Ramp Rants - Welfare Queens, Drag Queens & TaySean

Ramp Rants - Welfare Queens, Drag Queens and TaySean

Many moons ago, when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I was in paramedic school. It was fascinating learning how to treat the cavemen after the saber-toothed tiger attacks, or how to extricate a neanderthal from the horns of a triceratops. It was always exciting to see the pterodactyls swoop skyward when they were startled by our lights and sirens.

One particular day during my paramedic precepting, I was assigned to work with Lisa, one of the crusty old-time paramedics who still managed to make it seem like she cared about people. I was also partnered with Gretchen, another paramedic student who I did all my precepting with. She would ride with me and we would both get the required hours on the ambulance for class. Lisa’s task was to educate us on paramedic work with hands-on experience.

In those days, the St. Bernard housing project was a thriving mini-metropolis, sparkling with drugs, murders and welfare babies. On this particular day, our little team got a call in the St. Bernard for a female with “abdominal pain.” Dispatch didn’t tell us she was pregnant; they didn’t need to. It is automatically understood that any female in the projects between the ages of twelve and fifty is pregnant. It is one of the rules of EMS.

We arrived at the address and hauled our cookies up, up, up to the third floor of the tiny, twisting stairway where the apartment was. Sitting on the floor was our patient, a female of 18 years and about the same girth and weight of a grand piano. She was hollering as labor pains struck several times. Around the patient were several family members. The sister held her hand, the mother stood across the room drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette, encouraging her, specifically saying “Girl, you bettah have dat baby quick so you can get yo’ welfare check! I needs some o’ dat too!” The grandmother sat on the couch watching her soap operas. A male flitted about down the hallway, ducking in and out of one of the rooms like a nervous butterfly.

The patient felt like she needed to push, a sign of an imminent delivery. Upon inspection of her nether regions, after hauling the fat rolls away from her crotch, we could see the amniotic sac protruding from her cavernous vagina. None of us had seen a pregnancy where the sac was protruding out. We were worried that it may have involved placenta previa, the placenta blocking the cervical opening, which would necessitate a cesarean section. I got on the radio to medical control. “Doc, I have an 18 year old female, prima gravida, full term. Contractions are about a minute apart and the amniotic sac is presenting, still intact. I’d like to go ahead and deliver here.”

“Negative,” the doctor countered. “Get her to the hospital ASAP.”

“Doc, we’d really like to deliver here. We’re on the third floor of the projects and it’s going to be tough getting her out.”

“Do not deliver that baby in the field. Get her to the hospital immediately!” he reaffirmed.

Lisa, Gretchen and I quickly went over the logistics in our head of moving the patient’s ponderous bulk down the stairs. We would have to carry her, since walking her would likely hasten the impending birth. Lisa and Gretchen each grabbed a shoulder; I carried her by the knees. Halfway down the steps, another contraction came and she shrieked with the pain of it. It made me acutely aware that I, standing between her legs, was in the direct line of fire should she choose to launch her bundle of joy at that moment.

We finally made it downstairs and got her onto the stretcher. It was Gretchen’s turn to ride with the patient and Lisa in the back. I didn’t even get into the back of the truck to assess vital signs or start an IV; it was time to leave. I hopped into the driver’s seat as the male that had been flitting about alighted in the passenger seat. He wore regular clothes, but his eyebrows were carefully plucked and he had the remnants of fingernail polish still on, apparently from his last night out in drag. “Are you family to her?” I asked. It was not uncommon for complete strangers to jump into the ambulance as if they were kinfolk so they could get a ride into town.

“I’m her brother, Mister,” he said with a lisp so heavy that I thought it would have been more likely to assign him the relationship of sister, if you know what I mean.

“Okay,” I said as I pulled away. One block down the street, Lisa hollered from the back, “Sean, pull over!” Aw, crap.

I was glad I had the good sense to put a fresh pair of gloves on before I got out of the truck and came around to the back. The moment I opened the back doors to the ambulance, there was a massive explosion and a baby came skittering down the stretcher directly at me. I caught it, football-style, just before it shot out the back of the vehicle like some sort of James Bond weapon. Up until then, I had no idea that an umbilical cord is long enough to stretch from the gurney out the door. I now know that it is.

The baby was a healthy boy. I clamped and cut the cord, Gretchen assessed it while Lisa tended to the female. After a few minutes, we were ready to go again.

Back in the front, the brother was beginning to have a nellie fit over the goings-on in the back, with a similar intensity as if he had broken a high heel or he suddenly discovered that his purse didn’t match his miniskirt. “Oh, mister! What’s going on? Is she all right? Oh, my nerves is bad; I cain’t take this!” he exclaimed, fanning himself like Aunt Pittypat in Gone With the Wind.

I didn’t want him to have a full-blown conniption in the front of the ambulance as I drove. I reassured him that everything was all right. “Look, your sister’s fine and the baby’s fine. Just relax. It’s a boy. You can name him after me if you want,” I said jokingly, hoping to lighten him up a bit. Even though he was light in his loafers enough.

