Sorry

I can only apologise to all my erm....fans, blog readers. I know I have not been bloging for a while but I have been busy with work and helping my boyfriend Kal get ready for his recruitment days, not that he really needed much help but a bit of guidance is always useful.

I will resume normal service in the near future!

Times 3

Isn't it strange that you can do days without using a piece of equipment and then suddenly you get a run of calls that need the same item each time, last night was like that, the first three calls of the evening were all lower limb trauma, all requiring pain relief (Entonox only)and stabilisation using a box splint. Now this may not seem too strange, but it meant that I spent most of the time at hospital trying to find replacements for the box splints (which at times proved interesting). Oh well only got two more shifts to go, wonder what it will be tonight?

Survival

Well there we go I managed to survive working with G, we were kept busy but nothing too challenging. The night was fueled with Alcohol and was propelled along with feelings from the old firm game that had taken place earlier in the day. We had our usual run of the mill assaults, interspersed with patients fitting in the street and patients who were basically PAFO (Pissed And Fallen Over). I think both G and myself are not the bad luck when it comes to eventful calls, but our colleagues who we sometimes work with during our 16 week shift pattern. I have also managed to survive being on call for the SOR Team (Special Operations Response) and have been paid on call money for basically sitting watching TV and drinking lots of tea, coffee and red cola!

Oh well I am on 4 nights this week so will keep you all updated with anything of interest, think I might arrange for an observer or two to come out with me!

He's gone and left me

Well for those of you who actually read this I have to let you know that Kal (my BF)has left me........... yes it finally happened on Thursday morning, but don't be too upset for me as he is only on holiday. I promised him that I would blog more to keep him up to date with what is happening whilst he is off eating chocolate and swigging buckets full of beer (and that is before breakfast I think!) Well unfortunately I have not done much to blog, therefore I can only appologise to him and you my readers as well. I will try and keep you informed if there is anything of interest over the next 48hrs (I am working tonight then on call for the Special Operations Response Team) so hopefully there will be something exciting!

Working with G

Well here we go, I am working with a colleague tonight who on the last two occassions I have worked with her we have been involved in some traumatic job or another, it always goes the same, I attend for the first period of the shift and she drives, we get the usual run of the mill calls, then when we swap over and she sits in the attendant seat all hell breaks loose. The last time we worked together we ended up with a car that had rolled whilst slowing from the reported 100mph (Police Traffic Sergent estimation) to 40mph to pass the speed camera and both occupants of the car were treated for potential spinal injuries and luckily walked out of hospital a few hours later.

Now tonight is the same shift that we worked (1800 - 0200hrs) and it is a full moon, so we will see what happens to us tonight.

Think I will drive first tonight!

The curse of the observer

Well I have been working the last two days at a different station and have had an observer out with us for both days (same person). Now any of you who know about observing will be bored with this bit, but for those of you who don't sit back and relax. Observing is when a third person rides along on the vehicle to gain either clinical experience or exposure in relation to pre hospital care. The observer we had with us had been out before on the RRU (Rapid Response Unit - single crewed Paramedic vehicle) but had limited experience on an AEU (Double crewed Accident and Emergency Unit Ambulance). Now observing shifts are one of two things, you are either sitting on stand by all day waiting on the phone/ radio to go or you are non stop with quality calls.

Well on the first day (I was attending = looking after the patients), we started our shift at 1500hrs and were due to finish at 0100hrs. We were dispatched to an urgent call (This means a Doctor has assessed the patient at home and allocated a timed response to get into hospital). En route to this call we were diverted to a Red call (Emergency response which has 8 minutes for us to get there), we arrived within 4 minutes of the call and treated the patient and transported him to hospital, and this is how it went for most of the evening, being sent to one call and getting diverted for a more serious call whilst en route. One of the more interesting calls was a call roll over in a busy city street, the car had struck two pedestrian's before ending up on its roof. When we turned up as the 3rd crew we were greeted with fire engines, police cars and two ambulances, our observer was amaizing (now she is a first aider so is used to dealing with patients, but not like these ones) my colleague and I would bark out our requests and she would go off and get what we needed. We eventually managed to get our first meal break at 2230hrs (supposed to have been at 1830hrs) We get our final call to the other end of the city at 2345 for a patient with difficulty in breathing, and are told that the RRU is also attending, when we arrive the RRU is as we were told in attendance and had stabilised the patient and we continued his treatment and transported him to the hospital.

