A day at work

I rarely talk about work in a blog. In fact, I think I only have once before. But, I'll tell you about some of my day yesterday without giving out information that would violate any one's privacy.

My partner, Dana, and I had to take a call as soon as our shift started at 8 a.m. As luck would have it, I arrived to work about 10 minutes early and was able to eat my breakfast before time to clock in. Why didn't I eat at home? Because I am not a morning person, and I hit the snooze button just enough times to get up, get ready, and go out the door.

So, we headed to another city to pick up a patient at a hospital to go to another facility for a treatment. When we arrived at the hospital, we were informed that another ambulance service had already taken that patient. It seems that they set up transport with both ambulance services. That's okay, the hospital has to pay for us responding there.

Then we got a call to take a patient from an assisted living facility to a psychiatric hospital 30 minutes away. We were told that the patient was combative and hitting people. We arrived only to be told that the hospital didn't have a room for her. They called the psychiatric units of two other hospitals and were told that they didn't have any beds available. So, I told the nurse to call the emergency room of our local hospital and just tell them we were bringing her in. I said that if they felt she needed to be admitted they would find a psych unit that would take her. She called and told them that we would be bringing a patient in and they said, "okay".

Finally, we are led to the patient. She was a tiny, 92 year old lady with advanced Alzheimer's Disease. She had been attacking other residents and staff that day. We approached her and did our best to make friends with her. She informed us that if we touched her she would beat the @#$& out of us. She repeatedly told us that.

I talked to my partner and told her that I didn't want to wrestle this poor old lady, and Dana agreed. So, I told the nurse they needed to call the police and get a Temporary Detaining Order (TDO) for this woman. We were still there when an officer arrived a few minutes later. His dispatcher thought they had already gotten a TDO, which they hadn't. He told me that he couldn't do anything without one.

The officer decided to talk to her. He went into her room to talk with her. All was quiet for a few minutes, then we heard her yelling. It was the type of yell you hear in the movies when someone is charging towards someone to attack them. Her bedroom door opened and the police officer was backing out while she was throwing small furniture and anything she could get her hands on at him. Then she started hitting and kicking him.

I thought he would tell her she was under arrest for assault, handcuff her, and then we could put her on our stretcher. But, no! I knew we couldn't leave her there to harm any of the other elderly people, so I told Dana, "Let's just do it!" The officer told us he couldn't help since he didn't have a TDO. So I got behind her and picked her up from under the shoulders while Dana got her legs. Now that I think about it, I should have given her a big bear hug that would have pinned her arms down, but I didn't, and she started hitting me. So, the officer did hold her hands while we got her onto the stretcher. We seat belted her in with three sets of seat belts and headed to the ambulance.

She got her arms and legs out of the seat belts (of course) and was fighting all the way to our unit. Once we got to our ambulance, I got a bunch of cravats (that we usually use to make slings) and we restrained her arms and legs with them. I really wasn't afraid of her hurting us, I was afraid of her hurting herself.

We rolled her into the E.R. and were assigned a room to take her to. In the mean time, she was telling everyone how we raped (that's not the term she used, I cleaned it up) her all the way to the hospital.

A couple of firefighters asked us if we wanted help moving her to the hospital bed. We told them that we did and what to expect. There were six of us in the room getting ready to move her when a nurse walked in the room acting cocky. She gave the impression that she just knew that everything was going to be okay since she was there now. She wagged her finger at the patient and told her that she needed to stop cussing and she needed to behave. Then she told us to untie her. We had to anyway to move her from our stretcher to their bed. So, we did, and she hands and feet had to be held while we moved her.

Then that nurse said to just leave her without restraining her. The next thing we all knew, that same nurse got kicked in the face by the patient (and she had been standing at the patients head)! That lady brought her leg all the way back to kick her. So, said nurse ran off to get an icepack. Last I heard, she had a possible broken nose.

The patient had kicked me in the face and hit me while we were loading her onto our stretcher, but there was no power to the hits I took. I didn't get hurt at all.

I hope the doctors can regulate this woman's medications. I think that Alzheimer's is one of the saddest diseases.

So, now Dana and I are ready for lunch. But, we have to go to another nursing home to pick up a man with abdominal pain and a fever. We figured this call wouldn't take long. We got a report, loaded him up, and put him in the ambulance. This patient also had advanced Alzheimer's and couldn't talk. But, you could tell he was in pain when you touched his abdomen. I told Dana to start heading to the hospital and I would get his vitals.

