Sticky, I sympathize. I’ve just listened to a few CCRs who wouldn’t know good customer service if it bit them on the rear end.
Farmer’s Market. Strawberries. MMMMM.
**Taters **- it is disorienting when someone dies suddenly. You expect it when a person is sick or old or reckless, but when an accident or an undiagnosed condition jumps in, it throws things out of whack. I had a young sailor working for me eons ago when I was on active duty. Nice guy - active in Big Brothers - and he was in a traffic accident that killed him instantly. It’s so strange and so wrong…
My cleaning crew has gone and my house is clean. The rain continues at its gentle pace. I’m about to get the first load of laundry out of the dryer and get a third into the washer. Then it’s off to the post office, and maybe I’ll get myself some lunch, too. It’s hard to get motivated on a dreary day.
Oh yeah, and I’m going to try for more strawberries. 
I have the warm weather habit of going fishing on Sunday mornings, since it’s so far to go to church. I jokingly refer to it as ‘going to services’. This is the story of how it didn’t happen this weekend.
It must have been 3 or 4 AM Sunday; I didn’t check the alarm clock. World War III itself erupted outside, and I woke up because the rain was blowing in a window and hitting me 7 or 8 feet away. I muttered to myself that the storm should pass by the time I get up to go, shut the window, and went back to bed. About 20 (perceived) minutes later, the alarm went off at 6:30 AM and it was getting light out.
I finally got underway to the fishing hole around 7:30 after running a couple of errands, and had to detour because of a downed tree blocking the road. As I backtracked to go the other way, I passed the day crew leaving the Mayberry Warehouse for the Elderly and Chronically Ill Nursing Home with a run to a hospital that is quite the long haul. The way things usually start…
I got to the fishing hole, and sat 20 minutes in the car waiting out a squall. Finally the rain let up. I baited my hook, made the perfect cast next to the cypress stump, and got an immediate strike that I didn’t get set. I made another cast to almost the same spot.
duh DEE beep beep beep beep Attention Station 80, check in for traffic. Have a 21 year old female with heavy vaginal bleeding. She recently had a baby…
One of those “Oh, shit” pages. It could be nothing, or could be serious as all hell. Second crews are rough getting people to respond to, especially on the weekends, and the fishing hole is about 2 miles from the station. I sighed, unbaited my hook, and headed back to the car, resigning myself to not drowning any more worms that Sunday.
Buddies Sue and Eddie also responded, and went straight to the scene while I picked up the ambulance. We started the workup on the patient, and found out the baby was 6 weeks old. Hmmm. She has post-partum depression. Hmmm Hmmm. An STD. Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm. Doesn’t get along with her boyfriend; had been to the ER 3 times in the past 4 days, with a trip Friday night originally for Bugtussel but diverted because of a shooting. She was mad because she woke up in an ER different from the one she wanted to go to. Great; I’m missing out doing battle with a school of crappies for a nutcase… :rolleyes:
Well, she was bleeding, and quite heavily. We took her out to the ambulance, and started IVs and the usual vitals. There was a page for a third crew, for a guy close to the VunderLair, bleeding from his tracheostomy tube. :eek: :eek: :eek:
It’s hard enough to get a second crew, and now we needed a 3rd. The original crew with the nursing home run checked in as coming back to the county, and after a quick 3-way consultation between the crews and the dispatcher, I took Sue’s car from the nutty woman’s house, picked up the last ambulance so I’d have suction equipment, and headed to the new scene, and the day crew would follow to transport.
The patient was a guy who is permanently severely brain damaged after being mugged by a pair with a baseball bat. He had some nasty, bloody looking crap on a blotter sheet that came up, and his lungs were congested. I started to get vitals when the other crew showed up, thank goodness. I was sort of over my head, and the other crew knew the guy and his case.
Getting him onto the stretcher was a bit of a problem. He was a little guy in a big bed, and I got the side away from the stretcher. If I lifted and leaned, I’d probably hurt my back, so the solution was to hop onto the bed with him, grab sheets, and the other two would pull him onto the stretcher while I lifted. It worked quite well, and he was on his way to Bugtussel.
My two hour fishing window was up, and I faced a leisurely day of shampooing carpets once more, so I had to get home. I took the ambulance back to the station, made sure to leave the car keys where Sue and Eddie could find them, and left.
When I got home, I discovered I had lost my cell phone. :mad: There were not a lot of places I could have been to lose it in the wild, such as the fishing hole, because I used it a couple of times after the first page. Still it was annoying.