The second shift started with much the same, check the vehicle, try and grab a coffee......no thought of kettle on = phone ringing, and off we go again lights and sirens going for a patient fitting on a bus, now I am driving today so the observer is sitting up front with me as my partner quite happily sits in the back so that the observer can get a full rounded experience of going to calls and seeing the traffic issues faced by responding crews. Once again our observer slotted in well and was back and forward fetching equipment and setting things up etc, we passed a standby (Requested a resus team be waiting in the Emergency Department) to the hospital and set of with the patient and mother in the vehicle, lights and sirens going again. The rest of the shift was uneventful, but fairly steady and we managed to get finished again on time......very unusual for a 1am finish.

So all I can say is that the curse of the observer may not always be the case!

A nice evening for a walk

Picture the scene it is a a lovely summer night, the weather is mild and the moon is out. I had bought some red bull and chocolate to have when I get back and suddenly "Doodle-oot" the radio springs into life and my partner and I are responding to a 999 call for a "21YOM with Chest Pains" now this sounds like a normalish type of call considering that it is 0130hrs and the pubs are clubs are closing, so we weave our way through the night traffic with lights flashing and arrive on scene within 5 minutes. Upon our arrival the radio starts ringing and my colleague answers it to be told the Dispatcher that the patient is actually walking along a path about 5 minutes away from the original location and is in the woods!!!! Yeah so now picture the scene, One high powered torch, Two Ambulance Technician's and a wooded area that is used for skateboarding etc. Now this place has lots and lots of tracks leading into the deeper undergrowth which my colleague and I searched, we decided that it would be easier to split up, so with maglite in hand off I went. I eventually found a pile of clothing folded in some bushes and relayed this to my colleague, now we were told by the Dispatcher that the patient had gone quiet on the phone, so we were now more concerned. We were eventually joined by two of L&B's finest who helped us search and eventually find the patient (who was actually fully clothed). I went back to the Ambulance to bring it closer to the patient, who by this stage was exhausted as he had been walking around and around the various paths and roads trying to get from the club to his home. Now we had the patient safely in the vehicle, he was anxious, hyperventilating and still c/o chest pains. We transported him to A&E and he was monitored en route by my colleague, upon our arrival we handed him over to the nursing staff and we thought that would be it, no that was not the case however. Now this 21YOM needed to pee, and he was quite vocal in this, but unfortunately the staff were concerned that he would collapse if he stood up and there were no male staff in the department..........Yes you guessed it, I was asked by one of the nurses if I could stay with him as he used a bottle, now I have changed from SMM Ambulance Technician to SMM Clinical Support Worker. So there we are just the two of us standing me trying to calm him down (still hyperventilating and worried about his chest pain) and my patient talking about how he doesn't think anyone is listening to him and how he really needs to go.......... After about 5 minutes he is more calm, but still not able to pee, a hand pops through the screens and flicks the tap on...... Still not able to pee he gives up and sits back on the bed, thanking me for my help as he plonks down. I walk out the cubicle smile at the nurse and she tells me the coffee and chocolate is on her next time. Oh well back to my red bull, which I am now drinking some 12 hours late!

Sorry

Well I have to apologise to my readers for not being a good blogger and keeping you up to date with things. I have been busy organising my 30th Birthday party, which went well (I think so anyway, but I was drinking pints of Smirnoff Ice by the end of the night). I would like to thank everyone who attended who reads this and for those of you who couldn't make it then you missed a good night.

I have not just been drinking all the time, I have been fairly busy studying for my BIG FINAL EXAMS, which were TODAY!!!!! I was nervous, worried, anxious etc etc about it and as someone said to me the other day "Don't worry it is only your career on the line!" Well as a result of the build up of nerves and anxiety I have been a bit of a shit to my friends and especially my b/f (Who I would like to just say "Sorry and Thank you so much") as I have been wrapped up a bit in my own little world.

