Living and working as a Paramedic in Iraq.
A quote from Dennis Miller. Before you condem the man, think about what he's trying to say.
"We need to hit these terrorists hard. Every place over there is a 'Holy Site'! Screw that! The most holy site in the world is an elementary school full of kids on the first day of class, and those animals desecrated one."
Dennis Miller
Well as usual I’m slack about posting in this spot. Why you ask? Same reason as before- I’m slack and there’s not much going on. Given the options of:
a) “Not much going on” or
b) “Crap, they’re shooting at us again”
I’ll take the first thank you. Heck, I haven’t even had many patients lately.
I did the blood-borne pathogens/TB training last week and also threw in a small speech about the evils of dehydration. Dehydration is evil for many reason, not the least of which is that if/when we get a heat related injury I may have to start collecting random samples of urine to check specific gravity. Yeah! Playing with urine- yuck. I’m not sure that everyone believed me, but I really hope they did. I really, really don’t want to have to do that- no I’m serious, it’s been proposed for the medics to do so.
You might wonder why it is that a group of adults don’t know to drink enough water, but occasionally it’s possible to get busy and not realize that you aren’t drinking enough. The air is so hot and dry that the sweat evaporates so you rarely feel “wet” or “sweaty” as in a more temperate climate. Ideally, we tell folks that work outside to drink three-five large bottles (liter and a half) of water a day and to monitor their urine output for frequency and color. Yes, it should be clear to straw colored if you are properly hydrated- I’ve read that up to 70% of Americans are partially dehydrated at any given time. Too much tea, soda and coffee don’t help the problem.
What else medical, hmmm. I drained, cleaned and packed an abscess the other day (and every day since). It’s looking much better thank you. Athlete’s foot is becoming an issue again- yet another thing you would think adults would know how to take care of is their feet but I guess not. I think when I am King of the World and Exalted Poobah Extraordinaire I will make it mandatory that all citizens take at least one semester of first aid, one semester of personal hygiene, one semester of nutrition, etc. While we’re touching on first aid, I’d have them taught what is and is not an emergency- you just don’t call an ambulance or go to the ER for certain things, period. Doing so would negate your right to have a child in the future, as you are obviously too stupid to be passing your genes along.
Yep, I feel like ranting for a moment so here goes- I’m talking here about things like (one of my favorite street EMS examples) the 4AM call were you drag your tail out into the night to go pick up someone who’s knees hurt. Of course it almost always turns out that their knees hurt because they have gout, they’ve been out of their medicine for two weeks, they smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish while eating fried pork and being inactive and 100 pounds over weight. Reeeeaaallllly, I can’t imagine why your knees hurt and oh yeah, I feel sooooo sorry for you. It should be considered appropriate and merciful treatment to euthanize them on the spot for the sake of all mankind.
Nope, I’m not feeling the love at the moment. Compassion is one thing, interfering with natural selection is another.
I’m going to blame the mean streak on my elbow hurting; I’ve got bursitis in my left elbow at the moment. I’ve got it wrapped to try to keep it from swelling but it’s still annoying, especially since my desk is configured so that my left elbow rest on part of it while I sit at the computer.
On to brighter topics. Well it was bright out again today- and damn hot too. It was around 112 degrees in the sun. I’m betting it’s going to be the same tomorrow. There’s one of the world’s easiest jobs folks- Iraqi weatherman. Hot today, hot tomorrow, hell it’s going to be hot through September and quite probably even through the first part of November. It’s going to be windy and dry too and we’ll have some really cool looking dust devils.
I still haven’t flown my kite yet. I haven’t quite gotten up the nerve to do so. I know someone is going to gripe when I do and say it’s a horrible thing and the insurgents can see it etc. Well here’s a news flash Scoop- we know they sit in the tower on the mosque near the base and watch us through binoculars anyways. Maybe they’d see my kite and decide that, being a kid at heart and enjoying a trivial moment, we might be nice guys after all and not want to blow us up. OK, so I doubt it, but it’s a nice happy though.
And while we’re on the subject of hair brained ideas, I was lying there in bed last night reading One Man Caravan by Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. and had the brilliant idea that I should buy a motorcycle in Dubai, ship it to Pakistan and then ride to Jinan to see my cousin. Hey, it sounded like a good idea at the time. In fact, it still sounds like a good idea. Anybody want to ride to China?
I seem to be getting worse about updating this thing. Honestly there isn’t that much going on here (fortunately). We’ve had another bombing or two in Tikrit with more deaths, Baghdad has had a lot of bombings lately.
The temp was 106 yesterday.
My bus is still in the process of getting the motor rebuilt. This is the second time as the first guy completely lied about doing the work. What goes around comes around and bad karma will come back to him I’m sure. I wish no one ill will and I’m not trying to be malicious, but this is an instance where I won’t loose any sleep if/when it does. It’s funny the things that occupy your mind over here- I keep thinking about where all I want to go in the bus. For those of you wondering what the bus is, it’s a restored 1978 VW Westfalia camper- sage green of course. Two beds, sink, stove, cooler, storage for my junk- what more could I want for a long road trip right. Well maybe air conditioning.
Vacation/R&R- late June it’s looking like. It’s my end of contract so I’ll have to decide whether I’m coming back or not. It’s hard to walk away from the money but there are a myriad of other places I’d rather be. I said I was going to work for a year over here so that I could earn the money to take off for a while. I suppose it’s kind of addicting though- the more you earn the more you want. I have no faith that social security will be around when I get older so I’m working for my retirement. If I’d had any sense when I was younger and put money away from the start I’d be a lot better off, but how many of us really do that?
There was something else I was going to mention, but I can’t remember what it was………… Oh well.
