Everyday Folks, Everyday Gracefulness

Sometimes in my walkabout daily life, I encounter folks, simply being nice. So, TINS©, I Was NOT Fighting Disease And Saving Lives, rather, simply grocery shopping. I happened to get in line behind an elderly woman (Pot, meet kettle. You ought to talk amongst yourselves, since you have so much in common…) who appeared to not have altogether figured out the entire “One of these is a credit card, the other is your membership card.” thing, as she attempted to pay with her membership card.

The cashier was patient, and collected. She explained that, no, THAT is your card with which you get your discounts and points, and THAT is your bank card, with which you pay for your groceries. They are different cards, for different things.

It took a couple of attempts, but the customer got her points, and successfully paid for her groceries, and wheeled her way out of the store.

The cashier apologized to me for the hold up. I responded, “Ma’am, some things are problems, some things are inconveniences. If this wait is as bad as my inconveniences get, I am in pretty good shape. Oh, by the way: way to be patient and graceful with that elderly lady. Good on ya!”

Advertisement

Once Upon A Time….

So, TINS©, TIWFDASL©…Let me take a tangent, here, for a brief moment. (Yep. “Ooh! Shiny!”) The Darling Wife-Mark II and I were visiting my son and his wife, My Darling Daughter In Law, let us call her Esmeralda, and he (the son) had asked me how work was going. I (of course) replied, “Thing of beauty! Why, I spend my days Fighting Disease, Saving Lives, and Beating Back The Scourge Of Zithropenia!”

Esmeralda did not appear to comprehend the level of sarcasm that is my baseline, because she responded, “So, writing scripts for Zithromax is pretty much your entire workday?”

Sigh.

So, back to my story: there was this soul, once upon a time, in a clinic far, far away, who was on Medicaid (since my agency’s mission statement is pretty much, provide healthcare access to those who otherwise are underserved), and was diabetic. But! Wait!

This soul also had a burn on their extremity, attributed to spilling some boiling water thereon. This had occurred a day or two previously, and looked rather gnarley. (No, that is not, strictly speaking, a medical term.)

For those of us who are not In The Sick People Business, extremity burns generally are considered a reasonable referral to a burn center, because if contractions or scar tissue limit the utility of that extremity, life changing disability can result.

The local wound center could not accept him for the serial assessments, dressing changes, and suchlike that treating his wound would require. (don’t recall the rationale for this clinical decision).

I called the burn center at Tremendous State Megaversity, seeking care for this soul. They responded that they did not participate with his flavor of Medicaid. Therefore, I was told, my patient (remember: on Medicaid, which generally maps pretty accurately onto relatively impoverished) would have to pay kilobucks, out of pocket, for their care.

Of course.

So, please remember that the Venn Diagram of “folks on Medicaid” and “impoverished folks” results in a bulls eye of sorts, wherein the “impoverished” circle, encompasses the “Medicaid” circle.

Therefore, my patient did NOT have, nor have access to, kilobucks. So, did I send him to the local wound clinic, which for whatever reason had already told me that they could not accommodate him?

Nope.

Did I send him to Megaversity Burn Center, who had subject matter expertise in, oh, gosh, er, umm, BURNS?

Nope.

Of course, he returned to our walk in clinic, The World Renowned Center Of Excellence, In All Matters That The Subject Matter Actual Experts For Whatever Reason Cannot Handle, for his wound care and his serial assessments.

Because, I’m not bitter. Nor burned out. Nor sarcastic.

Not a bit.

Revelations, and Pride In My Child

A couple of months ago, I was chatting with my daughter, Brenda. She somehow revealed that, years ago, when she was a single mother, working part time and going to school, money was tight.

I had kinda known that.

Just HOW tight, I evidently had not appreciated. She revealed that several times, she had gone to bed without supper, in order that her child could eat.

Let’s consider that, for a moment. It certainly elicits mixed feelings in me.

Foremost, pride. My daughter is professional, committed, and decisive. Her revelation reveals outstanding triage skills, as well as monumental commitment to her child.

Secondly, frustration. It is not as if I could not/would not remedy her pantry problems. Hell, I have been an overtime working fool nearly all my life, and another day of OT, in order to feed my child and grandchild, well, I suspect “BFD!” communicates my feelings adequately. (that is “big freaking deal”, although the second word generally refers to certain ancient and generally highly regarded fertility rites…).

Thirdly, frustration. (again). It is not as if I do not buy groceries, to this day, just as if I were still feeding four hungry adolescents. That both provides me with plentiful left-overs for my meals at work, as well as abundant food-in-waiting. The only thing stopping me from a pantry filling visit to my child, is her failing to tell me such might be useful.

