July 23/ EMTs

I sit here at the computer and it feels like I have a mustache of scab.  While I am healing Mr Radish is sitting only on my good side. 

 

Here are a few thoughts on my recent hospital adventures. At a hospital you should always arrive by ambulance, because you get a room faster. You could sit in the waiting room until tomorrow if you just walk in the ER door. 

 

I should give a bag of brownies to each EMT that has transported me to a hospital.  They have been super! I have just used my seventh set. All of them have been men except for one, and I really did not like her as well. She did not have a sense of humor, but she was pregnant and very tired.  In the rural areas the men are generally good looking. They arrive with their baseball caps and smiles.  Always they are calm.  The head guy is 40-52. Always there is a newbie.  The best looking guy drives. 

 

The first two times I had panic attacks and they thought I was having a heart attack.  The first time I was in Montreal and I was taken to the French Hospital.  What I remember about that experience is that I lay on my gurney in the hallway with other patients for hours and hours and then I was shipped to McGill Univ. hospital where I stayed in a ward with only men.  One person was dying of hiccups.   One man looked like Santa and his bed faced me and his crotch showed a lot.  That was socialized medicine.

 

When you are really, really sick in an ambulance, you are sooo happy to be there.  You feel like someone is in charge, which is all I ask.  The ambulance rumbles along. The medics radio back and forth to the ER doctor discussing vital signs, get your iv adjusted, get the oxygen flowing. And of course, your room is waiting, and the techs are at the ready. I think a heart attack is the only time a doc shows up in less than 20 minutes.

 

I did not actually need an ambulance for this last trip with my fall.  But there is no emergency treatment in town after 3:00 on Sunday.  My husband was 30 minutes away.  The EMTs were adamant that I have a cat scan because of my blood thinners and internal bleeding concerns, and they said that they thought I needed stitches to say nothing of having my wounds washed. The men assured me that it was their pleasure to take me to the hospital.  They said that this was their third fall today. No big deal.   I said that I did not want the government to shut off my health care because I was over 70.  If my husband came to get me and took me to the hospital, maybe I would get health care brownie points. They said, “Get in the truck”.

 

If someone calls me on this, I will deny I wrote this.  On a Sunday  afternoon, after the town doc in a box closes, and you are down, you want to have some jokes, you want to see some youth with some positive attitudes, and you can’t afford a restaurant where there are clever male waiters, maybe you should think of calling 911.  When the EMTs have their fund raiser this year in front of the local grocery store, I am going to give big.