Well the day arrived, I was on station at 0835hrs for a 0900hrs start, thinking I would have plenty time for a coffee and a final flick through my notes, but I got side tracked and at 0855hrs still hadn't finished my coffee and valium (only joking about the valium) and the Training Manager (Really Nice Man, but oh my God does he look scary on Finals Day!) was saying "shall we just start then?" Gulp! Ok. So it began, the first was a 30 minute multi choice paper, 10 minute break, then onto the two hour "short" written (god I would hate to see what a long written is like......two weeks??) exam of which I had to answer all sections. I was then given a further 10 minutes to get a coffee, go and cry, pee etc and back into the training room for practical assessments covering CPR, Defibrillation, Airway Management, then onto more scenario's from Child Birth to Drug Overdose to Diabetes to Seizures to finally questions regarding Paramedic airway management and drug protocols!!! I was told that I could then have a break for Lunch (by this stage now 1300hrs). After Lunch I was advised that we were going out for a driving assessment and further practical "real life" assessments if we get a call. We didn't get any calls, so I drove around my station area covering many road types and during this drive I was questioned about highway code, signals etc as well as some general discussion about Service development and personal development.

Final at 1600hrs I was told that I had passed and that the Training Manager had been confident that I would, based on the feedback that he had been receiving over the last few weeks.

So there we go, I am now a fully qualified Ambulance Technician who has been told to keep studying and make sure that I am ready for the Paramedic pre-entry exams next year!!


Yipee :)

Getting old..........So I kept getting told

Well it is true, I am getting old! I will soon be 30! yes I know that is not old, but over the last few days some people who I believe to be friends are constantly telling me that I will be an old man. SO I need YOUR help, what do you think I should do for my 30th Birthday?

Answers on a postcard to SMM (Old Bloke), PO BOX 30 (Over the hill), Ancient or send me a comment!

Alcohol......and people!

It is a common fact that alcohol makes people act in a strange manner, but for some it is so powerful that it can cause them to do things that they would never normally do. Now I am not here to go on and on about how alcohol is bad for you or how it has ruined society and corrupted the youth of today, instead I am going to tell you how it changes my other half into the wild Orcadian (No I don't mean in that way!!!!) I am now using this change as a good indicator for how drunk he is. You see it all started some time ago when I noticed that as he drank more, the more he would return to his orcadian accent, this was re-enforced on Saturday evening when we were both out for a drink with some of my old colleagues from the EMDC (Control), now we were only intending to have a couple of drinks and then get something to eat, now my bf and I arrived at the pub around 8pm and after consuming several pints at a steady pace interjected with good conversation and "banter" we decided to call it a night. So at 1130pm we grabbed a cab and stopped at the local Indian restaurant for some food, in the taxi ride down, the odd orcadian word was now starting to trip off his tongue, by the time we were in the second cab going to his place, he was in full flow orcadian all the way, I chuckled and pulled his leg about it and he had to agree that he was now feeling drunk (which he had previously denied). I am sure that he will now have an interesting story about some of my recent comments in relation to my forthcoming Birthday discussions and the discussions in relation to our parents.

Loneliness

It is strange that even although you are in a room full of people that you can feel totally alone, you can also feel like that when you are sitting working away on something and your phone beeps letting you know that you have a message and your heart then skips a beat thinking that you are hearing from a loved one, but instead it is only telling you that you have an email from some obscure sender trying to sell you something or other. I know that feeling well, the one where you think "Oh maybe it is....." but recently it has not been :(

I had a long chat with him the other night and cleared the air in regards to how I have been feeling recently. I do not think that we have finished talking, I have so much that I want to say, but at times I cannot articulate what is going on in my head into a normal conversation, it just seems to come out like "Blah blah blah, snort, cry snort, blahhhhh!" God I sound like I should be seeing a psychiatrist, but I am fine, just lots of feelings and emotions rushing around in my head because I have so much time on my hands at the minute. I will be fine once I am at work again and focused on helping others and not having to worry about me.