Finally, it reinforces my appraisal of my child, that she is A WOMAN, and, like her mother, knows not of this “back down”, you might speak of, with regard to her children. Formidable, competent, decisive.

My “Problems”, Are Likely To Be Other Folks’ Blessings

My “Problems”, may well look like blessings to other folks

I was chatting with the physician with whom I was working last night, as we were working late due to a couple of late arriving folks. He observed that this sort of thing was one of the reasons we were paid pretty well.

Truth. I observed that, from one perspective, this sort of inconvenience, indeed, most of the sorts of things we generally thought of as “problems”, were, to other folks, blessings.

By way of example: “Waaah! It was so busy that I did not get the opportunity to write out and address payments for a couple of my bills at work today!”

Counterpoint: “So, Reltney, you are telling me that you have (insert non essential product/service, here), and indeed, have right this moment, the funds to pay that bill, in full, right now, but your EMPLOYMENT consumed so much of your WORKDAY, that you are now INCONVENIENCED by the need to pay that bill, on time and in full, at home, off duty, at your kitchen table? Rilly? Must suck to be you, amirite?”

Example the second: “Waah! I have a sink full of dirty dishes! Those food stains likely have set, and will be tedious to scrub off!”

Counterpoint: “So, Reltney, you have (a) a home, (b) intact, and (c) have a sink, in which your dishes from (d) your last several meals now rest, which you now have to clean with (e) hot running water, so that they are clean, once again, for when you prepare (f) your next meal, sometime, oh, gosh, TODAY? Did I miss any part of your tale of woe inconvenience? Must suck to be you!”

And so forth, with yardwork, laundry, shopping, fuel for the vehicle, etcetera, off into the distance.

Communication Breakdown

So, TINS©, TDW-Mark II had set out, because TSIL-Mark II (The Sister In Law-Mark II) had undergone surgery of some sort, and required assistance in the couple of weeks post operation. TDW does not work outside the home, and I flatter myself that I am sort of self sufficient. So, off she went.

Her journey to Another Fly Over State was unremarkable. She arrived, and notified me of this fact. I cooked up a batch of food, ensuring a supply of left overs for my work day repast. I laundered clothing and suchlike, and folded and hung same. I washed the dishes, and then put them away. I went to work, came home, played with the cats, and generally bummed around.

Just like I was a grown up, and had, oh, heck, maybe, done all this stuff before, right?

So, one evening I had changed into pajamas, hanging my pants and shirt up on the hook in the closet. My routine is that I will, the next morning, retrieve said pants and shirt, and transfer all my whatnot from old clothing, into the pockets of new clothing.

Well, when I do so, and leave my cellphone in my pants pocket, and retire to another room altogether to watch “Battleship New Jersey” videos (highly recommended, BTW!), or The History Guy videos (another enthusiastic Thumbs Up! Recommendation!), well, I cannot hear the ringer on my phone. Since I am not youthful, and do not have a pristine medical record, and, as well, TDW-Mark II is a bit of a worry wart, well, when I do not answer my phone, nor the texts, and this continues for something like a half an hour, well, she gets excited and calls a friend of ours, who also lives in town, requesting that he meander over and verify that I am not folded up on the floor, with the cats poking me and asking when I will arise, and feed them. Or something.

So, much to my surprise, our friend rang my doorbell at something like 2200 hours, and explained the preceding paragraph to me. I retrieved my phone, and promptly called TDW, and reassured her that I was NOT a crumpled heap of geezerhood at the bottom of the stairs.

The ringing in my ear, from the chastisement I subsequently received, has nearly resolved, as I write these words.

REDUNDANCY.

The other day, I was reading about everyday carry, and one writer was talking about how “two is one, and one is none”.

I recalled one night, nursing midnights in ICU. Now, every single hospital that I have ever worked at, has an emergency generator. These are equipped (or, at least, SUPPOSED to be equipped) with an automatic apparatus, that is intended to identify an interruption in the supply of power from the local power company, and start up the on site emergency generator, and then, once said generator is up to speed and functioning, disconnect the hospital from the shore power, and energize all “emergency” circuits from the generator.

As it developed, on this night, the power went out, and everything went black. We eagerly awaited the onset of generator power, but, alas, such was not to be.

Now, y’all may not know this, but in an ICU, there is an abundance of very, very sick folks. Indeed, several of them are dependent on ventilators to, well, ventilate them, since their illness renders them incapable of breathing adequately on their own.

With that thought in mind, it may not be a surprise that these life saving ventilators require an uninterrupted supply of several things, not the least of which is electricity, in order to function. When the power fails, and the emergency generators do NOT promptly start up, well, things get interesting.