Well, he fought getting his blood pressure taken. When I finally got the cuff on his arm, I couldn't get his BP because he was moving/flexing his muscles too much. I couldn't get a pulse because of the same reason. So, I slipped a probe on one of his fingers to see what his pulse rate was. It was 177! Twice what it should be. So, I started him on oxygen, put him on a heart monitor (yep, heart rate in the 170s), and set up an IV. After we parked at the hospital, my partner held his arm so I could get the IV and then we took him inside.

I forgot to mention that the patient had a feeding tube that he had pulled out twice the day before. The nursing home staff put it back in both times. Apparently whoever did it, out it back in wrong. I suspect the patient had peritonitis (which would require surgery).

Dana and I were both sick with mild colds, so by the time we finished that call, we just wanted to rest during lunch. That was a bad idea. I got about an hour nap in, then the dispatcher told us we needed to go to a local drag strip where our other unit had a medical emergency going on. Race tracks have to have an ambulance on scene in order to race cars or other vehicles.

So, we headed to the track to stay there while our other crew took care of their patient. When we were half-way there, our dispatcher told us that a medical helicopter was on scene and they were going to fly the patient out unless the patient went into cardiac arrest. In that case, the ambulance would take them to the nearest hospital.

We arrived at the track and the helicopter was parked not far from where we were stationed. Racing resumed, and a few minutes later the other ambulance, with the flight crew, rolled up and put the patient on the helicopter.

I never get tired of watching helicopters (or planes for that matter) take off. After they left, my boss asked me and my partner to stick around. They were racing all motorcycles that day and some of them go over 220 MPH. He wanted us there in case there was a wreck.

I didn't mind staying, but by that time, I was regretting skipping lunch. We stayed there until after 6 p.m. There were no wrecks and no more medical emergencies. I had to go to a local hospital to change out some equipment, and finally we got to eat dinner around 7 p.m.

We went out for a sit-down dinner at an Italian restaurant then headed back to our building.

We were just getting settled in when our dispatcher told us that we had a call. It was for a woman at a psychiatric hospital who needed to go to the local hospital for an injury (self-inflicted). The dispatcher told us that she was a TDO. In other words, she was sent to the mental hospital by order of a magistrate. She was a flight risk. She was combative and she weighed 300 lbs. I told the dispatcher, "We just got beat up by a 92 year old woman today, I don't want to be beat up by a 300 lb. woman!" She said, "Well, the police are going to meet you there." Gee, that made me feel better.

I told Dana that if that lady even looked at us wrong that we weren't going to take her. I wasn't going to put myself in danger.

We arrived at the scene and two police officers were waiting outside with a nurse. She told us what was going on and we went inside. The officers approached the patient first and she was calm. So, we went and introduced ourselves and told her we were taking her to the hospital. She said that it was okay and she walked to our stretcher. We loaded her onto the ambulance and the police followed us to the hospital. Luckily, she did not give us any problems.

We made it back to the building and were blessed with a good night's sleep. This was great since we were both sick.

So, that was my Saturday.

The Noodle Soup Place

Morgan came to me near lunch time and told me she wanted to go to "the noodle soup place". That is what she calls Panera Bread. Whenever we go there, she only eats their chicken noodle soup in a bread bowl. We hadn't been there in a couple of months or so; so I told her we would go.


It was lightly raining, but the temperature was so nice today. We finally had a day in the 70's. We have had a hot and humid summer, as always.

We stopped by the bank where Morgan happily accepted a green sucker from the teller. She has come to expect a sucker when we go through the drive-thru at the bank. The other day, we went to the drive-thru at Rite Aid and she wondered if she would get a sucker there too. But, they only had dog biscuits at the window.

We drove to Panera Bread and was greeted inside by a greeter in a wheelchair (with Cerebral Palsy). He had a computer that spoke to us and welcomed us there. They have never had a greeter before and I thought it was nice that they hired him. A little while later I spotted a newspaper article on their bulletin board that had been done on him. He was the victim of shaken baby syndrome (SBS). His father had shaken him when he was a baby. So, now he has CP and other medical problems as a result. I have seen the results of SBS before and it sickens me every time to think of a poor baby being shaken like that.