Emotions

Why is it that you are going about your daily routine and suddenly you are hit with a brick wall of emotion? Is it just me?

I have just returned from what can only be described as a scary, but pleasant weekend with my man and his family (when I say family I mean the 30 other people who helped celebrate his gran's 80th Birthday), now the weekend was going so well and I was just about coping with all the people and names etc. I now find myself a total wreck of emotion, I was sitting today crying on Arthur Seat (Large dormant volcano) and I don't know why, I have tried to figure it out, was it because I saw my man with his gran (both of mine are dead), was it the fact that I spent a whole weekend with my man and then last night had to leave him or is it something totally stupid, something from the past that is creaping back into my mind because I have time to sit and think?

You will probably be saying to yourself that this guy is nuts, maybe I am, maybe I should see my doctor or maybe I just need to sit down with someone and talk, when I say talk I mean them just sitting there with the kleenex and me spouting out my soul to them. Even now as I sit here typing this, trying to work out things in my head I can feel the emotions rushing around in my body, trying to find a way of escaping from me and I don't know if I want that or if I could cope with it...... It is a scary thought that I cannot be in control

British summertime

I like this time of year, it means that we are now officially into the start of the lighter evenings of summer, it is also a nice feeling to be sitting at work and suddenly seeing that you only now have 5 hours left to work because you have suddenly jumped an hour because at 1am this morning, it suddenly became 2am (well we had to move the clocks forward ourselves). I hate this when you are working day shift, as you loose an hour sleep, but on nights it is probably one of the best feelings you can have.

Life.....

It is amazing to think that someone who is clinically dead can have a pulse and be making breathing efforts some 30 minutes after they collapse, this happened to me last night. I was working with a paramedic and we had a call for a female who was unconscious and having difficulty breathing, as we sped along the country roads with lights flashing and sirens sounding we were updated by the EMDC (Control room) that the patient was now in cardiac arrest and CPR was ongoing. (Now any of you who have red my blog will know I have a kill to save rate of 100% kill so you can imagine what is going through my head) Upon our arrival we are met by the patient's brother who is relatively calm for the situation, we are shown into the house to see the patient's husband bouncing up and down on her chest and blowing air into her mouth whilst talking to someone on the phone in the EMDC to receive further guidance (Telephone CPR instructions is a standard protocol within the EMDC and all staff are trained to give these types of instructions out as and when required). We quickly take over and do our checks, Airway? Clear, Breathing? No, Circulation...? No, I take over at the head and secure her airway with an OP airway and start breathing for the patient using a bag and mask (anyone who has seen ER and Casualty will know what I mean) and doing chest compressions whilst my colleagues connects up our defib, the machine shows PEA so I continue doing CPR whilst my paramedic colleague gains IV (Intra Venous) access for a drug route. We give the woman 1mg of Epinephrine and swap places, my colleague then secures the patient's airway with an ET tube and continues to ventilate the patient whilst I do CPR, I listen to make sure that he has placed the tube in the correct place and I hear bilateral breath sounds and I get him to stop for a moment, he looks at me with that "Oh shit I have not got the tube in correct" face, but I tell him it is in and I can also hear a heart beat, we check for a pulse and yes it is true there is one to be felt. I get the brother to help me collect some more equipment from the vehicle and go back into the house, we get the patient onto our stretcher, secure her and make sure the ET tube is well secured and begin our tricky exit (up a flight of stairs, along a dark path, up another steep hill incline to avoid the second set of tight steps and then into the Ambulance) all whilst breathing for the patient. Once we have her in the vehicle, we check the ET tube again to make sure it has not dislodged and prepare for moving off. The patient's husband and daughter are in the back of the vehicle with my colleague and I request the A&E department resuscitation team be standing by to accept the patient. We arrive and the family are shown the door to A&E for public, my colleague and I take the patient into the Resuscitation room where we are met by the team (2 Doctors, 1 Operating Department Practitioner , 2 Nurses and 1 Senior Nurse) who accept the patient into their care and take our handover. My colleague and I then return to our vehicle and start the task of clearing up and completing all the necessary paperwork. Once this is done we return to the station for our meal break and celebrate with Pepsi and chocolate bars (imagining them to be alcohol and expensive take aways!!!) We checked on the patient some 10 hours later and found out that she had been transferred to the ITU and was still making some efforts to breathe on her own.....