“Really mister? What’s your name?” he asked.

“I’m Sean.”

He turned to the little doorway to the back of the ambulance. “Shaniqua!” he screeched at his sister. “The paramedic say we can name the baby after him! His name be Sean; we can call the baby TaySean!”

“Ooh, I likes dat!” she answered back.

I sat in my seat unable to speak. I carefully reviewed the conversation in my head. “I’m Sean” were my exact words; I was sure of it. ‘TAY Sean? Where the HELL did that come from?’ I wondered, flabbergasted.

I flashed the queen next to me an inquisitive look, one that I hoped would convey the proper amount of ‘What the fuck?’ He just shrugged his shoulders and said “well, you know...”

At the hospital, Gretchen and Lisa brought the female and baby inside. I stayed and cleaned up the back of the truck. Amniotic fluid, blood and baby-birthing gunk had gotten everywhere from the mighty eruption resulting in the birth of little TaySean. As I wiped everything down and threw away half our equipment that had been soiled, I pictured TaySean growing up in the St. Bernard projects. He would ask his mother where he got his name. As she cashed her welfare check at the liquor store, she would explain about the circumstances of his birth, the trip down the stairs, the Richter scale reading on his delivery, and why his uncle is dressed like that. And she would mention me, Sean, the paramedic who offered his name. Later in life, I was sure I would have TaySean in my ambulance again, when he got shot from some drug deal gone bad or something.

There are some things you do in EMS that you’re proud of. There are some things you do you’re not proud of. The idea of my namesake growing up in the St. Bernard with his gigantic mother, welfare-money-hungry grandmother, drag queen uncle and my name made me cringe. Between pride and humiliation, where does TaySean fall in?

Infallible EMS Dispatch Gets Balloon Boy Call

Emergency Computer Aided Dispatch system is put to the test...

Operator 1: “911, What is your emergency?”

Caller: “My 6 year-old son just drifted away in a helium balloon!”

Operator 1:“Can I have your phone number in case we get disconnected?”

Caller: “Yes, its 555-1234.” Oh, please, I don’t know what to do! It’s starting to drift away!”

Operator 1: “You say your son is floating away in a balloon?”

Caller: “Yes!”

Operator 1: “Hmm, I don’t see that in any of the emergency dispatch responses in the computer. Hold on a second.”
To Operator 2: “Hey, this lady says her kid's floating away in a balloon! Where is that in the computer?”

Operator 2: “Kid in a balloon? (scrolling through computer choices) I don’t see that either. Just go with “Generalized Weakness.”

Operator 1: “OK ma’am, I have it now. Is he conscious and breathing?”

Caller: “I guess so, he just climbed into the balloon. I can’t really see him right now. He’s a thousand feet overhead. Please send help!”

Operator 1: “I’ll send someone out. Is his breathing normal?”

Caller: “What? I don’t know! He’s breathing HELIUM!”

Operator 1: “Is he having any chest pain?”

Caller: “Are you kidding me? He’s in a freaking balloon!”

Operator 1: “I understand you’re anxious ma’am, but I need you to try and stay calm. I need you to answer my questions so we can get the proper response crews to you.”

Caller: (calming down) “OK, I’ll try. Please send someone; the balloon is drifting out of sight!”

Operator 1: “How old is he? Does he have any medical problems?”

Caller: “Six. And no, he’s perfectly healthy.”

Operator 1: “How long has he felt weak?”

Caller: “Weak? What are you talking about? Haven’t you been listening? He climbed into an experimental balloon I was building with my husband and it drifted away with him inside it?”

Operator 1: “Oh that’s right. Sorry, I’m trying to use the computer script for ‘Generalized Weakness.’"

Caller: “WHAT?”

Operator 1: “So the balloon drifted away with your 6 year-old husband and he’s feeling weak?”

Caller: “Oh my God!”

Operator 1: “OK ma’am, the ambulance is on its way. Do you want me to stay on the line till they arrive?”

Caller: “An ambulance? Why are you sending an ambulance? He’s in a freaking BALLOON! Thousands of feet in the air! What is an ambulance going to do?”

Operator 1: “Ma’am I need you to try to stay calm so I can send the proper response crews...”

Caller: “Oh sweet Jesus! Never mind, I’ll call CNN!” (Click)

Operator 1 to Operator 2: “What a bitch! Some people just don’t know how to speak to another human being.”

Operator 2: “So she canceled the call?”

Operator 1: “Yeah. Says she’s gonna call CNN. Freak. Like they’d be interested.”

Operator 2: “Hmph!”



