Mom
My last paramedic class was May 18th, everybody in my class was going out to a local dive known as Curly's which has since burned down. I had to work that night, a detail at a Rick Springfiled concert so I decline knowing it would be a long night of drunken fortysomethings who still think they are college kids.
I had about an hour before I had to report to work so i took my uniform out of the dryer and hung it up, if you take stuff out right a way it won't wrinkle. Ironing is not my thing so I learned little tricks. But with my uniform hanging off the bench in my basement I decided I'd lay down. My fan was going and my head was on the pillow.
"Nick..." her voice was drawn out making my name a multi syallable shrill. My mother calling upstairs from her bedroom. "Nick..... I don't feel good."
Reluctantly I climbed out of bed and went up to my mother's room. She had always been strong, not really wanting to cause problems or annoy anyone so this was decidedly out of character.
I've seen it more times than I can count. Shes doubled over on the bed, pale as a sheet and wretching from nausea. She feels like shes going to vomit. When someone has a heart attack, a lot of things happen. Their blood pressure will climb, their pulse will drop. They'll get sweaty and might even puke from the nausea. My job has taken me into millions of bedrooms, bathrooms and on one occasion the back of a city bus for this exact scene.
Now when I do my job, I don't get nervous, after all its not my emergency. But this was different, my mother is lying on her bed clearly having a massive heart attack. I keep a jump bag in my car, an old habit from Holden when I would frequently get callbacks and have to respond in my car right to the scene.
Her blood pressure starts off at 170/90, pulse 36. Not good, her BP has always been low. Next it jumps to 180/100. Really not good, sweat pouring down her face, now shes bargaining. She says she won't go to the hospital until after my younger brother leaves for his prom. In her quest to avoid the ED she tells me I'm taking her blood pressure wrong.
190/110. "Mom, fuck this, you have to go to the hospital"
"What if its just heartburn?"
"Chew this asprin." I don't have any nitro so I give her double the dose knowing her stubborn ass won't go to the hospital yet.
"I feel like I'm going to vomit"
"Mo," my dad pleads, "y0u need to go to the hospital"
"What if he's doing this wrong?"
"Its his job. You need to go to the hospital." His voice raises because he's getting nervous, terrified of losing his wife. Again, seen it all before.
"Ma, you have to go."
"NO!"
"Aw fuck you, I'm calling 911." I'm pissed because I know she's going to die. Waiting around in a heart attack will kill you. So will not listening to a paramedic who says "You're going to die."
Eventually we end up convincing her to go to the hospital, my father ends up driving her to RIH because she refuses 911. Not the brightest move as 911 can give all sorts of lovely little drugs in order to ease the strain on the heart and buy the muscle time.
And I go to work. Rick Springfield kills, busty chunky forty year old platinum blondes are flashing him all night long. Panties fly on stage and one woman tries, unsucessfully to climb on stage while security gently removes her.
At about mid night I drive myself to the RIH ED and because of my uniform I just saunter right on through into the chest pain unit. The nurse tells me there are no critical care transfers and that I must be in the wrong place. I tell her that my mother was admitted for chest pain and that I'm here to visit. I ask to see her 12 leads and EKG strips but they tell me I can't see them. Of course being the classy guy that I am I reply with "Oh, bullshit. Come on, let me see 'em." The nurse knows me, I've been taking people to the chest pain unit for two years and she just nicely tells me that my mother doesn't want me to see them.
I go to visit her in her little room, turn on her monitor and find flipped T waves. Something definitly happened. Ok, she wakes up so I sit and talk to her for a while, holding her hand and nearly crying realizing that I could have lost my mother for the first time.
That was a Friday night.
Sunday I get a phone call from the Cardiac Care Unit up on the top floor of RIH. Its from a doctor who puts on his best dealing-with-the-family voice and says "Son, listen your mother is having a bit of a problem. Her heart seems to have a bit of an issue with the veins---"
"Listen, I'm a paramedic. Speak my language"
" Your mother has 9 out of 10 chest pain. Significant elevation in all leads. It looks like a global. We gave all our front lines and shes on the way to the cath lab again. Might want to get down here."
"Thanks, pal. We're on the way."
We rush over there with my uncle Danny, a goofy forty some odd year old man who will eventually turn 18. For one of the longest nights of my life, we all sit around in the waiting room watching Family Guy and waiting for the team to finish placing stents in my mom's heart. From the top floor we can see the lights of most of Rhode Island. Between laughing at Quagmire saying "I'm a vagiterian." and trying to figgure out if the long pearly strands in the distance are the Newport or Jamestown bridges, we wait. We drink bad coffee and eat decent pastries.
Then we can go visit my mother.
Shes home now and recovering as well as can be expected after two massive MIs. An MI is a bit like a stroke in the heart. A piece of plaque or debris of some kind gets lodged in one of the coronary arteries and the tissue is deprived of oxygenated blood. If it goes on too long, the patient can die. Most who wait do. My mother was lucky.
I love being an emergency responder. I like to think I am good at it, I like to think that I have been trained well and that I can handle pretty much anything. Between all of my fire rescue training and my medical stuff, I have a lot of experience.
My whole career, all of my training was for only one reason. I sat through countless lectures, worked in the hospital and spent a lot of blood, sweat, tears and a failed relationship for one reason. To be able to look at my mother on May 18th and say. "You need to go to the hospital," and have my father believe me.