While the ventilators, themselves, do NOT have battery backup, the alarms signaling malfunction, do. In order to respond to these alarms, the nurses, such as myself, need to alight from our chairs, walk around the nurse’s station, enter the room, and identify and remedy the fault eliciting the alarm.

(a) That is considerably easier to accomplish when you can see where the frack you are going, and identify trip-and-fall hazards, prior to, uh, tripping over said hazard, and falling upon your face.

(b) Should you have TWO ventilated patients, you are tasked with reaching each patient, disconnecting that soul from the (nonfunctioning) ventilator, and manually ventilating them employing the manual bag-valve resuscitator kept at bedside for just this sort of problem.

Except, you are one, non elasto-nurse, person.

As it developed, our ward clerk was in nursing school, was intelligent, and had paid attention. She ventilated my second patient, and the on-unit respiratory therapist ventilated Mary Sue’s second ventilated patient.

It only took a couple of minutes (…that seemed like hours!) before we regained power. But, I thereafter took to carrying a flashlight on my person.

Problem solved, right?

Not so right. A couple of weeks later, the power failed, again. The generator failed to generate, again, and I thought, “Voila! I’ll whip out my handy-dandy flashlight, and illuminate the area!”

Problem with that, is that the flashlight had somehow turned itself on, while on my belt, and was deader than disco. So, same cluster…er, hug (yeah! HUG!), same musical ventilation, and same subjective eternity until power came back on.

New! Improved! Plan, was a couple of flashlights, with a regularly (every other month) assessment of function and battery charged-ness. As well as additional flashlights squirreled about my person. So, presently, I have two flashlights on my belt, two in my shirt pocket (one Streamlight Stylus Pro, another that has been customized with a near UV emitter, so that I can use it as a Wood’s Lamp), one on my badge (one of the coin cell lights thrown in with my order from the folks selling me my CR 123 batteries), and one on my keyring (a Streamlight Nanolight). (none of these are any sort of freebie: I bought the Nanolight, and the Stylus, and then bought several more, at retail, because they perform for me what I need doing. Like, illuminate my way when nocturnal dogwalking, allowing me to avoid a dirt faceplant.)

PARENTING STRIPES

Another blog had an entry that reminded me of one of my own parenting moments. As I recollect, Number One Son was misbehaving, and so The Darling Wife-Mark I and I imposed some limits: grounding or some such thing. We observed that a repeat performance would elicit a spanking.

He responded, “Well, I’ll just call the police!”

I smiled. Told him to get his shoes, and get in the car. Now.

We had a leisurely drive to our local small town police department. I asked if I could speak to an officer. The nice desk lady asked, why?

I responded, “This child just informed me that should he require a spanking, and I administer it, he will call the police. I simply do not want to wait. May I speak to an officer, please?”

She bade us sit, and soon an officer arrived. I introduced myself and Number One Son. The officer asked, had I spanked the lad yet?

I replied, no, not yet.

He asked, in what manner would I spank the child?

I responded, with my bare hand, since the point was not pain, nor injury, but, rather, recalibration of his behavior. Once my hand started to hurt, likely my purpose had been accomplished.

So, the officer asked, you intend to spank this child, if other measures do not change his behavior, in order to discipline him?

Yep, was my answer.

“Isn’t that kind of your duty as a parent, to correct misbehaving children? I do not see anything you are describing as actionable by me. You’re simply doing your job as a dad.”

I turned to my son, and asked, “Do you have any other questions for the nice officer?”

Going Solo

There I was, Fighting Disease And Saving Lives, one weekend day, and I was soloing. Generally, our agency’s practice is to have two providers on duty at a time. On this particular day, I was “It!”, with no partner. The floor staff was sympathetic. I was all “Meh?” about things.

I was reminded of an old joke. It seems this fellow had had his fill of driving a lengthy distance, and elected to stop for the night. He stopped at one hotel, and was told that there were no vacancies.

He stopped at another, and yet another, only to be told, again and again, that there were no vacancies.

Finally, in response, he asked, “If the president of The United States was standing here, telling you that he needed a room for the night, are you telling me that you would turn him away?”

The desk clerk declaimed, “Of course not! Of course, we would make accommodations for The President!”

The traveler squinted at the clerk. “Well, I just read in The Daily Tattler that The President is in Bagwanistan this week. Since he will not be arriving, I’ll take his room!”

The application to my situation was to ask administration if there was anybody else working with me on that day. Of course, as reflected in the fact that there was, you know, nobody else there with me to fight disease and save lives, they would tell me that, no, there was nobody else to work with me that day.

In this imaginary conversation, I would next ask, “Suppose I got hit by a bus on the way in to work today? What would you do, then?”