Morgan was excited to see that they had a fire going in the fireplace. This was the first time this summer that they had one going. So, we sat by the fireplace for a few minutes to enjoy it. Then we ordered her chicken noodle soup and my tomato soup. We sat at a small table near the fireplace and had a nice lunch. Morgan was people watching and would inform me of what people were eating.


Afterwards, we went outside where I noticed a flock of geese trying to cross a road in the busy mall traffic. We stood on the patio and watched the geese and rooted them on. One car came flying down the wet road (in a 20 MPH zone) and I was afraid they wouldn't stop in time. But, they did, and the geese all finally made it across the road.

As we were heading to the car, Morgan wanted to jump in the water puddles. There were no cars coming, so we jumped and splashed around the biggest water puddles we could find. We finally made it into the car, got buckled in, then I drove across the street where the geese were.

We got out of the car, opened the bag of chips, and started throwing them to the geese. They happily ate them. Although one goose kept hissing at us. A man at the Sam's Club gas station (25 feet away) told me we could take the geese with us. We gave them all of the chips and went home. Morgan got a kick out of feeding them.

A couple of hours after we got home, I asked Morgan if she wanted to go to Sandy's house with me. She did, of course. We put our shoes on, kissed Jim goodbye, and headed outside. The dogs went outside when we did. They were all excited, until they found out they weren't going anywhere!

We stopped to look at the Gerber Daisys and roses in my flower bed that were blooming.

(I have no idea what she is getting into here.)

Then we watched the dogs wrestle a little bit before we headed out the gate.

Finally, we went to Sandy's house. She is my best friend and only lives two blocks away!

While Sandy and I visited, Morgan played with her dog, Jordan.

After playing with Jordan for a while, and playing with stickers that Sandy gave her, Morgan decided to spin around in circles. She made herself very dizzy!

Uncle Ken, Did you notice she is wearing her Cape Henry shirt?

Then she got onto Sandy's exercise machine (with permission). She is very good at working that machine.

I had asked her to smile in the picture above.

Sandy had told her to make an ugly face here.

We were at Sandy's a couple of hours or so before we headed home. We had a full evening of blowing bubbles, playing with the dogs, Morgan taking a bath, and playing catch before she went to bed.

We were talking to to God when she tattled on me. Morgan said, "God, Mommy spanked me!" I told Him yes I did and asked that He give me more patience. But, she didn't tell God that she had hit me first! She got upset when I told her it was bedtime. She hadn't had a nap today and she can get quite feisty when she is tired. She hit me on the arm when I went to turn off the t.v. and I gave her a light swat on the butt that only hurt her feelings.

Lazy day

I got off work this morning and the first thing that I saw was that Jim had not finished mowing the lawn yesterday. He had started, but Morgan wanted him to help her build sandcastles. She didn't want to do it all alone. So, they played, then they went and ran several errands. Jim took her to the "Daddy stores". That is what she calls Home Depot and Lowes.

The two pictures below are of the first time she made sandcastles (Aug. 23, 2008). I tried to find some molds at the store, but couldn't find any. So, we used paper cups and other kitchen items. No, she wasn't posing for that top picture. I just caught her when she went to lean on her elbow.

I had asked Morgan's Godmother if she could keep Morgan at her house today so I could sleep. So, I decided to surprise Jim and I finished mowing the lawn. Of course, I had to play fetch with the dogs while I was outside.

Finally, I went inside, took a shower, and went to bed. I slept until 5 p.m.! When I got up, Jim asked if I wanted to go out to dinner. We rarely get to go out alone anymore, so I jumped at the chance!

We went to a Lone Star Steakhouse. I absolutely love their prime rib. Unfortunately, they don't have prime ribs on Mondays. So, I had to settle for a sirloin. But, all of our food was very good.

We had a waiter, Ethan, who was always there when we needed him. It was only his second day there, but he did a great job.

Jim and I had a very nice dinner and conversation. It was so nice to go out with my sweetie. Too bad we didn't have time to go to a movie as well.

When we got home, Morgan and Susanne were there. Morgan came to me and told me she loved me. Then she said, "Mommy, you came home! I was waiting for you. I am so happy now." Awww, that was sweet. I told her that I was happy, too.