I had about an hour before I had to report to work so i took my uniform out of the dryer and hung it up, if you take stuff out right a way it won't wrinkle. Ironing is not my thing so I learned little tricks. But with my uniform hanging off the bench in my basement I decided I'd lay down. My fan was going and my head was on the pillow.
"Nick..." her voice was drawn out making my name a multi syallable shrill. My mother calling upstairs from her bedroom. "Nick..... I don't feel good."
Reluctantly I climbed out of bed and went up to my mother's room. She had always been strong, not really wanting to cause problems or annoy anyone so this was decidedly out of character.
I've seen it more times than I can count. Shes doubled over on the bed, pale as a sheet and wretching from nausea. She feels like shes going to vomit. When someone has a heart attack, a lot of things happen. Their blood pressure will climb, their pulse will drop. They'll get sweaty and might even puke from the nausea. My job has taken me into millions of bedrooms, bathrooms and on one occasion the back of a city bus for this exact scene.
Now when I do my job, I don't get nervous, after all its not my emergency. But this was different, my mother is lying on her bed clearly having a massive heart attack. I keep a jump bag in my car, an old habit from Holden when I would frequently get callbacks and have to respond in my car right to the scene.
Her blood pressure starts off at 170/90, pulse 36. Not good, her BP has always been low. Next it jumps to 180/100. Really not good, sweat pouring down her face, now shes bargaining. She says she won't go to the hospital until after my younger brother leaves for his prom. In her quest to avoid the ED she tells me I'm taking her blood pressure wrong.
190/110. "Mom, fuck this, you have to go to the hospital"
"What if its just heartburn?"
"Chew this asprin." I don't have any nitro so I give her double the dose knowing her stubborn ass won't go to the hospital yet.
"I feel like I'm going to vomit"
"Mo," my dad pleads, "y0u need to go to the hospital"
"What if he's doing this wrong?"
"Its his job. You need to go to the hospital." His voice raises because he's getting nervous, terrified of losing his wife. Again, seen it all before.
"Ma, you have to go."
"NO!"
"Aw fuck you, I'm calling 911." I'm pissed because I know she's going to die. Waiting around in a heart attack will kill you. So will not listening to a paramedic who says "You're going to die."
Eventually we end up convincing her to go to the hospital, my father ends up driving her to RIH because she refuses 911. Not the brightest move as 911 can give all sorts of lovely little drugs in order to ease the strain on the heart and buy the muscle time.
And I go to work. Rick Springfield kills, busty chunky forty year old platinum blondes are flashing him all night long. Panties fly on stage and one woman tries, unsucessfully to climb on stage while security gently removes her.
At about mid night I drive myself to the RIH ED and because of my uniform I just saunter right on through into the chest pain unit. The nurse tells me there are no critical care transfers and that I must be in the wrong place. I tell her that my mother was admitted for chest pain and that I'm here to visit. I ask to see her 12 leads and EKG strips but they tell me I can't see them. Of course being the classy guy that I am I reply with "Oh, bullshit. Come on, let me see 'em." The nurse knows me, I've been taking people to the chest pain unit for two years and she just nicely tells me that my mother doesn't want me to see them.
I go to visit her in her little room, turn on her monitor and find flipped T waves. Something definitly happened. Ok, she wakes up so I sit and talk to her for a while, holding her hand and nearly crying realizing that I could have lost my mother for the first time.
That was a Friday night.
Sunday I get a phone call from the Cardiac Care Unit up on the top floor of RIH. Its from a doctor who puts on his best dealing-with-the-family voice and says "Son, listen your mother is having a bit of a problem. Her heart seems to have a bit of an issue with the veins---"
"Listen, I'm a paramedic. Speak my language"
" Your mother has 9 out of 10 chest pain. Significant elevation in all leads. It looks like a global. We gave all our front lines and shes on the way to the cath lab again. Might want to get down here."
"Thanks, pal. We're on the way."
We rush over there with my uncle Danny, a goofy forty some odd year old man who will eventually turn 18. For one of the longest nights of my life, we all sit around in the waiting room watching Family Guy and waiting for the team to finish placing stents in my mom's heart. From the top floor we can see the lights of most of Rhode Island. Between laughing at Quagmire saying "I'm a vagiterian." and trying to figgure out if the long pearly strands in the distance are the Newport or Jamestown bridges, we wait. We drink bad coffee and eat decent pastries.
Then we can go visit my mother.
Shes home now and recovering as well as can be expected after two massive MIs. An MI is a bit like a stroke in the heart. A piece of plaque or debris of some kind gets lodged in one of the coronary arteries and the tissue is deprived of oxygenated blood. If it goes on too long, the patient can die. Most who wait do. My mother was lucky.
I love being an emergency responder. I like to think I am good at it, I like to think that I have been trained well and that I can handle pretty much anything. Between all of my fire rescue training and my medical stuff, I have a lot of experience.
My whole career, all of my training was for only one reason. I sat through countless lectures, worked in the hospital and spent a lot of blood, sweat, tears and a failed relationship for one reason. To be able to look at my mother on May 18th and say. "You need to go to the hospital," and have my father believe me.
posted by Nick Stabile at 8:55 PM
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