Gin, Drugs & Friday Nights In

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24 - Season 3: Episode 1

For some it’s the season to be jolly. For other’s it’s the season to reflect on what an utterly crap year it’s been. For me, it’s overtime season. It’s the time of the year where I literally sell my soul to the ambulance service in the vain hope of affording a holiday at the end of it. Tonight was a self inflicted overtime shift, but with someone I very much wanted to work with so you won’t catch me complaining. 

I couldn’t write that with a straight face! Of course I’m going to complain!

The following takes place between the hours of 12:00pm and 18:30pm

12:00

Despite volunteering to work a night shift I wasn’t happy about it. I had given up a lovely little 8 hour day shift on request of my crew mate who going to be single on the night and wanted someone to do all the work for her. As requests go it was pretty outlandish! Asking ME to do a night shift instead of an early! Despite my faux protestations I was more than happy to and even offered to provide the grub. I’m nice like that!

So, instead of sleeping before the night shift I slaved away in the kitchen! Mainly because I can’t sleep during the day and also, because I predicted severe hunger throughout the night and didn’t want to leave anything to chance! 

Food made, washed and groomed, packed and dressed I was just about ready to head off in to the night. All we needed now was pleasant patients and we would be in for some easy money!

18:30

That ominous feeling that every night shift brings was well and truly upon me as I walked into a rather strange looking ambulance station. I chucked my stuff on the vehicle and headed for the kettle. Caffeine was going to feature heavily! 

‘Breakfast’ was prepared by my crewmate and we feasted like kings. It made a nice change from my usual routine. The bliss didn’t last long…..

19:00

“36 year old, asthma attack”

We headed off into the night. True to form, my cremate was driving and I was writing. When I suggested that maybe at some point she could write and talk to patients she laughed. And laughed hard! This was going to be me for the night!

We pulled into the alley way where we’d been sent to. It was in a particularly grotty part of town and the alley itself didn’t offer anything up, other than a bad smell and sludge. Up the metal staircase we trotted, full of unparallelled enthusiasm. The front door was open so we headed into the smoke filled hovel. It was like walking into a cloud of irony. Sure enough, sitting in the smoke filled room was our patient, wheezing away like a good’un. He had been treated in hospital that day already for his asthma and unsurprisingly, was having a relapse. They really didn’t seem to grasp that sticking an asthma patient in a smoke filled room would cause a problem. In fact, they blamed the bad treatment of the hospital for his current predicament! Gotta love the NHS! Failing patients at every turn….by not making them immune to cigarette smoke! The scoundrels!

Anyway, my crewmate handed out a speech, laden with sarcasm and health promotion do’s and don’ts whilst I gave him a nebuliser and off we all went to hospital like one big dysfunctional family! We handed him over to the nurse, making sure she was aware of the environment in which he was found and headed back to the ambulance to eat some dried mango. Yep. Mango. If you don’t like it, you have no place being here!

20:19

“66 year old male, chest pain.”

I’ll be honest with you. From the information we were given I wasn’t holding out much hope for this being a job that could hold my attention. Some chest pains read like proper chest pains, others read like chest pains for a quick ambulance. This looked like one of them. It had all the tell tell signs. Abdo bad, DIB, symptom after symptom, and eventually chest pain chucked on at the end for good measure. All was just itching to be revealed. 

We pulled up, grabbed our stuff and headed inside.

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

That is what we heard as we walked down the corridor. In the living room, sitting in the chair was a beard. Well, the beard had a rather large man attached to it, but the sheer magnificence of the beard was overwhelming. It made Santa Claus look like he only had designer stubble! I’m serious! It was most off-putting!

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

“Hello Sir, what’s the problem today?”

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

This could be a long conversation….. Luckily, I was quickly interrupted and told that he doesn’t speak any English. So, all history taking was done through a translating relative. I was dubious about some of the answers because I asked about the pain score the patient spoke at lighting speed for about 10 seconds only for the relative to say “8”. 

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

I muddled through and established he’d had chest pain for about 3 days but this evening it was much worse. I also learnt that trying to stick ECG leads onto someone who effectively has a mature weeping willow hanging off their chin requires a unique set of skills and preferably three arms! Eventually we were good to go!

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

*presses print and waits*

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

*’analysing ECG…….’*

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

*prints out ECG*

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

MASSIVE HEART ATTACK! Shit! My cremate quickly vanished to get the chair whilst I stuck a cannula in. We gave all the drugs, wheeled him to the ambulance, put in the blue call and headed off to the cath lab!

“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”

Once there, we handed over to the cardiologists and assisted transferring him to the operating table for the procedure. During the transfer my cremate was unfortunate enough to get an eyeful of old-man-penis. (“Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”) I didn’t ask for details but going by the beard on his face and the pained look on her face, I imagine there is more to that encounter that met her eye. Poor lass. Bet she wished she was on the board! As if……

Despite the short period of excitement we’d just encountered, we needed coffee and some more mango so we quickly made our exit and headed back to the safety of the truck! As we wondered down the corridor all that could be heard was “Wheeeeeeeyyyyy.”. I'm still not sure what that noise was all about!

