Typical Thursday

"What is my typical day" a reader once asked...which to be perfectly honest was really just me talking to myself. I don't really have typical days. One day might be dead silent! I will sleep all day or play video games or what not. Other days can just be balls to the walls crazy. No stopping, no lunch, just whatever I can grab from the ER "medic" room (a small room where the hospital gives us free food and drinks).

I thought it might be best to describe what I did today to give you an average idea on what I do on an ambulance. Remember that today was an average day.

Morning: I worked a roll over wreck. The patient managed to roll his/her vehicle several time before parking it upside down. We did a "Load and go" *means we check out the patient very quickly, load the patient into the ambulance, and start treating on the way there. 90% of what we do is "stay and play" which is the opposite.*

Morning and afternoon: Ate breakfast, went to Starbucks, played Soduku for several hours, took a nap.

Afternoon: Ran a psych patient from methadone clinic to the E.R because he/she developed a pretty gnarly infection in his/her private regions that was putting the patient into risk of sepsis shock.

Afternoon: Death of a cancer patient, at home, with his/her family about (including the little girls). It was the posters of "Mom/Dad you can beat this" that made me break down in the ambulance after the call was over.

Late after noon: Took some old fella to the hospital for an emergency CAT scan. I don't know, whatever. I just drove and ate ice cream in the medic room while my partner did the paper work.

Now, here I am, drinking a beer at 2330 and blogging.

OH! Finished Torchwood (The TV series on BBC). Yes, its good. Sad I watched it all already. I did read that they are going to make a season four of it! Hizaah!

Wednesday......eff'ing Wednesday

Oye! Three twelve hour shift in a row is a bit brutal! Plus add in the fire shifts I been pulling!

I spent all of yesterday running to emergency rooms. The ER nurses and I theorize that the sun flares from last weekend have turn everyone a bit Daffy. Hangings, old people falling over, people running into bulldozers, and a string of elderly heat strokes.

My last patient was a real peach of a lady. She had dementia pretty bad but she was absolutely adorable. She keep talking about how I need to study for my arithmetic test coming up so I can grow up to be smart. She talked about random things that just made you realize how much this little old lady experienced. Like an encyclopedia of Americana.

Then she looked over at me and said "I'm going to fucking kill you" got wide eyed and started a sick evil laugh. I spent the rest of the trip in the little window hole between the cab and the patient box curled into a ball with a bottle of alcohol and a lighter stretched out in front of me.

Not long ago...

Not long ago I would have been sitting in a 5' x 5' grey prison cell with two LCD monitors, A small super computer by my knees, and 20 people asking me questions on how to do something better, cheaper, and fast. All the while making big bucks for someone else while getting paid 1/3 of the market average of what I did.

I would look out the window and watch ..... well just watch. Planes, clouds, birds, people, cars and such. There I was... stuck! From 6am to 4 something. Then go home to connect into work via the laptop and work some more. I was laid off from that job.

Today I sat on the tarmac and watched a jet land just 100' from me. The jet was there to meet with ... ME! I loaded the patient from the jet to MY stretcher and into MY ambulance and off to my destination.

I wonder if anyone watches me from their office window?

Netflixing it

Got the Wii hooked up to Netflix.... just dangerous.

Watched the first season of "Arrested development". Have to say its a like

Watched the first season of "Farscape". Have to say that I do not like it

Watching the first season of "Torchwood". Jury is still out

Bank of America

Before things went to shit, my wife and I bought a house. A cheap house in a cheap area, us being the responsible type, we didn't want to live "above our means". Instead we picked a place that was below our means. Which is, simply, not some ritzy 3,000 sqft house for 300k.

The recession hit and I get laid off from the borg in favor of some Chinese kid for 1/100 of the pay. Fast foward to today! I'm desperately trying to get my mortgage lowered through the Obama "Hope" plan.... quite frankly its a crock of shit. They do nothing. They'll sit there and get your total income from you through a series of 20 phone calls all lasting three hours each. At the end of this exhausting accomplishment they tell you that you spend to much on food. Which, in itself is horse shit. Then they transfer you to your mortgage lender to see if they can "help".

I'll stop you there. If your mortgage lender is Bank of America you are totally screwed. Just foreclose and save yourself the six month exercise in spiraling depression. Walk away from the house and let Bank of America fucking choke on it. Go rent a cheap cheap apartment somewhere and rebuild your finances.

Sound off if you have Bank of America and they are playing dumb