The long version of my weekend from hell.
It Was Not A Good Weekend
This is a tale illustrating stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, and their cumulative affects on my ability to think and perform under pressure. I didn’t do so well.
Last weekend when I went to Kinston to the last EMT class before our final, I knew my weaknesses. I had no doubt that I could do well on the written final, and medical scenarios didn’t scare me much. Trauma was another story, because I have little real life trauma experience. Also, I have trouble working with little kids, also because of a lack of experience. Most of my runs have been for adults with medical problems, so that’s my comfort zone.
The instructors reviewed our logbooks, and I was short 2 IVs and a whole lot of pharmaceutical administration of various types, so I had marching orders to get that taken care of. I had to book more ER time this week; it worked out that my best shot was to work it Thursday night, 6 PM to midnight. I would then skip work Friday, disappear to the rescue squad, and hang with the day shift to help me prepare for Saturday. Good plan, but it didn’t happen that way. The rest of this story is how everything went wrong.
I got to Betsytown early, and had a leisurely dinner in the hospital ralphateria. I killed a bit of time before I had to show up, and wound up escorting someone to the ER because I was headed that way.
After talking to the charge nurse, I was assigned to tag along with Charlie, a rather cool male nurse I worked with on one of the planned Saturdays previously. I explained what I had to do, and begged everyone to remember me when it came time to administer meds.
My curse held, because it was a slow night. There were 2 psychiatric patients, one lady who had a toothache and tried to pull it herself with pliers, the usual sicks, and a coule of respiratory emergencies. By midnight, I managed to get my IVs complete, and 3 of the 11 medication administrations down. I had a dilemma. If I went home at the scheduled time, my logbook would not be complete, and I’d fail. I was also done with my scheduled shift. I made my decision: I wasn’t going anywhere until the book was done. I called VWife and told her. She Was Not Amused.
By 2 AM, I had 2 IV meds to go, and there were 5 patients in who were there for a while and not needing anything. ZZZZZZZZZZ…
About 5:30, we heard a rescue page for an old man at a nursing home who was unresponsive but breathing. Maybe I’d get my chance.
Just before 6 he came in. Unresponsive, breathing, eaten up with scabies, and in possession of a DNR. The doctor was puzzled, because what the old guy was presenting did not match the usual terminally ill stuff. One of the nurses looked in his eyes, and saw pinpoint pupils; while rolling him on his side, another EMT found 2 patches on his back.
Our patient was overdosed on Fentanyl, a synthetic narcotic. Apparently, the nursing home he came from has a bad reputation, and he was being tranquilized for their convenience. He was also being treated with the wrong stuff for the scabies.
The order was for Narcan, which is used to reverse narcotic overdoses, and I got to push it. That stuff is amazing. The effects were almost immediate, and he was soon still out of it, but thrashing around in the bed.
My book was done. I got it signed, and started for home. About 5 miles out from the hospital, there was a car in the median, stuck in the bushes. A diabetic gut had a hypoglycemia episode, passed out, and ran off the road. When I got to him, he was chowing on glucose tablets, and claimed he was otherwise unhurt.
Finally, I got home around 7:30, after a very scary drive because I was zonked. VWife was beyond mad. Screw her, I went to sleep. At that point, I’d been up for 30 hours.
About 11, the dogs got me up. VWife was on her way to a doctor’s appointment. I did a little household puttering while I worked up the energy to go to the rescue station.
The phone rang, and it was VWife. “Well, now you’ll have to make me your priority. I’m in Suffolk, and I have a flat tire!” Her voice was dripping with anger and venom.
I put the dogs away, got the heavy tools out, and headed to her. Changed the tire quickly, and took the old one down the street to a tire shop to find out what was wrong with the flat, because I couldn’t see any punctures. Turned out that she hit a curb and cut the sidewall. That tire was toast. $113 later, we had a new one mounted and balanced.
I was fuming inside. Between the tire and the vet and crematory bills for Audrey the Pile of Hair, my money stash for the planned trip to Indiana was shot. We shifted gears, and headed to Wally*World to do groceries because it was close. I had planned on doing it Sunday because of the test.
While we were doing that, the shoe dropped. She said, “We can’t go to Indiana now. Between the unplanned money, and Eileen’s problems, we just can’t do it.” Eileen is a family friend where we usually stay when we go to Indianapolis. She’s having problems of her own and will have a full house.
So that was her problem. I thought she was being such an eeeevil bitch to me because it was her way of helping me clear my mind for my final. :rolleyes: She’s always been the type to take things out on me when she gets upset.
By the time we got home with the groceries, the day was shot. I decided to say screw it, what happens tomorrow happens. I went to bed early.
The written test was easy for me. I was done first, and did well. My logbook was examined, and it was deemed to be good. Two down, and two to go; I was visibly shaking.
First was the trauma exercise. It went to hell fast. I could not find out what was wrong with the patient, and missed some very basic things that I’d never miss in real life. Bungled the IV; bungled several other things. :smack: :mad:
Moved on to the medical exercise, and it was my worst nightmare. An 8 month old kid with trouble breathing. I correctly diagnosed anaphylaxis as a result of a penicillin allergy, but then I ODed the kid on epinephrine, and the baby arrested. I failed both exercises.
The instructor told me that I’d be able to retest before the state exam because of my written grade and logbook, but it wasn’t going to happen before the first of the year. You can imagine the anger and frustration. I’ve become a bit of an overachiever in my old age as a reflex to all the college classes I flunked back in the early 80s, and I was no longer used to failure.
When I got home, nap time. When I got up, I started in on the domestic chores. Late night, I shoveled out the woodburner because it was necessary, and there were some live embers.
Sunday morning, we went to breakfast, then started in on more chores. I decided that the chimney cleanout needed to be cleaned out, so I took the ash bucket out to the ditch along the road and dumped it. I didn’t see anything glowing. The chimney cleanout took two full buckets to get the job done.
I did a couple of other chores, took a BS ambulance call for a frequent flyer, and came home with designs on a short nap. Just after I laid down, VWife asked, “Why is the front of the house so smoky?” :eek:
“Look at the ditch. I dumped the ashes a bit ago…” Actually, about 2 hours.
“THE FRONT YARD IS ON FIRE!”
I ran out the back door and circled around front. Yup, an irregularly shaped area that would fit inside a 50’ X 50’ box was burning, but not violently.
“Do you want me to call 911?”
“No. I can get it with the hose.” I’ll be damned if I was going to subject myself to ridicule from my department over this. I had it out in under 5 minutes, and spent another 10 wetting everything down so it wouldn’t rekindle.
More inside housework, then I went to the fire station to borrow a ladder so I could put up Christmas decorations. That didn’t get done, because I spent my time taking down these hideous green shutters that I’ve wanted gone from Day 1. Her idea was to repaint them and put them back up. Fortunately for me, they were so sun damaged that 4 of the six fell apart and were unusable.
Og, I need to drink heavily. I love stress-free weekends that permit me to be a slug. This one sure as hell wasn’t one of those.
{{{{{{{{Soapy}}}}}}}}; your family remains in my thoughts and prayers.
