Cookie

I realize that.

Reading this you could have had my father in law. Only we, his family are the ones who transported him. Small community, we are all EMT's. Here is what went on. He started not feeling good, when your 89 years old, we hear that all the time. He has a pace maker and optimizer, plus he is insulin dependent diabetic, on blood thinners and so forth. This not feeling well went on for a few days, then he refused to get out of bed, only to go to the bathroom, refused food, meds. Finally after all attempts by his wife and one daughter and one son, and grandson to get him to go to the hospital, they called the oldest son who is my hubby. He looked at them and said I guess I don't have a choice. We determined he was severely dehydrated, and so did the hospital, so they slowly started to rehydrate him. Some where between the er and the room he was admitted to, something happened, he claimed his head hurt. They ran a ct scan, no stroke, blood work all within normal values. He was going down hill, altered loc and it was decided to get him to another larger hospital. We got him there and over the next few days they did numerous tests, stroke, heart, yadda yadda, the final one they did was a spinal tap, looking for west nile virus and encephalitis. By this time basically he was not responding except to painful stimuli. Test came back with a viral infection, but not know what. Suddenly he woke up out of his fog two weeks ago, started to remember almost everything except the days between the two hospitals. Not west nile but enchepalitis. Now he is in rehab and making great strides to get home. We knew he was doing better he is back to his grouchy, honery self. So we get to keep this 89 yr old for a while longer it seems, despite everything.

Congratulations and prayers for a healthy baby.

We just had a little bit yesterday, most of the heavy snow went east and south east of us. Most of it melted when it hit till over night and about a half inch stuck to things. KC and Wichita, and Texas got hit hard.

Snow is not to start till noon or after. Schools across the board, in Iowa and Nebraska have cancelled classes, including colleges and major universities. So just as soon as the snow builds up the kids will be out with the innertubes and sleds sliding down hills in pastures.

Ruff you and your family stay safe. Between what they forecast and what we actually get is a tossup. MariB, know where O'Brien is, next door to Sioux and one county below the Iowa Border. I don't know how much snow you folks will get. From the looks of things we are getting slammed from the south.

Where in Iowa are you MariB? I am in Fremont County.

We went to the store and got groceries on Sunday. Have the 5 gal buckets ready to fill and set in the tub. Got my moms coffee pot ready (old fashioned on the stove perculator). Propane bottles in the ready to use on the propane heater we have. Have 8 gallons of bottled water for drinking and cooking if needed. We have the tractors ready with the blades on them. We are good to go. Now if only people will stay off Interstate 29, if not at least drive according to what conditions dictate. A few years ago when we had the blizzards right after another and sheer ice on the interstate, we had people sliding every which way and getting cars buried in snow drifts. They did not understand why they were getting tickets for speeding when they were going 70 and that was the speed limit. Needless to say there were a lot of unhappy motorist with cars that were left because of a no tow order and tickets to boot. We are to get somewhere between 8 and 11 inches or more. Just have to wait and see, got my gear ready in case we do have to go out. Everyone else stay safe and warm.

The two local hospitals we go to have no wait times if you bring someone in an ambulance, walk in's sometime wait just a few minutes, nothing extroidanary. However I have said to all who know me, if anything happens and I have to go north to one of two trauma centers in Omaha, you had better not take me to xxxx because I will refuse care, even if I am unconscious to begin with and wake up in their ER I will refuse care and ask for an ambulance to take me to the other one. This hospital let my sister lie in the Er for five hours with a collasped lung, when her Dr. told them to put her in a room, my brother in law continued to ask why they were waiting and they told them they were trying to find her a room. My brother in law went up to the floor and asked around and found out no one had any idea they had a pt waiting, seems no one bothered to check for a room. Another time in this same ER she waited 3 hours with difficulty breathing and got up and left. They had not idea she left for another four hours. End of my rant.

AK: I wish you the best of luck in your new endeavor. If your as focused and committed to your new business as you were to EMS then success is all yours. Cookie

I read an article yesterday that the employee was from another country and did not know what an ambulance looks like. I say that is a bunch of bull.

I lurk a lot, nothing much to say. Lately progressing nicely after getting pneumonia big time, I don't ever want to do that again. Not the pneumonia so much as the dammed morphine and the shots in the stomache to keep me from getting blood clots. The morphine had the strangest people running thru my head, and the shots in the stomache burned like a sob. But on the other hand my spo2 is at 99 and thats better than the 85 something when I got to the hospital. Now back to lurking.

I know how you feel, first with my father in law, then my grandbaby who had rsv when she was about 6 months old. Had to step back and let the medic do his job on transport. It is not easy that is for sure, I have comiserate with you, and glad your son is doing fine.

