Broomstick

It was a very light day today... its still considered a holiday by a lot of the Doctors' offices and labs, etc so.. while we didnt do a whole heck of a lot.. it makes the day drag. Got called out for a pnemonia patient to go back to the nursing home. Now I have some very solid opinions about nursing homes, I wish I had a bigger soap box but its one of those institutions in our society that lacks so much consideration and administration because no one cares enough for our parents but they sure do care enough about the almighty dollar. Now, I have seen some nice nursing homes. They are VERY few and far between, but when you do see them... you see a markedly different patient profile. The all to often under-certified, under-paid, under-staffed nursing home with patients who are given the bare minimum care is the norm. I have to say it is the saddest part of what I see.
I love old folks. I love the cranky ones, I love the sweet ones, I love the perverted ones who still have that spark of life in their eye. Reminds me of my great-gram. That woman walked at least a mile every day up until she was 97. She danced twice a week til she was 98, and drove her own car around (and did it well) until she was 95. When my ex-husband and I moved to FL to take care of her... as we were tucking her in for the night and getting her settled, she used to grab his arm and tell him to go make love to his wife. Ha! She was a hoot! Its usually the cranky ones who are just so bored with life and so frustrated with all the good-intentioned people of their world that have taken away their indepenedence. That is one of my "personal" rules... I try to give my patients every ounce of independence they want. All to often we hurry our senior citizens to either move to the cot, or sign paperwork, or whatever. These are smart, talented people who were living life just like we are now... but age or diease or bad luck has dealt them a hand that no longer permits them to live unaided. And to top it all off... they often get stuck in a foul-smelling room with no visitors and here we come... I will leave this blank for you to fill in how the medical community in general treats these patients. I am not saying all or even most EMT's and medics are calloused... but it does happen and it just plain shouldn't.
So what to do about this issue that infuriates me and saddens me.... I do what I can to affect the people around me in hopes that it will have a ripple effect.

Back to the patients I had today and how this tirade got started. Our first patient of the day was in the hospital for pneumonia and was in the hospital for 2 weeks (over Christmas and New Years) and we were transporting back to the nursing home. She cried most of the way to the nursing home... because she missed it. It was her home, and they were good to her. It truly made my day.. knowing that when we left her there, she was happy. She was home.

The other calls were for a routine transport back from the hospital to a nursing home and a inter-facility transport to behavioral health.

Storms have been a brewing all afternoon and we had some awesomely wicked weather move through the area. Wished I had been at the firehouse today.. I was listening on the radio while I was at work.. we had a car fire in the middle of a torrential downpour with a tornado warning. In my demented way.... sweet!