I figured out how to handle my issues with Firefighters.<\/p>\n
It came to me when we were called to assist a BLS Fire Department ambulance.\u00a0 The patient was an elderly man with a fever, who had been in rehab for an infection. He was absolutely stable, but needed a ride to the ER for some blood work and maybe a new antibiotic.<\/p>\n
As the obvious rookie Firefighter-EMT gave me a hurried and breathless report on the patient\u2019s condition, I noticed something in his expression.<\/p>\n
Eyes wide, leaning forward, muscles tensed, mouth slightly open.<\/p>\n
The expression that anyone who has ever played with a lab knows. Behind those eyes, the racing thought was Throwtheballthrowtheballthrowtheball.<\/i><\/p>\n
Firefighter; “Yeah, he \u2018s complaining of chills and shakes.\u201d Throwtheballthrowtheball<\/i><\/p>\n
Paracynic: \u201cOk. Is he oriented?\u2019<\/p>\n
FF (blinks): “Ummm…yeah. History of diabetes.” Throwtheballthrowtheballthrowtheball<\/i><\/p>\n
PC : “But he\u2019s oriented?”<\/p>\n
FF: “Uh-huh.” Throwtheballthrowtheballthrowtheball<\/i><\/p>\n
PC: “You check his vitals?”<\/p>\n
FF: *pause* “Yeah. Pulse is 92 and bounding.” (only Firefighters use \u201cthready\u201d or \u201cbounding\u201d like this) “I couldn\u2019t hear his systolic BP, but his diastolic is 52.” BALLBALLBALL! <\/i><\/p>\n
PC: “Ok. You could palpate a pulse, so his systolic is decent, and his diastolic is decent and he\u2019s oriented. He\u2019s already being treated for infection. It sounds like he just needs a ride to the ER. You comfortable taking him?”<\/p>\n
FF; *silence*\u00a0 OMGBALL!!!!!!!!!!!<\/i><\/p>\n
PC: “…Y\u2019know what? Why don\u2019t I start an IV line and ride this in with you?”<\/p>\n
FF: *nodding hyperactively* WOOT! BALLBALLBALL!<\/i><\/p>\n
Now that I\u2019ve reframed the way I look at it, I\u2019m ok. It\u2019s really quite liberating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I figured out how to handle my issues with Firefighters. It came to me when we were called to assist a BLS Fire Department ambulance.\u00a0 The patient was an elderly man with a fever, who had been in rehab for an infection. He was absolutely stable, but needed a ride to the ER for some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americas-heroes","category-ems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}