Spring Thaw?

Interesting. It is winter in New England, but you wouldn't necessarily know it. It isn't cold, but it isn't warm, either - about 42-43 degrees Farenheit. Raining. The rain probably explains why I don't feel especially well. Mild sore throat and a little bit achy. I'm hoping that the concoction of over-the-counter medication I took earlier does its job. The sooner the better; I have to work tonight.

Yesterday should have been the first day of classes for me in PA school. I've been a bit sad because of not being able to go. While I'm hopeful that I'll be able to go next year I'm not terribly certain about it happening. Mainly because I haven't been able to re-apply due to lack of funds for application fees. I'm going to try to get it done by the end of this week, however, and I hope I didn't wait too long. But all I can do is wait and see what happens. If I don't get in to next year's class, then what? The honest answer is that I don't know what I will do. I have to think about it. And thinking about that uncertainty bothers me.

I am working tonight. Goffstown both tonight and Thursday for each overnight. And I volunteered to do a transfer tomorrow in town - a discharge out of one of our local nursing homes to a residence in town. Unless there is something funky about it there shouldn't be a lot of hassle with it; it should be straight-forward. Most discharges are; the only time they aren't is if the patient has some sort of chronic medical problem that complicates lifting and moving. Or if the patient is morbidly obese. Then it will require more than just the two of us that are assigned to do the call. Since I don't know what's going to happen, I'll just wait and see. At least the other person who picked up the transfer is a good, solid EMT. It should be okay.

Yesterday I worked with a Paramedic that I know but had never worked with before. Good man. Solid Paramedic. We only did two calls, but I was extremely impressed with what we did and what I saw. First one was a chest pain call coming out of a medical practice that is on the hospital property. A relatively young man - early 40s - but a number of health-related problems. And it could have gone either way, in terms of whether or not the complaint was legitimate. While more often than not the complaint or nature of illness is indeed real, sometimes that isn't the case. Kind of interesting; his ECG was abnormal and he had some associated symptoms, but something wasn't right about his presentation. I can't quite put my finger on it. But in any case, it doesn't matter; any patient with that sort of complaint needs to be treated as though it is legitimate. It has to be that way, mainly because if the patient is not treated properly and there really is a problem or something goes wrong, the results could be disasterous. And nobody wants that.

The second patient came out of an area nursing home. An 87 year-old male wth a lot of complicating medical problems. The original dispatch was for difficulty swallowing, but when we arrived it turned out that the issue wasn't so much the problems with swallowing (that ended up being secondary) as that he was having difficulty breathing. The reason for that was because he was in the beginning of an episode of congestive heart failure. Wet lungs. Low oxygen levels. Oddly enough, no hypertension. Plus he was able to speak in full sentences. Regardless, he needed help. And the facility originally wanted to wait until this morning to send him out. That would have been a mistake; if they had waited he would have been in fully-blown failure, and the problems associated with that can ultimately be fatal. We weren't having any of that.

Tonight working in town hould be interesting. With the wet weather conditions, visibility could be limited. I'm not convinced that there won't be mishaps with cars on the local roads. But we'll see how it goes. Plus there is a training class tonight that I would like to attend. Getting my partner to go could be an interesting adventure. But we'll see what happens.