that attaches directly into the stomach.
We arrived on scene to find the mother frantic, and another gentleman upstairs with the patient. I just grabbed the infant and took it down to the ambulance, instructing the mother to have someone who is a relative to go with us. Enroute to the hospital, after I had done all I could do for the infant, who was now resting comfortably, I began asking the grandfather some questions. I said to him, "sir, what is the childs name?" He stated he didn't know anything about the child, proclaiming, "man, I'm just up here on vacation". Mind boggling.

Here is a part where it doesn't really fit into my style of writing,some serious, nonfiction about me. Of all the stories of stupidity I have written, and all the runners up for the Darwin awards, who would think that one of those people would be in fact be me?
I have had a history of high blood pressure for a few years, controlled by medication. Then one day, my pcp decided I was healthy enough, and my pressure was low enough, to allow me to discontinue my med. Darwin rule number one. Why? It's not like I was in triathalons, hello, malpractice and common sense, it's the "first do no harm theory calling".
A few weeks in and I was monitering my pressure at home, noticing it was creeping up diastically slightly, but paid no notice, 'Darwin rule number two. I minimized all this, and made myself believe that it would go down.
Fast forward to two weeks later, when I actually became symptomatically hypertensive, and landed in the emergency room, and was admitted with severe hypertension. I was petrified, to say the least. However, I noticed some things about the experience in the hospital that disturbed me.
One of those things was that I have never heard in my entire career so many nurses apologizing to so many of their patients for lack of time spent with them, due to understaffing, and overcrowding. Another thing I noticed about me, after the fact, was that I was like an injured dog that you had backed into a corner, in short, I snapped and growled at everyone. I was in fact the worlds worst patient. I believed I knew it all, and ordered my own lab tests from one of the first year residents. Awful.
In short, I had a two day stay that was far from fun or relaxing, but gave me a brief insight into the world of a real, inpatient, hospitilized person. Helpless, lonely, and scared beyond my minimal knowledge. To this experience I have gained an advantage in sympathizing more with the people who truly are scared, no matter what bullshit I might think they may be experiencing, and has brought more empathy towards all. I suppose some humility and suffering never truly hurt anyone, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

However, there are still those folks that I will continue to write about, those who can challenge the Darwin awards as if they were in midieval times with swords and all, just on their own dumb ass stupidity.
A previous partner, now a state trooper, told me a story of when he was just released on his own with his own patrol car, alone, along the massachusetts turnpike around eleven in the morning. He came upon a car in the break down lane, hazards on, and pulled up behind the vehicle. He approached to find a gentleman masturbating to beat the band, no pun intended. "what the hell are you doing"? My friend the trooper asked. The subject replied in between strokes, "oh, just killing some time officer". WTF??

A clinical manager at my orginization is missing a finger from an accident with a table saw. Ironically, power tool tragedy runs in his family, as I have personally transported his brother more than once with injuries sustained while operating everything from nail guns, to saws. One time, he actually nailed his hand right through to a two by four. Keepin' it in the family I suppose.

We have a patient that I will call Marie. She lives in an elderly high rise in one of the large cities we service, and is a about seventy years old, and an insulin dependant diabetic who doesn't take very good care of her blood sugar levels, and is always either falling, or having hypoglycemic episodes, resulting in ems being activated.
A few weeks ago, she called for her low blood sugar, and after we gave her intervenous dextrose, I made her dinner, simple, but caring. She called back three more times that night requesting me.
Fast forward to last week, when she fell, and the basic life support unit arrived to find her semi concious on the floor, they reported to us that her blood dextrose was 26 mg/dl, very low, and requested us to respond to their location. We arrived to find the patient, seated in her recliner, unconcious and drooling, and these two morons eating her cookies and drinking her diet coke. That night, I felt so badly, I actually made her a quiche lorraine with and orange demi glaze. See, I can be compassionate.

Here I can remember a call about an upstanding person in our society. This gentleman, after a night of consuming large quantities of alcohol and cocaine, decided to go to his girlfriends house, where they share a child, (scary), and terrify her. When she called the police, he decided he wanted to kill himself, of course, thus avoiding jail. Now we are called for this shitbag. Long story short, police don't search him properly, and enroute to the hospital, he pulls a razor blade out of his pocket, and jumps off the stretcher, and starts waving it at me. My partner calls the police on the radio, now the patient decides that if he can't catch and kill me, that he will kill himself, and starts slashing his body up. My partner slammed the brakes on, catapaulting both of us into the wall, and the patient jumps out, runs away, and leaves the back of the ambulance covered in his blood. The police finally catch him, and they take him to the hospital, like they should have in the first place.

Last night, the call came in for the "diabetic". On our arrival in a large apartment buildings apartment, we found two females in their fifties, both appeared mentally impaired as a baseline. One of the ladies, who I will refer to as "anne", is a chronic abuser of both the ems and hospitals er system, at least twice a week she gets transported via ems for bullshit. Her friend called tonight to have us check her blood sugar, and when we arrived, "anne" declared that she has had stomach pain and a sore throat since Saturday, three days ago, without relief, with no other complaints. "Anne", demands she goes to a specific hospital because the local one is "mean to her", by "making me wait in the waiting room" Enroute, we informed the patient that it was going to be very busy in her desired hospital, and then she declared upon our arrival at the er, that she has had chest pain for two days. This is just another way for her to "beat" the system, not have to wait in the waiting room for her absolute bullshit, schizo complaints, and totally destroy our health care system, just a little bit at a time.

When we find your "friend" dead in the drivers seat of his truck, and you next to him, snoring, after crashing through the front of a Mcdonalds, and find syringes sticking out of both your arms, and heroin in baggies on the seats, please don't say shit like, "It's my asthma", or "I don't remember what happened", "I must be dehydrated", or other crap that you might think we might believe, but we don't, even if we are new. Evidence speaks louder than your feeble excuses.

If you are into erotic asphisxiation, then hey, I don't agree with it, morally, but I don't control you, God does. Try not to die in doing so, because it amounts to a good lot of laughs for all of us to see you dressed up with your nice lingerie on, (granted, you're a guy), a belt around your neck, or other device, and your penis out with some sort of pornograghy around.

If you are seeking drugs from us or most likely, the hospital, here are things not to say or do. Don't say you have had back pain for a week. Don't say that you "lost" your percocet they gave you yesterday. Don't blame your roomate for taking the percocet they gave you yesterday. Don't tell me that you are allergic to anything but dilaudid. My favorite however, and this is the hard core seeker, is the allergies to codiene, tramadol, hydrocodone, and radiopaque contrast media, thereby in their mind believing that you can't give them a CT scan to prove that their back pain is completete bullshit. Please don't ask me for something for the pain. Unless you have a legitamate injury, i.e., limbs torn off, broken, etc., I am not going to break open that narcotics box that is such a pain in the ass the get resealed again because you need the thirty second morphine high.
We used to have quite a few regular seekers, one of them in particular sticks in my memory because he was so hard core addicted to anything. He would call 911 every monday with abdominal pain, but the tops being the time the staff at the hospital caught him drinking the alcohol foam on the wall for washing your hands.

So ends part two of Chicken Crap for your soul part two, these are stories than harden your heart more than make you laugh, but stand by, more are coming that will do both, fear not, you will be on antidepressents soon enough.....................................