Death Nil Scotsmedicman and paramedic partner 1

British Justice

Well I was supposed to be attending a court case today as a witness (a guy tried to assault me and a colleague whilst we were dealing with a pregnant female in December), so as per normal instructions, I called the court to see if I was still required to attend, fully expecting them to say that I was......to my delight I was told by the nice lady on the phone that I am not required as the person had pleaded guilty on Friday YIPEE!!!!!! now you may wonder why I am happy about this, but I was totally terrified about going to court, I don't really know why, but my b/f was very supportive and gave me lots of good advice last night when he could have just told me to relax. Oh well I suppose I had better get ready for some real work now!

Snow

I woke at 4:30am this morning and looked out the window, it was damp outside, but clear, I thought to myself I have another hour in bed before I need to get ready for work. I got back up at 5:30am and got shaved, showered and dressed thinking to myself it would be a 5 minute drive to work at this time of the day.......Oh was I wrong!!!

I opened the door to be confronted by the blizzard which was blowing outside, the same blizzard that had covered my car with about 1/4 of a tonne of snow!!!

Now don't get me wrong, I like snow, I like walking in snow, I like the look of snow on the hills, but I bloody hate snow on roads that have not seen a gritter for days! It makes everyone drive like a blood idiot as well. The first job of the morning was a 30 yes 30 car accident on the M8, we (my colleague and I) were stood down as we were not required, but having arrived back on station and checked the vehicle we were taking for the day (we had taken a spare as our vehicle was not back for our start of shift) we were sent out to an emergency for a 72 year old female who had chest pains, now she lived about 7 minutes away from the station in normal driving conditions, but it took us nearly 25 minutes to get to her because the other drivers on the road did not understand that we could not magically orb past them and that they would have to give us some space in the snow bound roads.

Oh it is amazing how a bit of snow can cause so much chaos to the central belt of Scotland.

Valentine's Day

Well I unfortunately had to work on Valentine's day so I was not able to shower my man with the love and affection that he deserves. I will probably not get a chance to see him until later in the week, so I want to say publicly........

Kal,I LOVE YOU and you mean the world to me and I am so lucky to have you as a friend and lover.

XXXXX

The wonder of narcan!

Whilst working over the weekend I managed to see narcan being used after an overdose. I have dealt with two patients who have taken heroin and both been very close to the big white gates, however, my paramedic colleagues were able to administer the necessary dose of narcan and reverse the OD quickly. I even managed to avoid being vomited on (unlike my colleague who was standing in front of the patient at the time)

British workmen

Well it is getting close to that time when the gas man is coming to service the cooker, he is arriving on Friday, yes at last, we have only been waiting for 5 weeks with no oven......It may not sound that bad, but when you have a flat mate who bakes the most amaizing cakes in the world, then it is a "TRAGEDY" I am forever hopeful that the engineer (used in loose terms) will arrive on time and fix the cooker without too much hassle. He did arrive last week and after the usual sucking in deeply of breath, said that the cooker was older than he assumed and would not be able to fix it and would need a part, now how difficult is it to fix a cooker that was bought less than 1 year ago?????

Daytime TV

Ok I have noticed that daytime TV, regardless of how many channels you have, is on the whole full of adverts for "Had an Accident that wasn't your fault.......Let's sue someone!" or "You have been really stupid with your credit cards, let us give you a loan for the next 50 years so that you can pay off you cards now!". Some of the programmes that are on as well are repeats of repeats, yes there are some which are classics, but on the whole I have decided that the TV producers must know that they have the captive audience of single mothers, the unemployed and elderly sitting at home all day so why should they bother with trying to create new programmes for anyone when there is a whole abundance of re-runs available to them!!!