(By the way, here is the ACTUAL 911 call: http://mp3.911dispatch.com.s3.amazonaws.com/fortcollins_balloon_911.mp3)

An Experiment in Sleep Deprivation

I just got home from work a few minutes ago. Nothing remarkable, eh? Well, to tell the truth, I am currently hallucinating. I’ve been awake since 4am on Tuesday,; it’s 12:47am on Thursday. In a few minutes, that’ll be 45 hours straight with no sleep. I wantred to write this blog post under the influence of lack of sleep and the wierd things I keep seeing out of the corner of my eyes. I am not going to edit or correct what I write. I am just going to type and type like that dude what’s his name did. Oh yeah Jack Kerouac. He wrote “on the Road” on one hugely long continuous sheet of paper at one sitting, keeping himself wawke with drugs and God knows what. I loved that book.
Anyway, what’s ther eason for my 45 minute stint awake? It’s my own fault. I effed up my schedule and doub;e booked myself. Long story short, I worked a 12 hour EMS shift, then went to a 12 hour overnight nursing shift, then followed that up with another 14-hour EMS shift. I am exhausted. I was driiving home and caught myself wondering if I was driving in a dream or driving for real. When You;re this tired, everything takes on a distinct aura of unreality. You can talk and watch and eat and drink and work and read and whatever, but tghere is a odd sense that none of what you do matters, as if you are in a dream.I find it similar to lucid dreaming, that is, when you are aware that you are asleep and dreaming, but continue to dream anyway. With this wonderful knowledge, you are free to do whatever you want, because you know it is only a dream and will hold no consequences in real life when you wake up.
In a strange sens, being 45+ hours exhausted is something of the photographic negative of lucid dreaming. You get the impression that you are living in the real world, but still nothing matters. Same picture, but colored by different means.
\I hope I wasn’t a dick to my partner today. Jeremy is an excellent EMT, someone who I’d not mind being permanent partners with. I’d watch his back and I’m pretty sure he’d watch mine. I have no idea if I said or did anything to piss him off. When you’re lucid dreaming, or dreaming reality, it soedn’t realy matter. Whay tou do/,. I hope I dodn;t piss him off.

Oh by the way, I have a nw bottle of vordjka to help me on my way to the promised land of sleepy-byes.
I was hoping to type and type a la Jack Kerouac but I don’t have the same good drugs a s he had and i think I stopped making sense a coupel paragraphs ago. It’s so tempting to hit the backspace button! To be honest, I have hit it a few times, like maybe you wouldn’t know who Jack Kreouwac iswas. Waow I just glancesd at what I’m writng. It Super sucks!
Ok 45 hours is the limit. I’m so totally going to bed. allright- Laterz!

Weighed In the Balances - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

They pulled up to the scene of the “man down” in the French Quarter at one of the hotels on St. Louis Street. “Let’s jus’ bring everything in. Make it look good,” Joyce recommended to Marc. The doorman directed them inside after the medics retrieved the stretcher, EKG monitor, oxygen and medical bag from the truck. The hotel manager, looking somewhat panic-stricken, motioned them into the lobby.

“I think he stopped breathing!” he said. “He was sitting on a chair, real pale and sweaty.” He just laid out on the floor as y’all were pulling up.”

Marc and Joyce made their way up the small set of steps into the lobby. Their patient, a man in his mid-fifties, was lying on his back in the middle of the marble floor. Marc checked for a carotid pulse, also noticing that he wasn’t breathing, as the manager had said. There was no pulse. “He’s coded; you mind if I intubate?” he asked Joyce.

“You go right ahead, baby,” Joyce agreed. The fire department had arrived a few moments after the ambulance and Joyce directed one of the firefighters to begin chest compressions. “Good job, honey,” she said to the fireman pounding vigorously on the man’s chest. “Just go a little slower,” she directed. “How you comin’ with that tube, Marc?”

Marc had been squeezing air into the mans lungs through the facemask of the Ambu bag. He set it aside and pushed the steel blade of the laryngoscope into the man’s throat, lifting up his lower jaw to search for the vocal cords. Marc saw them right away, two white ligaments in an upside-down “V” at the entrance to the man’s trachea. He held the plastic endotracheal tube in his right hand and guided it between the vocal cords, pushing it in far enough until he was sure the end of the tube rested in the trachea. Marc removed the blade, inflated the balloon cuff on the tube which held it in place and pulled out the stylet, the wire inside the tube which helped keep its shape while inserting it into the man’s anatomy. “Listen for me, would you?” he asked Joyce. Marc attached the Ambu bag to the tube and squeezed air into it while Joyce listened to the man’s chest and stomach with her stethoscope.

“You’re in! Good job!” she complimented Marc after listening to make sure there were breath sounds in his chest and not in his stomach. “That ain’t yo’ first time intubatin’ a real patient, is it?”

“My first successful time,” answered Marc. “I tried a couple of times on a patient during paramedic school. Randy let me give it a shot, but even the anesthesiologist at the hospital had a hard time, so I didn’t feel too bad.”

“Well, you did purty good on this one. What you wanna do next?” asked Joyce.

“He’s in PEA. Let’s go with a fluid bolus and an Epi. Is that IV good, Joyce?”

“Yeah, baby,” she said as she pulled the Epinephrine from the medical bag. “How much you wanna give?”

Marc looked at her with his brow furrowed. “How much? What do you mean how much?” he asked, slightly panicky. In an instant, he reviewed all the cardiac algorithms in his head. ‘Is this a trick question?’ With that, he realized that Joyce’s inquiry was indeed a trick question. “The whole milligram!” he finally responded, a sly smile crossing his lips. “Don’t do that!”