Susanne is so good to us. She is almost always available to watch Morgan when I ask. I really appreciate her and am thankful that we have her for a friend. We brought her home a steak dinner. The waiter messed up and wrote down a Delmonico steak for her, instead of sirloin, so she had an even better cut of steak than we did! She deserves it though.

Morgan and I played catch for a while (with a small basketball). She is really good at catching and throwing now. Then she went to bed.

It was a nice day.

Fun out and about

I felt really bad about not taking Morgan outside today, but it was so humid outside and we have mosquitos galore.

Morgan had already painted several masterpieces. That's enough to wear anyone out, but she is like the Energizer bunny.


She told me that the painting (below) was of our Golden Retriever, Dee Dee. It sure looks like a dog to me!


After she was done painting, she played with a lot of her toys, watched a couple of her Baby Einstein DVDs (that she hadn't looked at in a while), and she "read" her encyclopedia of animals.

After all of that, I could tell she was getting cabin fever.

I mentioned going to the grocery store and she came up to me and said, "Mommy, you want to go with me to the grocery store?" She always mixes that up, instead of asking if she could go with me! I told her she could go with me, but didn't tell her what else I had in mind.

I drove past Food Lion and into Burger King's parking lot. I hadn't taken her there before. I knew they had the indoor playground, and that I could get her into BK without seeing it. So, we went and ordered our food and ate. I wouldn't have been able to get her to eat if she knew there was a playground there!

After we were done eating, she was expecting to go to Food Lion. But, I opened the magical door that led to the playground instead. She was oohing and aahing and asked if she could play. I told her that she could.

She has only been to such a playground once before. That was at a McDonald's and it was a year ago. When I took her to that one last year, she was the only kid there and I went on it with her.

So, today she said, "Come on Mommy! Come in here!" I told her that Mommys and Daddys could not go on it, that we might break it. I said, "You can do it!" I saw that there was a sign that said children must be 4 - 10 years of age. She is 3 1/2. (oops) I just couldn't tell her that she couldn't play there after all.

As luck would have it, there were four girls and one boy playing there. They took Morgan under their wings. They helped boost her up when something was too high (in her mind) for her to climb on. She had a blast! She climbed and slid for almost an hour. I was so thankful that those children helped her. We both thanked them. One girl gave Morgan a big hug when she was leaving.

I thought I would have a hard time getting her to leave, but since the other kids left, and she still felt like she couldn't climb it on her own, she readily left. I wish I had brought my camera with me.

The Richmond Metro Zoo

This summer, we took Morgan to the Metro Richmond Zoo twice. It was the first time any of us had been there.

The zoo is different from others because it started out as a family farm. Jim Andelin grew up around animals and wanted to teach his children about them. He started off with a few strange exotic ducks and deer. Then they got a monkey. Then a kangaroo. When one of Mr. Andelin's sons mentioned his pet monkey to a teacher, the teacher didn't believe him. So he brought the monkey to class after getting approval from school officials. Then his class visited their farm. Soon more schools got wind of the family's exotic collection and went out to visit.

They started doing educational programs for local schools. After about eight years of this, they decided to expand since the demand was so great. They got some insurance, put in some bathrooms, and started charging admission. The family was awarded permanent zoning as a zoo after some zoning battles.

The zoo is home to one of the largest primate collections in North America. They have success breeding primates that other zoos have problems breeding. The reasoning is that this zoo caters to the animals, not the visitors. So, the animals live in conditions like they would in the wild, not in air conditioned areas where the humans would be more comfortable. They have about 600 animals now.

These guys walked away before I could get directly in front of them to take a picture.

The family still runs the zoo, which is paid for with admission prices and sales from their gift shop.

I was very excited about visiting this zoo because there are quite a few animals that visitors can feed. I was looking forward to feeding the giraffes and watching Morgan feed them as well. We were not disappointed!

The first time we went, we arrived as school bus loads of children were leaving the zoo. I imagine that many of them fed the animals while they were there. But, the giraffes were still hungry enough to come up to us to eat from our hands. Morgan didn't want to feed them by hand, so she held out her cup of feed for them. She wasn't afraid to do that. She didn't want to leave the giraffes. While we were looking at other animals, she kept asking to go back to them, so we did.


