Not a problem

When the BLS crew turned him over onto a backboard, they noticed his left leg flopped languidly, bending at a joint that hadn't been there ten minutes ago.
When I got there he was relatively settled onto the litter, although he couldn't lay flat due to a shoulder injury. He also had crepitus in his upper chest; but for a big guy with no helmet and a high speed motorcycle crash, he appeared to be very lucky.
One thing that was strange was when he told me that he couldn't be sedated because his throat would swell shut. I asked him what kind of drugs he was allergic to, and he insisted it wasn't an allergic reaction. That puzzled me, but I moved on as it didn't appear that I would be sedating him anyway.
The helicopter crew got there, and I had him describe this throat swelling issue to them. He said, when he was sedated, his throat went closed, and they also asked him about allergies.

pt.: I don't have an allergy, but I can't be sedated because my throat closes. I forget what it's called.
me: Sir, have you ever been sedated?
pt.: No, just when I go to sleep, my throat goes closed.
me: Oh, you have sleep apnea!
pt.: Yeah, that's it!

If you have sleep apnea, please don't be worried about if a paramedic has to sedate you. If that happens, your throat will be held open by a tube. But it is good to know you're probably difficult to intubate.
With that mystery solved, we sent him off to the trauma center.

Glad it's not a turkey

Today we saw a bald eagle while kayaking. Well, basically, awesome.

Okay

We went to a trouble breathing call and the patient felt a lot better with oxygen and then did not wish to be transported. I suggested that it was not exactly normal to suddenly feel short of breath and he should probably be checked out further at the hospital. Even after we gave him a few minutes to think about it, he was still pretty hesitant. Usually people would have made a decision by then. When his wife appeared at the doorway, I asked her opinion.

Me: "I don't think that he wants to go to the hospital; maybe you can convince him?"
Wife: "Well, I think you should go."
Patient: "Okay."
Me: "Well, that was easy."

In case you forgot.

This is probably illegal to post, but I live dangerously and it's pretty funny. The visa application is all online for US citizens. It's pretty handy and the only quick and straight forward part of the whole process. You can save it half way through and finish it later. This section asks "Do you have any children?" Underneath it states "Don't have the information on hand? Click here to save your application."

This just struck me as funny as it implied that you might have to go check somewhere to see if you have any children or not. Well, I was amused. And it was a lot of effort to get the picture of the question on here; totally worth it.

The lap of luxury

I am now the proud owner of the greatest sleeping pad known to camping kind. Well, that's just my opinion. The inflatable, insulated 2.5" thick, 22 oz, partially recycled Big Agnes insulated air core sleeping pad. An early birthday present from C in honor of our pending backpacking trip. It rocks. It's only about a million times greater than the one I had before. I am even tempted to sleep on it tonight even thought I'll be at home.

Again, or for the second time

Well, the visa application is again out of my hands and currently on its way to the expediting service in Chicago. To keep the visa gods happy, I'll say no more. For now I'm off to work for the next million hours.

A good lesson

Last week I spotted this amusing warning painted along my bike route. Strangely, I had never thought of being sabotaged by a groundhog before. So, be warned, bikers!
Oh, and this is the 500th post!

...I'll have it in the mail by Thursday

It is with tentative key strokes that I type this update. My visa application and supporting documents are again coming together. On Thursday morning I have to go back to the creepy fingerprinting place, and from there, I can mail it off. I have re-collected my bank statements, pay stubs, letters from my employer and bank. I even received a call from the uni today ensuring that I got all the proper letters and such.
"Will you still be joining us in September?"
"Well, I hope so!"

I am taking the tact to inundating the office with every piece of official paperwork remotely connected with my finances, employment, or education. Thought I have a feeling that even with an overstuffed envelope, every document will be separately scrutinized. Even so, it is all there. I mean everything.
Here's a little more insight into some of the pointlessness of the application. I have to prove that I have enough money to pay for the tuition and projected room and board. This makes sense as I will be unable to work enough to make a significant amount of money. Unfortunately this is hard to prove. I have to have all my bank statements from the last three months, and all the money has to have been in it (a checking account, mind you) for at least 30 days. This is strange because they want the money to be "readily available" but who keeps that kind of money in a checking account that pays 0.001 percent interest?
Okay, so I moved the money around a couple of months ago and dutifully printed out my monthly statements, as they are not physically mailed to me. Because I had to print them myself, I had to go to my bank, and have them write a letter attesting to my current balance. Further, the bank manager had to sign each sheet of the printed out statements confirming that they were, indeed, my account statements. What's more silly is that the balance changes constantly and one could simply take out all the money and no one official would know about it. So the whole thing is pretty pointless, but I guess there aren't other ways of proving you have the money unless you show up to the consulate with big bags of it.

So, wish me luck!

16 going on 21

A few weeks ago we were called for an unconscious person at the local high school. We arrived to find a young man, indeed unconscious. When they could not wake him up, school staff called us. This patient turned out to be 16 years old and more drunk than I have ever been in my life, combined. I'm not even sure how he got to school let alone functioned long enough to fool anyone.
He was so drunk he was about one step away from buying a tube. In fact, if my boss had been there, he would have been on a vent, because he intubates everything with a trachea.

I was so boggled, and amused, and irritated by this, but in the face of such a tragic situation, we mostly just laughed at him. But I wonder if this kind of silliness happens in places where alcohol is more a part of the culture than it is here. In the US you can die for your country, but you can't legally drink a beer. I think all that waiting plays on the American psyche and makes drinking far more desirable, and drinking too early as an act of civil disobedience is something I can understand (although I'll admit was something I didn't do.) But no matter where you grew up, being an unconscious 16 year old drunk at school is completely unacceptable.