Joyce giggled as she pushed the Epi. “Okay, sugar, no more trick questions. What next?”

Marc glanced at the monitor screen. The line on it changed from an organized rhythm to a squiggly line. “He just went into v-fib; let’s shock him.”

Joyce handed him the defibrillator paddles and pulled open the man’s shirt. Marc charged the monitor and Joyce squirted the gooey conduction gel onto the paddles Marc held. “What you shockin’ at, sugar?” she asked.

“Two hundred joules. Clear!” he said to the fireman and Joyce. The fireman jumped back as if Marc had threatened him with the paddles. In fact he had; another medic had been put into the ICU a year before when he was accidentally touching a patient during a defibrillation attempt. He pressed the buttons on the paddles, sending enough electricity across the man’s chest to start ten automobiles. The patient spasmed off the floor, his head making a thunk against the marble hotel lobby. The bystanders gasped at the sight and the vibrations in the floor. The man’s wife began crying as the seriousness of her husband’s situation began to really take hold. All she had ever seen of such a demonstration was on TV and in movies but she knew that her husband was really sick if this was going on.

The squiggly line on the monitor persisted. Marc turned the dosage dial up to three hundred joules, recharged the paddles and shocked the man again. The wife screamed softly as her husband’s body again jumped off the floor. The wavy line settled into a flat line for a few seconds, then the monitor began beeping with an regular rhythm. “Sinus brady,” Marc announced to Joyce, who smiled approvingly at him. Marc felt the man’s neck for a carotid pulse. “He’s still got no pulse.”

Marc looked toward the man’s teary-eyed wife. “What kind of medical problems does he have?” he asked her.

“What?” she said, trying to process what was happening to her husband.

“What kind of medical history does he have? What medicines does he take?”

She seemed somewhat relieved to have something to focus on besides her dying husband. She answered, “Just high blood pressure. He takes Cardizem and Accupril. Oh, and a calcium supplement.”

“Has he been taking them?” Marc asked?

“Yes, every day. Except for the calcium since we’ve been in town, it’s just an over-the-counter pill. The doctor said he has a low calcium level but didn’t prescribe anything. Is he going to be all right?” she asked, again breaking down in tears.

Marc mulled over the information for a second and turned to Joyce. “He has low calcium levels and he’s on a calcium channel blocker! No wonder he’s in PEA!” Marc pulled out the syringe of calcium chloride from the bag and slowly injected it into the IV port.

Joyce muttered partly to Marc but mostly to herself “I wouldn’t have thought of that. Smart guy.”

The monitor began to beep faster. “His rate’s a hundred. Stop chest compressions. Check for a pulse,” Marc said.

Joyce felt for the man’s carotid pulse in his neck. “He got a pulse!” she pronounced loudly enough for the bystanders to hear.

The dozen or so onlookers let out a cheer that resounded in the hotel lobby. “Good job!” Joyce whispered as she began getting their gear together to start removing the patient. Marc directed the fireman to continue squeezing the Ambu bag to breathe for the man as he checked a blood pressure. “Eighty over thirty. We can start a dopamine infusion in the truck, okay?”

Joyce nodded as she helped the firemen roll the man onto a spineboard. They lifted him onto the stretcher and rolled it to the truck. Marc instructed the wife to sit in the front as they organized the EKG monitor, IV, oxygen and other things for the short ride to Tulane Hospital. “I’m ready to go when you are, baby,” Joyce said to Marc.

“Oh, okay,” Marc said. He felt like his cloud had been pulled out from under him. His facial expression gave away his feeling of having been abruptly brought back to reality after Joyce had let him run a successful code. EMT Basics were not allowed to perform paramedic-level skills as Marc had just done, but the rules were often bent as long as the Basics were competent and well-supervised by a paramedic.

Joyce noted his change in demeanor and smiled kindly at him. “You did a great job, but I still have to tech the call. You ain’t a paramedic yet!” she reminded him.

“Grrr,” Marc growled in mock frustration. He got into the front and headed to the hospital. When he unloaded the man from the back, he noticed Joyce hadn’t started the dopamine like he had recommended. "His pressure’s a hundred thirty over seventy. He don’t need no dopamine!” Joyce informed Marc. “And check this out!” she said pointing to the man’s face.

Marc pulled the stretcher out onto the ER ramp and studied the man’s face. His eyes were open, staring directly at Marc with a look that seemed to say ‘what the hell happened?’

“Holy shit! He’s awake! Damn, I guess that CPR really works!” Marc exclaimed as they rolled into the ER.

After Joyce had finished her report and they were on their way back to the station for shift change, she complimented Marc on his clinical skills. “You did a great job on dat code. You gonna make a outstandin’ paramedic!”

Marc blushed. “Even though I almost killed that patient earlier?”

“Dat was a honest mistake. We both know it was. And you gonna learn from it. Now take a compliment, would you?”

“Thanks, Jo,” he said, smiling.