The second time we went to the zoo, the giraffes were nowhere near the bridge where one can feed them. So, we explored the rest of the zoo and came back later. When we came back, there was quite a crowd there feeding the giraffes. This time, Morgan was feeding them by hand. She had grown braver. Whenever a giraffe turned it's attention to another child, Morgan would say, "Hey! Those are my giraffes! You can't feed them!" I explained to her that everyone there wanted to feed the giraffes and that we all had to take turns. She wasn't too happy about that.You can see in the picture above, that she also wasn't happy about leaving them! We left the giraffes and took her to where she could feed a young zebra, donkeys, a calf, camels, goats, and sheep. One of the donkeys kept following her along the fence-line wanting her to feed it more.

I loved seeing the tigers and bears up close! I especially loved watching the white tiger. We were just feet away from them with glass walls between us. We got to see a couple of the bears wrestling. They were just playing around. Morgan enjoyed seeing that.

There was a beautiful snow leopard at the zoo, but it was lying down with its back to us, so I couldn't get a good picture of it. We didn't notice it on our first trip to the zoo.

Peacocks and roosters wandered freely around the zoo. We sat down to eat some ice cream and peacocks were walking right past us.

The only animals we couldn't see up close were the lions. They were lying under trees in the distance. The heat index was 110 degrees Fahrenheit the first time we went to the zoo and it was almost 90 degrees the 2nd time. So, the lions and many other animals were just laying around trying to keep from getting too hot.

Of course Morgan just had to ride the kiddie rides. She told me she wanted to ride the zebra on the carousel, luckily it did not have a rider on it, so she got her wish. I wish I had caught her smiling in the picture, she really did have fun on the ride!


Morgan and I rode the sky lift on our 2nd visit to the zoo. It was about a 15 minute ride over the zoo. Morgan and I both loved the ride. We rode right over white rhinoceroses, zebras, monkeys, antelope, and much more.

I am sure there will be many more trips to this zoo in our future. I also want to take her to the D.C. Zoo and the Baltimore Aquarium one day. But, I think the next time we go, we'll make sure it's about 70 degrees, instead of 100!

Mom's home!

A few days ago, my Dad took my Mom to a her doctor's for a routine appointment and blood work. They went home and received a call that she would have to come back the next day for blood work. Her potassium level was high. So, she went back the next day, got more blood drawn, and went home. They received another call later to take her into the E.R.

Dad took Mom to Womack on Monday. Her potassium level was over 8 mEq/L (3.5-5.0 mEq/L is the normal range). She was in acute renal failure and was admitted to the hospital. The kidneys normally remove excess potassium from the body, but hers weren't functioning properly.

They did get her potassium level down to 4.6 mEq/L while she was in the E.R

It was late when she was admitted, so we (my siblings and I) didn't find out until Tuesday. They kept her in the hospital a couple of days to make sure that all of her medicines were functioning well with her kidneys. She had a CT Scan as well as lots of blood work. Yesterday morning, they told her that they were going to take her Foley catheter out and that she could go home as soon as she urinated.

Well, she drank and drank so much water that she ended up throwing up. But, she could not urinate. So, they put the Foley catheter back in and sent her home. Daddy had already been trained in the care of a Foley and how to remove and replace them. They already had the equipment at home.

The last time she was in the hospital (a month or two ago), she had a very bad UTI and was septic. She was sent home with a catheter then; but after she healed up, they were able to remove it.

Anyway, Mom is back home and very happy to be home. She sounded good when I talked to her.

Aloha!

In March, Morgan's Uncle Ken went to Hawaii (lucky devil). He brought back two Hawaiian dresses for Morgan and is demanding to see pictures of her wearing them! So, I will oblige.

She wore the blue dress to a Hawaiian luau that Sandy, I, and our luncheon friends threw for our family and friends. The luau was a huge success. We will definately do it again next summer. Morgan had a great time blowing bubbles with her friend, Autumn, at the fish in Sandy's pond. Morgan was watching Autumn (who is two years older) and was copying her all day. When Autumn laughed, she laughed. If Autumn squatted down, Morgan did, etc. It was cute! Luckily, Morgan didn't follow Autumn into the fish pond when she fell in!

The trick was getting Morgan to wear the dresses. She had decided that she didn't like dresses, so when we told her that they were "long shirts", she was all for wearing them!