Anger, regret, and a broken heart. (Originally Posted Early August, 2006)

The past few weeks at work have been insane. A TON of transfers, which is fine, I actually like transfers. You get to know the regulars. (And no, for the record, I have not muttered the phrase "I'm bored" in at least a month.)

Take my last shift for example.

Get to work at 6:50pm. Get a phone call from dispatch. "When you two are ready, head on over to The Little County Hospital."

I typically take the first patient, so Pseudo Dad drives us over to the hospital. Our patient had been seen for some issue with her medications, which escapes me at the moment. She was so sweet. One of those patients that you thank for being such a pleasure to deal with. One of those patients that actually thanks you at the end of the run. She’s been in the ER for nine hours and just can’t wait to get into bed.

Here’s where things get interesting. We’re taking the cot with the patient up to the door and knock repeatedly.

EpiJunky: Are you sure your husband is home?
Patient: Absolutely. I talked to him on the phone before they called you two.
Pseudo Dad knocks again, even harder. He stops. “I see him coming.”

The patient’s husband opens the front door and we head in.

The smell hits me before the condition of the apartment does. It reeks of cigarette smoke, stale beer, and ammonia mixed with cat urine. My eyes begin to water immediately. I start breathing through my mouth on instinct.

The patient’s husband is stumbling over beer cans. His speech is very slurred. My patient is plenty pissed.

“How could you do this? You promised you weren’t drinking!” She starts to cry.

Pseudo Dad is trying to figure out how to get the cot through the living room into the bedroom.
Patient’s husband’s voice is loud, almost booming… “You lazy BITCH, get up offa there and walk your ass to that bed.”

“My Doctor said to not walk for three more days..” She stammers.

I have a hand on my patient’s shoulder… I tell her husband that we’re required to move our patient to the bed. It’s the law. Well, so it wasn’t a complete lie. He stumbles into the bedroom, kicking Busch Light cans to the side as he walks. He attempts to clear a path. The scene reminds me of a frat house I had been to back in my college days. Pseudo Dad is moving furniture in the bedroom to allow us to roll the cot in there.

For a few seconds it’s just my patient and I. I want to make sure that she’s okay with the situation. I want to be sure she’ll be taken care of. She assures me she will.

Her husband is yelling in the bedroom about having to take care of “that lazy bitch”. I want to hit him in the face. With the O2 tank.

We gently move the patient from the cot to her bed. I get her some blankets and make sure her phone and medications are nearby. She thanks us again.

I don’t want to leave her; I just have a bad feeling. Pseudo Dad steers me towards the door. “We’re done here,” he says.

We go back to The Closet and attempt to eat for the second time that night.

*RRRRIIIIIINNNNNG*

EpiJunky: The Closet
Dispatch: Hey we have a run for you, very little paperwork involved.
EpiJunky: Body Run? Yay.
Pseudo Dad looks at me like I've lost my mind.

It’s been awhile since our last body run. Pseudo Dad says something about having a “quiet” patient.
EpiJunky: At least they’re stable. Heh.

We head over to St. Moneybags. They don't want us parading a body through the ER (I can't imagine why, most of the people in the ER looked bored as hell, those who didn't were too sick to care), so we had to drive around the building.

Pseudo Dad played instigator and he and the security guard mocked my (lack of) maneuverability skills. I’m working on that. Pseudo Dad and I practice every shift now.

We walked into the morgue. I got an instant chill. My heart started racing. The patient was already in a body bag (Little known fact: Our body bags are white. *shrug*). For some reason I was having a really hard time with this... I felt like I was on the verge of having an anxiety attack.

Pseudo Dad picked up on this pretty quickly and started saying "It's an empty bag, it's an empty bag it's an empty bag." I walked out of the room, took a deep breath, and walked back in. I grabbed what I thought was excess bag. It contained the patient's leg. Hard as a rock. I dropped it and damn near hyperventilated. What the hell was wrong with me? I’m not like this… It’s a dead body in a bag for crying out loud. Live folks are scarier than this!!!

Pseudo Dad: (a little worried) Are you okay?
EpiJunky: Yeah, I’m fine. (I’m doing Lamaze breathing at this point.)
Pseudo Dad: Empty bag, empty bag, empty bag. Just breathe.
EpiJunky: Let’s just do this. One, two, three, lift.

We moved him to our cot, and I calmed myself down. I apologized to Pseudo Dad. I felt awful about it. To this day I don’t know what the hell happened.