He kept reviewing the details of the scene as he drove home. The mistake he made earlier and his frustration didn’t even register anymore.

As he walked into the front door of their double shotgun home, the smell of garlic and tomatoes and roasting meat made his mouth water. “C’est incroyable!” he called out. “Qu’est-ce que tu fâit, cherie?” he complimented the smell of his wife’s cooking.

Gabrielle came jogging from the back of the house. Her curly auburn hair bounced around her face. Her chocolate skin highlighted her broad smile. Her eyes matched the deep green blouse she wore. “Ton favorite, ratatouille lapín!”

Marc was impressed. “Really? Rabbit stew? What’s the occasion?”

Gabby switched to English as well, instead of her native French. “It’s a very special day, my love! Somesing came for you in ze mail!” she exclaimed, her accent poking through.

Marc knew exactly what she meant. “Really? From National Registry?”

“Ouí!” she said, somehow smiling even more brightly.

“Is it a big envelope or a small envelope?” he asked cautiously.

“Look for yourself!” she said, producing a large white envelope from under a magazine on the coffee table.

Marc saw the big, thick envelope and he too broke out in a wide smile. “Oh, my God!” he shouted, tearing it open. He pulled out a bright gold and blue patch from among the many papers inside.

“I’m so proud of you!” Gabby said as she hugged him tightly. “I knew you would do it!”

He also hugged her tightly and stared at the patch in his hand from over her shoulder, reading the words embroidered on it. Emergency Medical Technician - Paramedic.

Glad I Could Help

So just recently I was sitting at the coffee shop while on duty, enjoying one of the main food groups - caffeine. A man sat near me and we struck up a conversation about local news and my job as a paramedic. A few minutes into talking, he grew pensive, almost as if he was lost.

"Is is me that's just crazy, or has the whole world gone insane?" he asked.

I wondered what brought on such an abrupt shift in the conversation. I was unsure what he meant or how to answer him. As I pondered my next statement, the radio crackled to life to dispatch me to a call. "You're responding to a man with no legs who fell off his motorbike," the information came across clearly to me and the man I had been talking to.

The man repeated what he had heard over the radio, "A man with no legs riding a motorcycle?"

I confirmed it with dispatch. "Yes, that's correct," the dispatcher said.

I looked carefully into the man's eyes. "Does that answer your question?" I asked him.

"Yes, thank you. That makes me feel much better. It is the rest of the world."

"Glad I could help."

So Delightful to Meet You!

9:30 am: I’m asleep in bed. I had gotten home from work at 4 am and was dead asleep from a long shift.

{Knock knock knock} on the door.
I’m sleeping in my underwear. As I get up to answer the door, I consider how embarrassing/fun it would have been to answer the door buck naked. My groggy head can’t be bothered with too many calculations, tired as I am, so I open the door in my boxer briefs. On my porch is a man, about 50, but looks closer to 65. He has scraggly, shoulder-length graying hair and a matching beard surrounding a mouth that houses gray, broken teeth. He is wearing a dirty t-shirt over his rotund torso and shorts that proudly display the cellulitis infection in his lower legs.

“Hi, I’m (whatthefuckever- I don’t remember). I’m moving into the house next door and I wanted to know if you mind me putting my boat in the public alley between our houses.

I briefly remember the “alley.” Back in the dinosaur days before the Interstate was built a few dozen yards from my house, there was an alley that divided the city block. Almost every block in Lakeview still has such an alley in use for people to park their cars in their rear driveways and the trash is picked up in the back alleys. However, the street layout on my block was rearranged when the interstate was built. My driveway runs right next to the land that is still technically designated a public alley, but the fence to my property effectively makes it my yard, and I’ve always thought of it that way.



“How long do you want to put it there?” I ask, expecting it to be parked there only as long as it takes him to move into the house.

“For as long as I need it,” he answers.

I envision his boat, currently on a trailer behind his pickup truck in the street, parked in my driveway forever. “Um, no, I’m sorry, I can’t let you park it there,” I respond in my just-woke-up voice.

He is prepared for just this situation. “Well, you know that that’s actually a public alley, so I CAN use it.”

I briefly consider his line of reasoning as best I can while my bed is calling me to come back to it. “I understand, but I really would rather you not park it there.”

“But it’s a public alley, so I can park it there.”

I have not the logic nor the will to continue too much farther in this circle, so I change tacks. “Well, then why did you bother asking me about it?”

“Out of courtesy,” he responds.

I courteously answer “Still, I’d really rather not have you park it there.”

“I am going to park it there.”

I shut the door. I climb back into bed. I’ll figure something out later. I really can’t be bothered right now.

10:00 am. I’m just about fully back to sleep.

{Knock knock knock}
Back out of bed, back to the door in my boxer briefs. “Now what?” I wonder, hoping it’s just the postman or Mormons.

“Hi, I’m Mrs (whatthefuckever). You were just talking to my husband about parking our boat in the public alley [she makes sure to refer to it as the “public alley” rather than “your yard”] and I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. That was his mother’s house; we renovated it and we’re moving in.