To be continued…….

Fat vs Fag

"56 year old male, chest pain, DIB"

Despite a large number of pedestrians trying their very best to throw themselves in front of my ambulance and numerous cyclists doing their uppermost to raise my blood pressure we made it to the address without any deaths on our conscious! Loaded up like a travelling circus, we headed round to the entrance to the flats and staggered up the stairs and knocked. The smell of stale smoke hit me even before the door was opened. Eventually, we were let in by our very breathless patient. He slowly walked back into the flat, pulling his oxygen tubing with him. 

Home oxygen is given to people with severe respiratory problems and our guy was a long term COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) sufferer. Sitting in his chair he panted for about 30 seconds until he was able to speak. The upshot of the story was his lungs were pooped. He was having a particularly bad day of 'pooped lungs' and it was causing him real discomfort. Whilst my crew mate was doing his ECG etc my Detective Columbo eyes were wondering around the room. On the table next to the patient was a blue inhaler, a purple inhaler, a brown inhaler, various tablets, a bowl with spit in it, a tin of Fisherman's Friends, a lighter, an ashtray and a pack of 20 Superking. 

"You're still smoking?!"

"Yeah, I know I shouldn't."

"How many a day?"

"Maybe 30 or 40"

"No wonder you're breathless!"

"I know I know, save the lecture, I've heard it before!" he said with a grin!

"You know I have to say something! We call it health promotion, you call it nagging!"

We had a good chuckle about flogging dead horses! He was a really nice guy with plenty of tales to tell which made the journey to hospital a lot more enjoyable than usual. Then he said something that firstly took me back a bit and then got me thinking.

"So, you wag your finger at me for smoking, do you wag your finger at fat people for over eating?"

It took me a good while of thinking to reply:

"No!"

"Well don't you think it's unfair to pick on us smokers! Besides, you're one to talk. If I'm not mistaken that's a pack of cigarettes in your top pocket!"

BUSTED! He had me hook, line and sinker! Nothing I could say now would have any credibility when it came to smoking! I felt like saying "Do as I say, not as I do" but I was laughing to much! I could hear my crew mate in the front laughing away too! 

"You just got schooled!" he shouted through.

It's true! I had indeed got schooled! We dropped him off at hospital to get the treatment he desperately needed and left. I could hear him chuckling as we walked away! He was awfully proud of himself! 

He had a bloody good point though. Why don't we berate obese people? Why is it acceptable to say 'filthy habit', 'can't stand the smell of smoke', 'do you have to do that near me?', 'it will kill you' and make the smokers smoke outside to be made a spectacle of?

Why is NOT acceptable to say to someone who is obese who is stuffing a burger into their face 'that's a filthy habbit' or 'I can't stand the sight of you shovelling food into your gob' or 'do you have to do that near me' or 'eating that stuff will make you fatter' or 'being so fat will kill you?' Why can't we tell them that their fatness is disgusting? Why can't we make them eat fast food standing outside under a gazebo and make a spectacle of them?

Because, as a country we are not quite there yet and too many of us love a Big Mac! Before you all tell me I am being harsh and horrible, I don't actually think all that stuff, nor would I want to say it but it is an interesting talking point. Smoking kills. That's a fact. As a result smoking has been made less and less appealing. Tobacco companies can't sponsor anything, their packets are covered in 'SMOKING KILLS' slogans and images of tumours. It costs more and more to buy them, you can't smoke anywhere in public and rightly so. Smoking costs the NHS in excess of £5 billion a year and that's not including the cost of lost productivity. It also causes 1 in 5 of all deaths. Why wouldn't we try and stop people smoking and make it as unappealing as possible?!

How about if I told you that but next year, obesity will be costing the NHS £6.3 billion a year. At the moment 1 in 10 deaths are caused by obesity but within 10 years that number is expected to treble. If that is the case obesity will be costing more and causing more deaths than smoking. Will it then be acceptable to malign the obese like we malign smokers?! Will Big Macs have photos of fat people on them with slogans like 'BIG MAC KILLS' plastered across them?! Will there be a huge tax added to all foods that make people fat?! Will companies like McDonald's be banned from advertising?! Will all fast food have to be served in plain packaging?! 

What do you think?! Should smokers be vilified? Should fat people be vilified? Do we allow free choice in this country only when it suits current political motives? When do we do with obesity what we have done with smoking? Do we wait 15 years until 70% of the UK population is obese or overweight? I don't know what to do. I would certainly feel uncomfortable sitting in the back of an ambulance telling someone they are too fat. I feel bad enough telling smokers not to smoke! Being a fat smoker myself doesn't put me in a good position to lecture either!!

Alternatively, you could scrap everything I've just said, promote smoking and encourage over eating because some studies say making the population healthy would cost the country more in the long term from a longer life expectancy and care costs! Basically, we are screwed whatever we do so I'm just going to eat, smoke, drink and be merry! You?!