Sue and Eddie looked in their car, where I thought I left it. They also checked the two ambulances I was in that morning, and it wasn’t in either one. OK. I had to get the carpets done before I did anything else, so I did them. Around 4 PM I was finished, and went looking for my phone.
I started at the trach guy’s house. Nobody was home. I went to the station, looked in the units and my mailbox; no phone. While there, I found out through the grapevine that the trach guy has a lung infection and it’s probably staph; the crazy woman was indeed crazy, and I heard the other side of the story on her diversion Friday night.
The only place I hadn’t looked was at the crazy lady’s house, and the phone wasn’t there, either. I headed back to the VunderLair, and decided to try one more time at the trach guy’s place, in case someone was home. This time they were. I asked how he was doing, and his mom said he had a slight lung infection. I played along with her, but honey, if he’s horking up clots, it’s not ‘slight’. I explained I lost my phone that morning, and thinking back, I’d wager I lost it when I hopped up on the bed. She said I should come in, and sure enough, there it was, on the floor underneath. I was a happy EMT at that point.
All things considered, I’d rather be fishing. I also think it’s time for a new phone case that doesn’t jump off my belt so easily.
You guys make me jealous. I live in a desert and there isn’t much fresh produce here. We get citrus in the winter, but that’s about it. 
Yanno, Palo, you could always move to a more fertile region… 
Back with stamps and 2 quarts of strawberries picked this morning. I left my car parked outside so Mother Nature will wash some of the bird doo off it.
I’ve decided that a dreary, cool, rainy day calls for comfort food for lunch - boxed mac-n-cheese. And strawberries for dessert, right? Yeah, life is good…
Amen on supporting your local farmers. I used to garden but we have a local farmer’s market which is open three days a week for five months or so and I can save money, time and energy by buying from them.
My favorite part of farmer’s market is it’s carnival-like atmosphere and the chance to mingle with local people. All the growers are so proud of their produce and will gladly engage in conversation and education of their customers.
I noticed this week that someone mentioned a favorite summer’s meal and it was all fresh vegies. Love those summer meals!
I am so over this day. Now my mother is sick and I have to pick her up at work.
And now the bank has refused my grandmother’s check because it wasn’t written properly. So after I pick up my mom I have to get a new check and go back to the bank again. I am ready to start throwing things.
WonderfulBob, you have an interesting life. 
Ralfie has something to say:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12464702&postcount=235
(Posted in the OLD MMP thread). What can I say, I’m a helper. 
You is a helper, all right, Ivory! Thanks!!!
But Ralf don’t use no high-fallutin’ “ph” in his name. Just a plain and simple “f” for me, please.
And thanks again for the recipe, Taxi! Happy Monday, all!
I didn’t “ph” it… I “ie”'d it!
Fine.
Ralf.
No “ie”.
: pouts:
Oh oh - I think I just goobered my chance for a nickname here…:smack:
There, there, Ivory. You didn’t know. I think the “ie” is just swell! But if you keep pouting and sticking your lower lip out, your face will freeze like that.
Other than a huge headache from crying half the morning, I am better now. My mom is sleeping and I have been trying to sleep but have been awakened by people ordering 5 lunches for this week!
Ok world… listen up… stop bein’ mean to StickyBuns! There. That should take care of that!
Tonight is men’s night at the church. I have two nice ribeyes marinated and beerverages chilled. So, dindin is easy to make tonight.
That is all for now.
::zooommmmmm:::
Save me some strawberries!!!
::zooommmmmmmmm::
Strawberries won’t be in season here for months, but… the local farmer’s market opens tomorrow! I’m packing up the kids tomorrow morning and we’ll walk over. We have two within a short walk, and the one that opens tomorrow is the big one.
I like shopping at markets, roadside stands, and stuff. It’s more fun. I also sort of like the restrictions when you buy food locally-not so much standing around saying, “Do I make Thai mango salad with prunes and crab or Flemish roasted avocado-nut-casesar pizza?”
Nat’s quarterly hospital visit was today, and I’m grateful all over again for the amazing kids’ hospital we have, and that his doctors and nurses are so good.
Yeah, like the old Chinese curse…
Y’all will be pleased to know that I have reupped for another year. Actually if somebody hadn’t mentioned it in a PM to me I probably would have forgotten. I mean my charter member status would have expired on Thursday! :eek:
Well, my computer is set up again. My parents’ keep their house colder than I like so I’ll probably be running around in socks and long sleeves all summer. Graduation was Saturday. I got a bit sunburned on my face, but not real bad. Otherwise, I got nothing.