“Oh, you mean Mrs. Newman?” I ask.

“Yes!” she says, her smile revealing her own set of urine-colored teeth that match her urine-colored hair. She glances at me up and down, no doubt appreciating in the panorama of virility that is me, standing on the porch in my underwear. I return the favor and take in the view of her white shorts that reveal varicose-veined legs and the “Señor Frogs” tie-dyed t-shirt covering up her wizened, leathery 96-pound torso.

“That boat is my one source of serenity in this world. And Lord knows I don’t get to be serene very often. We certainly don’t use it as much as I’d like to...” she goes off on a tangent.

“I heard,” I answer. “I understand that the alley is technically public land, but it’s pretty much part of my yard, and I’d really rather not have you park it there.”

“Well, I understand, but it IS a PUBLIC alley and I don’t want something bad to happen to the boat or have it stolen,” she says.

“What difference will that make?”I try to reason. “How do you know it won’t get stolen or whatever from right there?”

“Well, there’s that phone pole right there.”

I consider the security functions inherent in a phone pole. I see few.

“Look, isn’t there some sort of compromise we can come to?” she offers.

My brain, in a fit of logic, comes up with a possible solution. “Yes, I think so,” I respond brightly. “There’s an empty lot right behind my house. The house that used to be there was torn down, so now it’s just an empty lot with an old slab and a perfectly good driveway. Why don’t you just put your boat in the driveway on the empty lot?” I point out the empty lot, its own driveway butted against the continuing “alley.”

She is unimpressed with my suggestion. “No, I don’t really want to do that. I don’t know who owns that property.”

I almost yelled “But you DO know that I own THIS property, and you don’t have a problem taking up MY yard.” But I didn’t. The husband was watching our exchange from his yard, muttering psychotically to himself. I had no doubt that I was already making myself look like an idiot simply talking to Mrs. Whatthefuckever, who looked like she had spent too many summers turning tricks at the beach while I stood on my front porch in my undies. A shouting match under the circumstances wouldn’t be... seemly.

Instead I calmly repeated my statement, “I’d really rather you not park your boat in my yard.”

She took up the circular argument that her husband had. “But it’s a public alley, so we CAN park it there.”

I chose not to continue a fruitless line of reasoning. “It seems that no matter what I say, you’re going to do what you want. So why did you bother asking me about parking it there?” I inquired for the second time this morning.

“I asked you out of courtesy. So we don’t get off on the wrong foot,” she repeated.

“Courtesy implies that my thoughts would be taken into consideration, but you haven’t done that. You seem prepared to do whatever you want to do regardless of what I say, so I don’t really see the courtesy in that,” I explain quite honestly.

“Well, we are going to park it there. I just didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot...”

“I see. Okay,” I sigh as I go back into my house and close the door.

Ah, having white trash neighbors is going to be so interesting! I'll have so much to write about! Let the games begin!

Weighed In the Balances - Chapter 1

Author's note: the events of "Weighed In the Balances" begin about fifteen years prior to those of "Found Wanting," my first story.

Weighed in the Balances

Chapter 1

“I can’t breathe!” the woman gasped as she sat on the stretcher scratching at the red blisters erupting all over her body.

“We gonna take care o’ you, honey. You jus’ try to relax and you’ll feel better by the time we get to the hospital,” said Joyce in a soothing voice with her country accent as she listened to the woman’s wheezing through a stethoscope. “Well, Mr. Paramedic, what you wanna do?” she asked her partner, Marc.

“I’d say go with some Benadryl and Epi?” he suggested as he tried to take a blood pressure on the woman’s left arm. She alternately scratched at the itchiness all over her, and kept pushing herself bolt upright on the stretcher to try to give her chest more room to expand and take in precious air.

“Hmph!” Joyce snorted, settling her large frame into the captain’s seat behind the patient, making it clear that she expected Marc to perform all the patient care. “You cain’t be a good paramedic until you a good EMT-Basic. Now, what did dey teach you in dat class? What’s the foist thing you do for a patient like dis who cain’t breathe?”

Marc looked sheepishly at Joyce. “ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation,” he answered Joyce in the same tone a boy would say “Yes, Mom,” after a scolding. “I’m gonna put some oxygen on you ma’am,” he advised the patient, retrieving an oxygen mask from the cabinet. With the flow of oxygen reaching her lungs, the patient calmed down a bit. She no longer pushed herself up from the stretcher to breathe.

“Dat’s better,” said Joyce. “Her pulseox is up to ninety-five percent. Dat’s a whole lot better than da eighty percent is was. Now, how you gonna give dat Benadryl and Epi?”

“Um, fifty of Benadryl IV and point three of Epi sub-cu, right?” Marc asked for confirmation.

“Awright,” Joyce nodded. She began writing down the patient’s vital signs, name, date of birth and other demographic information on her run report while Marc started the IV. “Baby, how did this start?” she asked the patient who was breathing much easier now.

“I was working in the yard. I work in the yard all the time; I’m not allergic to anything there, but I think I might have been stung by a bee.”