I got within a hares breath of putting an expiration date on my birth certificate. I had a cold for about ten days, and thought I was about over it. Breathing ok, minimul cough, no fever etc. Felt on top of the world on Sunday. Did grocery shopping, help move equipment from one farm to another. No problem. During the night in the wee hours of Monday morning, I was chilled to the bone. Tried to round up enough blankets to warm me up. Woke hubby up finally he got me to the bathroom, and got me something for the fever. He went to work later, I slept most of the day. By about 7 pm. I called him and told him I was struggling to breathe, and I was. He rushed home and took me to the hospital. I had pneumonia. Blood work showed my white cell count at 36,000. You could hear me breathing all over the ER. The high dose antibotic Levaquin has done a pretty awesome job and by Wed. the blood count was 21,000 and today 11,000. The Dr. told me today that if I had not been in the good state of health I was in, I would not be here. This pneumonia kills people and I got very close. So I got to come home today, making a pretty good recovery. With a shot for the pneumonia, one for flu, an inhaler, more antibotics, pain meds and told to sit back and recover. After all that breathing treatments, mucinex, and anywhere from 12 to 15 bags of normal saline to rehydrate me over the course of the week, the only complaint I have is them dam shots in the stomach for blood clots. Those suckers burn like crazy.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was doing my clinicals one company had the policy of taking their equipment with them when they left. While I was there they brought in a pt who had a fractured hip. They had the traction splint on, needless to say the ripped that puppy off that patient and pulled the lsb they had to roll her onto to get her in the amublance, out from under neath her, causing her to let out some of the most blood curdling screams I have ever heard. They had the same policy of not leaving equipment behind. That being said we mark all our equipment with name and town, whatever and we frequently retrieve them from Emergency Rooms that day or even days later, we have never had a problem with theft.

Yes, my friend and I just completed our second book, none of it ems so don't know if it counts or not. We are into genealogy and these are genealogy related.

Ibuprofen is derived from aspirin, so no I wouldn't give it.

Rather than put in print what I really think about this parent, I will just say Words Escape Me.

Obviously your personna left a lasting impression on this lady and her family. I see nothing wrong with the visitation, and the gift, I see it as a thank you for all you did for this lady, even though you were doing your job, apparently this lady thought otherwise. Is your co worker jealous of the fact that someone remebered you for your kindness and caring and they weren't? Now if this was a habit of yours going to all the visitations of folks you transported is a different thing altogether. I may be in the minority here, but I see nothing wrong with paying your respects to someone you had gotten to know over the course of several years.

We sometimes run south to Missouri and purchase fireworks and shoot them off here on the farm. Yes they are illegal in Iowa but you know out in the very rural area's law enforcement pretty much ignores you. Other times we just go watch someone else set them off. My husbands family started a 4th of July celebration here locally here in Iowa and he grew up in the world of fireworks, creating the set pieces and setting up the tubes to shoot the airels from, and also lightening them off. Safety was his first lesson and they still hold today. We have never had an accident or anything set on fire. The grandkids watch from the safety of the patio, while the guys light things off out back away from the house and out buildings. But this year we are staying in the air conditioned comfort of our home. Its about 100 now and feels like a whole lot higher than that.. So to everyone out there, Happy 4th of July, stay safe and stay cool. From hotter than hell Iowa.

One presents a picture to a group of people and you will get a thousand descriptions of what is going on in that photo regardless if any of the group was present at that event. So why do we automatically assume, the Firefighter has no skills? All the firefighters I have been in contact with over the past 25 years or more all have their CPR certification, most are certified First Responders or EMT’s in Iowa where I live. All are capable in using a BVM at any point in time. The look on their faces, since we don’t know these personnel we don’t know what bored looks like. So how can we judge what his face really looks like? One of our medics, unless he is laughing, he always looks bored. If you see him on a call, he looks bored, but in fact he is about 50 steps ahead of everyone on what needs to be done next. I am with Eyedawn on this one. It’s a mid-movement photo. The only thing I see wrong in this picture is, is that law enforcement should have cleared the looky loos and picture takers from the entrance and made them stand back somewhere else.

One year ago I went thru a catastrophic event, the epic flood of the Missouri River. We were notified May 31 about the voluntary evacuation for all county residents near the Interstate. In our case, most of the residents are farmers, so it is not your typical single home to pack up and move. It took a week to move cattle to pasture on high ground, grain had to be moved out of the bins and to the elevators. Then packing up a farm shop, moving tractors, combines and all forms of farm equipment to high ground. I worked on packing up the house during the first week. By the weekend we had purchase what we would be living in for nearly 6 months. It took one day with a group of volunteers to load all the furniture into one of the 53 ft. dry van trailers we purchased. That same day all the contents of my pantry, most of the pots, pans and dishes etc. were loaded into the camper, along with clothing and bedding. Also loaded into the camper was the clothing and everything else my daughter and family needed to survive with us. The afternoon of the 6th of June we relocated to the local state park, to begin life as a flood victim or refugee. The following three weeks my husband and other members of the community struggled daily to ring sand boils and sand bagged soft spots on the levee. We were not fortunate enough to have a army of volunteers to help with the process, we had to do it ourselves, and the idiots from the Corps of Engineers were criticizing every bag thrown. By the end of June the releases from Gavins Point dam at Yankton S. D was nearing 160,000 cubic feet per second. On June 30th it all came to a head when the levee north of our community breached, it was now a mandatory evacuation. I was sent home from work to do what I needed to do to evacuate. The business was going to close its doors that day and they were going to be packing up as well. I never went back and I am not regretting it. When faced with pending disasters, whether man had a hand in it, or natural, you would be suprised what your capable of doing and how fast you can do it.

Good news to hear on your daughter. Your daughter and your family are still being remembered in my prayers.

ROTFL very funny

I asked her about a transplant, and she told me she wasn't, and I left it at that.