On the way out of the morgue/basement:

EJ: What would you do if the patient sat straight up right now?
Pseudo Dad: I’d run your ass over on the way to the elevator.
EJ: *giggles like a psychopath* You can’t outrun me old man!

All of a sudden the cot is getting harder to pull. I have the front end, Pseudo Dad has the back. I’m still laughing like an idiot when a nurse rounds the corner. She gives me a very strange look.

EJ: *laughing* besides, didn’t you almost break your hip last time you tried racing me?
I turn around to see his reaction. He’s gone. Totally and completely GONE! I’m laughing my ass of in the basement of a hospital holding a conversation with a body in a body bag. No wonder the nurse thinks I’m insane.

*insert several four letter words and obscenities here.*

Let’s just say a sailor would have blushed. I FREAKED out for a good five seconds. I had stopped dead (*heh*) in my tracks with my patient and scanned the hallways for Pseudo Dad. I can hear him laughing so hard I worry he’ll pass out. Actually, I HOPE he passes out so I can kick his unconscious body.

He’s doubled over in the hallway behind a pop machine. We laughed till we cried for several minutes.

We ended up dropping the patient off at the morgue at Local ER where I learned he was to be donated to science. I realized that this man was giving himself, his body, to further medicine. I felt a bad about my freakout/maniacal laughing episode/re-freakout. I should have been more respectful.

We head back to our quarters. We attempt to eat yet again. I believe this is the third time. I really need to look into cold foods for meals.

*RIIIIIIING*
EpiJunky: SON OF A BITCH! TWO BITES? *picks up phone* The Closet…
Dispatch: Code 3 county run at the Local Marina.

It’s one of those nights where there are parties and festivals going on EVERYWHERE in the city. There’s a major regatta going on at the nearby marina. It’s a HUGE party, hundreds of people. I have the distinct feeling one or both of us are going to get puked on.

I get out and notice that the City’s Finest are there escorting my patient, who is stumbling-fall-down-go-boom-drunk.

When it's time to get into the ambulance, the patient goes absolutely nuts. He does NOT want to go to the hospital; he does NOT want to go to jail.

His choices are kind of limited at this point. I actually feel a little bad for him. The police are antagonizing him. True, he’s drunk and acting like a complete ass, but instigating a fight with him is not going to help things.

Now there are FOUR, count them FOUR police officers plus my very big partner fighting with the patient in the back of the rig. I’m standing in the side door area when Pseudo Dad looks at me and with the most serious look I’ve ever seen yells at me.

Pseudo Dad: “Get out, now. GO!”

I jump out now, ask questions later. The struggle goes on for at least two more minutes. When it’s finally over two Police Officers now have official charges of assault against him in addition to God knows what other charges. I’m sure they’re racking up.

The patient is restrained. Finally. The cops are still taunting him. I have very little tolerance for stupidity, and getting hammered and then fighting with MY PARTNER AND THE POLICE definitely qualifies as stupidity. But going out of your way to rile the guy up once he’s restrained and about to be transported WITH ME IN THE BACK does not get you brownie points in my book. I look at the baby faced officer and inform him that he’ll be riding along with us. He’s not thrilled about it. He takes the captain’s seat at the head of the cot.

I climb back in and start to talk to the patient. I'm a mother, a wife, and a woman. Sometimes having these things in your favor can help calm folks down. In this case it worked miracles. The patient is reduced from insane-fighting-drunk to crying depressed drunk. At least he isn’t fighting anymore.

Of course he’s now handcuffed to the cot and restrained with straps, being escorted to the local ER by a Police Officer, but still.

Pseudo Dad seems to have a problem with me handling patient care. While I appreciate his concern I tell him in no uncertain terms that myself and my patient are both fine. My patient tells him in no uncertain terms to “Go to Hell”.

The transport to the hospital is uneventful. My patient has a broken heart, which is, unfortunately, nothing I can fix. He’s got problems bigger than his broken heart once he sobers up. We get to the hospital, he's still calm. As soon as Pseudo Dad appears “Angry-pissed-off-drunk” patient returns. Security comes running, cops are there once again. It was absolutely insane and exhausting.

It took a few hours to get our patient off of our cot thanks to the handcuff situation; apparently the ER didn't have any restraints that would hold him. Eventually we donated our leathers.
Around four in the morning, I stumbled outside in an effort to stay awake and upright and saw our patient being arrested.

That wasn’t a huge shock.