“You allergic to bees, baby?” asked Joyce.

“Yes. I have an Epi pen but I couldn’t find it.”

“Okay, we’re gonna give you some Epi, sweetie. You’ll be all right in a few minutes,” Joyce said. The woman tried not to scratch at the red, raised skin where the hives were as Marc taped down the IV in her arm.

“Thanks,” she said to Joyce.

Marc drew up the two meds into syringes and laid them on the bench seat next to where he was sitting. Joyce wrote on her clipboard as Marc administered the meds. “Epi’s in, Jo!” he announced.

Joyce looked up at him. Usually when a subcutaneous injection is given, the person giving the shot warns the patient, ‘You’re going to feel a stick,’ or ‘It’ll be a little poke’ or words to that effect. Joyce hadn’t heard any of that from Marc. She saw Marc withdraw the syringe from the IV port. Her eyes grew wide. “Marc, how did you give that Epi just now?”

Marc glanced down at the syringe in his hand, then at the IV in the woman’s arm. Panic set in his face, his jaw fell. “IV!” he whispered, his eyes wider than Joyce’s. “Shit!”

“Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong!” the woman on the stretcher gasped. She pushed herself up on the stretcher’s handrails to take in deep breaths. “My heart’s... pounding... out of my chest! Something’s wrong!”

‘Oh crap! Think of something quick!’ Marc thought, panicking himself. “It’ll be okay, ma’am; it’s just a side effect of the medicine I gave you. You’re gonna feel some palpitations; it’s just a side effect,” he said in his most reassuring voice.

Joyce and Marc glanced at the EKG monitor. It showed a steady wave of ventricular tachycardia with a rate of a hundred and eighty. A line that looked like some had hit “VVVVVV” on the keyboard persisted on the the blue and white screen. ‘How appropriate! V for v-tach!’ Marc thought to himself. It was exactly the same rhythm he had been asked to diagnose and treat only a week before during his National Registry exam to pass his paramedic test. Only then, in his cardiac scenario, the patient had presented in ventricular tachycardia; Marc hadn’t caused it. Now, as the woman thrashed on the stretcher, ripping off her oxygen mask and screaming “Something’s wrong!” Marc realized that her cardiac arrhythmia was solely his own fault.

Joyce place her hand on the patient’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, baby. Yo’ heartbeat’s just a little fast from the meds we gave you. It’ll pass in a minute. Try to relax.”

The woman did her best to stay still on the stretcher. Marc noticed her eyes; they had a wild, panicked look as she tried to stay calm despite trying to fight the urge to scratch at the red welts all over her body and the sensation of her heart racing at three times its normal rate.

Joyce leaned past the head of the stretcher, her eyes motioned Marc to join her there for a “conference.” “If I have to shock this woman’s v-tach, I’m shocking you next!” she whispered to Marc, anger dripping from her jaws. “Get in the front and drive.”

Marc remained silent, realizing his mistake, accepting the chastising from his partner. He obediently left the back of the ambulance and entered the driver’s seat, heading to East Jefferson General Hospital. ‘They were talking about medication errors in class! I had never seen a single one and now I nearly killed my patient with my first one!’ he thought to himself as he drove. Just the week before, Marc had finished his paramedic test for the National Registry of EMT’s. He was currently anxiously awaiting the results. He felt like an idiot as he drove the ambulance. On his pharmacology practical station during testing, he had been given almost the exact same scenario as this call - a person having an allergic reaction. In testing, he had performed flawlessly, selecting the right drugs for the right reasons, administering them via the right routes. In real life, he had just sent a person to the brink of death by giving the Epinephrine intravenously instead of subcutaneously.

“If you EVER do sumpin’ like dat again, I’m gonna kill you myself!” Joyce exclaimed as she got into the truck after they had cleared from the hospital. “How did you manage to fuck dat up?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just had a brain fart. I had just started the IV, so I was thinking ‘IV.’ I drew up both drugs in the same kind of syringe too; that didn’t help.”

“Her rate went back down to normal while we was en route to da hospital, but dammit boy, you nearly killed her!” Joyce reminded him again. She observed the embarrassment evident on Marc’s face. He had made an honest mistake, even though it was nearly fatal. “Well, I’ll bet you’ll never do dat again. As long as you learn from yo’ mistakes, you’ll be a good paramedic,” Joyce said in more relaxed tone.

Marc smiled at her but still felt awful. “I didn’t realize how potent that Epi is. Just that tiny dose almost gave her v-fib?”

“You saw it yo’self. Imagine what a whole milligram woulda done!” Joyce confirmed.

“Amazing that Epi can bring you back from the dead or send you to the grave,” Marc marveled at the potency of the drug. He was interrupted by dispatch for a call near the Carrollton neighborhood, on Cambronne Street. “A sixty-five year-old female complaining of shortness of breath,” said John, the dispatcher.

“Oh man, that’s Miss Dotty!” Marc complained. “I wonder what she wants today. Probably needs someone to change the channel or something.”

