Pleasantly Confused
Work has been…work. I have learned something though, thank God for fun partners! As my partners had been getting weirder and weirder, I noted that none of their weirdness actually yielded much quality entertainment. Last week I finally had a partner who was very entertaining and we were able to spend most of the day laughing about various mundane aspects of our jobs. This is by far preferable to bitching about the politics of the workplace, getting off on time, or why we’re running BLS on our ALS truck. (Which is what 90% of the employees talk about 90% of the time)
I have been running an unusual amount of BLS calls this week, but many of them have yielded good conversation with the friendly patients or hearty amusement over the antics of the less than friendly patients.
A fair amount of these calls have been patients described as “Pleasantly confused......occasionally combative.” My favorite. Until you read the second half of that description, it’s very nice. I’d love it for people to describe me in that way. Not annoyingly or stupidly confused, but pleasantly. It has a nice ring to it. Anyway, they’ll forget who I am, what we are doing, where we are going, and why, about two seconds after learning all of this information. The pleasant ones will just accept their transport or forget where they are anyway, and others will continue to ask and try to argue about going, even if we’re already there.
A sample conversation after moving a patient to our cot:
Partner: “We’ve got you.” (as in, you’re not going to fall)
Patient: “Let me go.” (as in, I will not let you arrest me)
Partner: “No, I mean we’re taking care of you.” (as in, we’re taking care of you)
Patient: “Oh, okay.” (as in, I’m glad we’ve straightened that out)
So, my full-time stint at work is over. In some ways I have come full circle. One day in the morning, I took a patient out of a bed in a particular hospital, and in the afternoon, I brought someone else to the same bed. Today I ran into the family of a patient I dropped off in the same facility last week, weird. Throughout this month, a lesson has been reiterated to me: showing patients, even in the most subtle way, that you care about them can go a long way. I could go on and on, but it might get mushy, and I’m sure you know what I mean.
I have been running an unusual amount of BLS calls this week, but many of them have yielded good conversation with the friendly patients or hearty amusement over the antics of the less than friendly patients.
A fair amount of these calls have been patients described as “Pleasantly confused......occasionally combative.” My favorite. Until you read the second half of that description, it’s very nice. I’d love it for people to describe me in that way. Not annoyingly or stupidly confused, but pleasantly. It has a nice ring to it. Anyway, they’ll forget who I am, what we are doing, where we are going, and why, about two seconds after learning all of this information. The pleasant ones will just accept their transport or forget where they are anyway, and others will continue to ask and try to argue about going, even if we’re already there.
A sample conversation after moving a patient to our cot:
Partner: “We’ve got you.” (as in, you’re not going to fall)
Patient: “Let me go.” (as in, I will not let you arrest me)
Partner: “No, I mean we’re taking care of you.” (as in, we’re taking care of you)
Patient: “Oh, okay.” (as in, I’m glad we’ve straightened that out)
So, my full-time stint at work is over. In some ways I have come full circle. One day in the morning, I took a patient out of a bed in a particular hospital, and in the afternoon, I brought someone else to the same bed. Today I ran into the family of a patient I dropped off in the same facility last week, weird. Throughout this month, a lesson has been reiterated to me: showing patients, even in the most subtle way, that you care about them can go a long way. I could go on and on, but it might get mushy, and I’m sure you know what I mean.
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