The reply likely would be that “In that event, we would do (xyz)!”

Which, of course, would elicit the response, “Surprise! I did NOT get hit by a bus! Hey, howzabout (do xyz), and get me some freaking help, eh?”

First noc I wore fire boots at work: freeway run, on a snowy night.

TINS©, TIWFDASL©, and going to paramedic school in my off time (this was many, many years ago). In the course of this schooling, I spent some time in clinicals, variously in the local ED in a wretched hive of scum and villainy not so very far from Da City, or with one of the advanced life support crews running calls in the self same wretched hive.

It’s generally educational to spend time with other medics, as their organization’s culture, and lore, is likely to be kind of at a tangent to your home outfit. The education may run both ways. In any event, There I was, (studying) Fighting Disease, and Saving Lives in The Wretched Hive, and one of the host medics came on duty, ferrying his “load out” into the ambulance. I noticed that he tucked a pair of fire boots behind his seat, and asked him about them.

It being winter in The Northern Un-Named State, well, we were susceptible to receiving considerable amounts of snow from time to time. I believe the professional meteorological term is “ass loads”. My host noted that this could result in snowy shoes, and therefore wet feet, and that there were few things so miserable as cold, wet feet, in Da Nawth, in winter. Waterproof boots, that reached nigh up to one’s crotch, served admirably to avert this sort of undesirable outcome. I took notes.

Soon, I acquired my very own pair of “Storm King” (old standard) NFPA complaint boots. So, it happened that I wore them to work one snowy evening, and, early in the shift, Doug and I caught a run for “one down” on the expressway.

We pulled up behind the state police cruiser, and saw a figure prone in the snow and slush. The trooper told us that the patient had been struck by an overtaking vehicle, when the overtaking vehicle did not notice that our patient was bent over the lip of the trunk of his STOPPED vehicle, ON THE SHOULDER OF THE DAMNED EXPRESSWAY!

Our patient did not fare well in this exchange. I pulled up my bunker style boots, so that they reached nearly to my crotch, and knelt in the slush. Doug logrolled the man, and I slid the backboard beneath him, and logrolled him my way, so Doug and I could then center him on our spine splint. We buckled him in, collared him, schlepped him into our rig, and beat feet to TSBTCIDC, which happened to be one exit and a coupla turns away.

I remained dry and warm. If I had never worn those boots another day, that night, in that slush, they paid for themselves!

Parenting Win

This gentleman gets it, and kudos to him for Being The Dad.

https://ogdaa.blogspot.com/2021/04/sunday-video-2_01180543565.html#comment-form

As may prove to be no surprise, it reminds me of one parenting encounter of my own, years and years ago. One day, TDW-Mark I, our children and I were out someplace having dinner. It had occurred to me that TDW-Mark I might enjoy an evening NOT in the kitchen, and so we bundled up our brood, and went out to dinner. So, there we were, conversating and dining and generally having a nice time, when Number Two Son, whom we will call Charlie, apparently decided that he was not receiving enough attention. Now, Charlie was, at this point, something like 3 years old. I expected that he would know better, but, well, I was mistaken.

So, he was yelling, and standing up in his chair, and generally making a scene. I attempted to verbally redirect him, but, no-go.

My wife was not enjoying the shenanigans, and therefore I decided to remedy her dilemma. I stood, scooped Charlie up, placed him over my shoulder, “fireman’s carry” style, and walked out of the restaurant.

I could feel the eyes on me, as we departed, with a Bill Engvall-esque vibe of “somebody’s gonna get a whooping!” But, I had a slightly different plan. (don’t imagine that I was not tempted…)

Outside of the restaurant was a low stone wall. I sat Charlie thereon, and assumed my R. Lee Ermy persona. I placed myself nearly nose-to-nose with my son, and barked, “You are not a baby! You know how you are supposed to act! This acting up is NOT acceptable! You will sit there, quietly, until you are able to behave correctly! Do you understand me?”

His eyes teared up, and he replied, a quaver in his voice, “Yes, daddy.”

I snarled, “Very good! Now, you tell me when you are able to behave like you know you are supposed to!”

I stood, wrapped one hand in the other, behind my back, and paced back and forth before him, a scowl written large across my face.

After several minutes of this pacing, I turned to my son, and addressed him. “Have you had enough? Are you ready to act right?”

He sniveled, “No, daddy. Not yet.”

I had to abruptly turn, to hide the smile that burst across my face, and to hide my struggle to not laugh out loud.

Another couple of minutes later, he volunteered, “Daddy? I’m ready to behave, now!”

We re entered the restaurant and Charlie was subsequently the very model of proper toddler behavior.