Joyce rolled her eyes as she copied down the information, also familiar with Miss Dotty. “Last time I went there all she wanted was someone to heat up her TV dinner. She’s steppin’ on my las’ nerve wit’ both feet.”

At the house, the medics walked in and found Miss Dotty sitting on her bed, her many oxygen cylinders arranged around the room. The home oxygen machine hummed in the background, about fifty feet of tubing tethered Dotty to it. She sat on the bed in her cocoon formed by blankets, pillows, magazines and the nearby TV blaring soap operas at full volume. Apparently Brent had just discovered his previously unknown twin brother had sired Melanie’s child, Marc learned from the snippet he heard before switching off the television.

“What’s going on today, Miss Dotty? Are you sick?” Marc asked.

“No, baby, I need you to change the setting on my oxygen. My nephew was by today and I think he turned it up. I’m not supposed to have more than two liters or I’ll die.”

“I don’t think you’re going to die if you get a little more oxygen, Miss Dotty,” Marc replied with only a little sarcasm.

“Look at me,” she ordered Marc vehemently. “Look at my eyes.”

Marc moved close to Miss Dotty’s face and opened his eyes wide, putting on a ridiculous expression that made Joyce chuckle.

“You a white racist bastard! I can tell by your eyes. You hate me just because I’m black! I know about you!”

Joyce and Marc both laughed hard at Miss Dotty’s accusation. Neither answered, refusing to dignify her claim. After a minute, Marc pulled himself together and checked the setting on Dotty’s oxygen machine. “It’s exactly on two liters, Miss Dotty. Your oxygen is fine, although I don’t know how much you’re actually getting through that mile of tubing you have there.”

“Don’t you act all condescending to me, you white racist bastard!” she commanded him again.

Joyce smiled again and shook her head at the crazy old lady. “Marc, why don’t you show Miss Dotty your picture in your wallet?”

Miss Dotty piped up again, “What, you got some picture of a cross you burned?”

Marc fished out his wallet and showed her a picture of a lovely black girl, about twenty-three with green eyes, mocha skin and chestnut hair. “That’s my wife, Miss Dotty. Isn’t she beautiful?” Marc replied with sincerity in his voice.

Miss Dotty was abashed. She lowered her eyes from the picture, at an uncharacteristic loss for words. Marc made sure she got the point; he looked into her eyes again and repeated to her “isn’t she beautiful, Miss Dotty?” making it clear that he expected an answer.

Whenever white EMT’s responded to her daily 911 calls, she frequently accused them of being “white racist bastards” (or white racist bitches, if they were female). None of the medics took it personally; they were all familiar with her crazy rantings. The thing that annoyed the EMT’s was that she called just about every day, sometimes two or three times a day, for things completely unrelated to medical emergencies. Sometimes she wanted her oxygen setting checked, or her newspaper fetched from out front, or wanted someone to microwave her dinner or change the channel on the TV because she couldn’t figure out the remote.

“She’s very pretty,” she said, glancing over at Joyce, unable to meet Marc’s eyes again.

“Baby, do you need to go to da hospital?” Joyce asked, having grown weary of Miss Dotty.

“No, just make sure my oxygen’s okay.”

“We did; it’s fine,” said Joyce. “Baby, you cain’t keep callin’ us every day for this kinda stuff. We can take you to da hospital if you havin’ an emergency, but we ain’t here for this ‘check my oxygen’ and ‘make me some food.’ I know you got a home health nurse dat comes here; but we ain’t home health. People are really sick and dyin’ out in the city; we need to be takin’ care of them, Miss Dotty.”

“All right then, y’all can go,” Miss Dotty said, officially dismissing the medics.

Marc & Joyce glanced at each other on the way back to the ambulance, shaking their heads. “You know she’s just gonna call back tomorrow,” Joyce predicted.

“Yep, for the same damn thing,” Marc confirmed. “Your tax dollars at work. It’s calls like that that drain your soul, you know?”

“Well, it’s a lot easier than running gunshots and cardiac arrests all day,” Joyce countered.

“Yeah, but those calls are why I went to paramedic school! Trauma and serious medical calls are the reason we’re here, not to go change the channel on Miss Dotty’s TV. I feel like a little piece of me dies on calls like that.”

“Baby, you bettah get used to it! You been here a few years; you know what it’s like. Just ‘cause you went to paramedic school, it ain’t gonna change the calls we get. If a little of your soul dies, you ain’t gonna have nothin’ left in a few years,” Joyce said, giggling.

“I know, I know,” Marc acknowledged. “Ambulance abuse is one of my pet peeves. Going to these chronic patients with nothing wrong with them eats away at me inside. You’ve been a paramedic for a few years now, huh? Does it ever get any better?”

“The calls? No. You just learn to deal with it, I guess. Nothin’ you can do but take ‘em to the hospital,” Joyce sighed.

Marc drove the unit away to their next call, a “man down” in the French Quarter. ‘Nothing you can do,’ he thought to himself. ‘She’s right; there’s nothing I can do. Maybe one day I’ll find a way to make it better. Man, I hope I passed National Registry.’