What a difference a day makes.

With our sparkling clean ambulance we attended the following,

81F - Regular dialysis pt who was royaly pissed because we were really late picking her up.

30M - Chest wall pain. Has had it for six hours, no cause like trauma, over exersice. Equal air entry no deformity, we were told by hospital later that there was nothing found and he woke up pain free from the analgesia and was discharged.

Pain is a very subjective thing and many times we are made to shake our heads at the reaction some pts have to their perceived 10/10 pain.

24F - Asthma not relieved by her own meds. We were the second car to arrive so I didn't get a peak expiratory flow rate before our bronchodilators but after two nebs with 100% O2 it was at best 305 l/min with her known max of 550. She was fair pinging from the amount of salbutamol (ventolin) that she had taken.

97F - Still lives at home alone with meals on wheels and home services coming every second day. Today she had finally rung her Dr about a cough she had and he had rung us. She was hot enough to cook on and just to hear her breath in the same room as you was like listening to a gravel truck go by. Transported.

49F - Abdo pain. Have any of you noticed that the are some wealth people are just dumb about their own health and what is it like to be really ill. There was by her statement a stomach twinge and she thought she was going to die. She eventually left in her own car to do some shopping before going to see her LMO.

70M - Mechanical stumble, a bit of skin missing but just requested assistance to his front door.

MVA - three cars one with a pt trapped by confinement (the door wouldn't open), the Water Fairies got it opened as we arrived and we got cancelled.

55F - Well known to most city ambo's and ED's, developmentally delayed/ brain injury, lives in a group home and when she has a fight with someone she gets on a train and comes into the city and gets people to call for an ambulance. Most usual presentation is claiming to have had a seizure or to feel that she's about to have one.
Today we picked her up from a railway station. Took her to the little hospital in the city. She left after the Dr sat down with her and explained again that we all know her real Hx and that there is nothing wrong with her.

55F - Sitting in a hair dressing salon, yep! same pt and because of our system if she asks for transport I have to take her. To a different hospital where the social workers aren't the nurses and can spend time to sort her out.

13F - who is developing multiple food allergies and felt some of the symptoms, maybe. Was with mum who told us that there was a likelyhood that some anxiety had developed and multiplied the sensations. No airway involvement and when she had calmed and thing resolved mum and dad took her home.


See you at the big One.

Taz