So there we were at my house on cover. Since I've moved we can use my house as a coverpoint. It's a bit better than sitting in a rat infested carpark.

We were sent off to a three year old who had been suffering with a bit of toncilitus and a sore throat. Unfortunately his mum gave him some popcorn to eat. As you can imagine this didn't go down very well, in fact, it didn't go down at all. One bit got stuck, he coughed it up and up it came with a big glob of blood. Mum saw this and panicked and called us.

He was fine though, well, he wasn't fine, he wasn't very well. But he wasn't any iller than he was before. A tiny scratch on the back of his throat which has probably healed all ready.

Then off to a chap who had just come into the country from visiting abroad. He was diabetic and hadn't eaten all day. Needless to say he got home and had a hypo.

He had been ill abroad and was still feeling under the weather. We filled him with sugar and he seemed to come round a bit so we decided that he needed to be in hospital.

We got him as far as the front door and he was sick, exorcist sick. I reached for the nearest available bowel and held it under the flow. Now he wasn't a good shot and most of it went over my hand. Warm, wet and lumpy it was one of the most unpleasant feelings in the world. I had gloves on but even so...

Then the rain came down, mother earth smiled again.

Sorry. Cars started crashing on the motorway. We got sent to a 5 car RTA which, when control got a better location, turned out to be on a different carriageway from the one they thought. We shot past it and before we got there were stood down. Non injury. We drove past it again but a bit slower this time. Then when we got to the next junction we got turned round to another job which was in the direction we had come from. Drove past the RTA again. We got there and were stood down and then went back again. Drove past the RTA 4 times in all

Then to a woman who had had a headache for two weeks. She had been involved in an RTA a few weeks before hand and had a whiplash injury. I would hazard a guess that that was something to do with her headache

Again there was a dark room with an odd smell. I didn't enquire what was in there.

So there we were, sitting on base. A fairly quiet night up to that point. The radio opened up and we got the call that everybody dreads:

"Maternity call"

It was in a small town a bit north of us that we also cover. Off we went, not happy.

On the way we got a message on our computer thingy. The birth was imminent.

We looked at each other: "Oh, bugger", the ambulance sped up a bit. Luckily the local responder car was ahead of us but not by much.

We saw his car as we entered the town. Pulling to a stop we headed in doors to find him with the mother. The birth was indeed imminent and the baby was crowning.

Righty-ho then. We all got busy. Baby was eased out, cord was clamped and cut and a full set of observations was done on mum and baby. We had asked for a midwife to attend but she was coming from about twenty miles away and they don't give them blue lights

All was well and good and now we were just waiting. Waiting for (a) the midwife and (b) the placenta. Didn't know which was coming first.

About half an hour later we got the answer. The placenta was the winner. Unfortunately it slithered down between the cushions on the couch. We retrieved it ok though.

Anyway, mum and baby are both well. We left them in the care of the midwife. A good job all round

At the other end of the shift came a job that in many ways was the opposite. A woman called us to her husband who was not at all well. Very low blood pressure, wheezy and not really with it. He was 91 but still, he wasn't well.

It was one of those jobs where, if you are the driver, you walk in and walk straight out again. The reason you do that is that this person needs to be in hospital now. If you have a couple of experienced people, as we were tonight, the other person will be checking on the person and making him ready for travel.

Got him on the ambulance and got his wife in the front with me. We chatted on the way about not very much. Me trying to keep her mind off things.

I would be surprised if he survives, to be honest. He has had a good innings though.

The night was balanced. We helped someone into the world and probably eased someones passage out of it.

Karma  

Well, I played the crewmate lottery again today. Wasn't sure who I'd end up working with for the night but lo and behold it was my regular crewmate.

First job of the night was to a 35 year old woman. She told us she had had a miscarriage the previous morning. She hadn't called anyone or gone to the hospital because she didn't have enough money for transport or any credit for her phone. Whether she had had a miscarriage or not I don't know but as it was her eighth pregnancy I think she was in a place to know.

But what really gets me thinking about these sort of jobs in these sort of places is the bizarre domestic setup. I'll walk you through it.

We were met outside the flat by some spotty herbert in a baseball cap. He shouted at me because he thought I was going to back the ambulance into his car that he had abandoned in the middle of the road. That put me in a good mood.

In we go. Past the whitegoods on the stairs, past the open bags of rubbish. Up the stairs, past a room full of ten or fifteen children ages two and up. All of whome were crying. Past the empty fishtank, past another room that was quiet and dark but had a very strange smell coming from it. Up more stairs to a room with a double bed and mattress (origenal colour unknown). Our patient was lying on the bed. Four other adults were also in the room. As soon as we walked in three of them lit up cigarettes. What, if any, relation they were to our patient and to the thousands of children downstairs was impossible to say.

And then a strange thing happened. I've seen it many times before and i still don't understand it. All the people other than the patient started telling us what was wrong with them. Almost as if they were jealous.

The rest of the night consisted of drunk teens, stomach aches that had been going on for years and lots of sitting in carparks.

Then we got a call to a young man who had tried to kill himself. We soon arrived at a very posh neighbourhood of one of the posher areas of the county. A very big house and two young brothers. Mum and dad were away and they had been drinking. Our patient had been depressed, He had tied a mobile phone charger cord round his neck and jumped out of a bedroom window. Needless to say, the cord broke and he landed in some bushes in a heap. Completely unhurt. Now the police were there as well, for many reasons, and they had managed to find a large bag of something herbal which caused a bit of an upset.

And that, as they say, is that. So far anyway.

Which are the last words spoken in The Lord of the Rings, if you are wandering.

I've moved house and had nearly a month off. Which was stressfull, knackering and restfull. In that order.

Whats new? We've got new uniforms. These are the interim uniforms. Between the old uniforms and the new uniforms that we are supposed to be getting next year. I must say, however, that they do look good. A lot tidier than the romper suits that we used to wear. As usual the issueing of the uniforms did not go to plan. A lot of peoples came a completely different size to what they asked for.

When they did arrive and people started to wear them, the stitching gave way, in spectacular style. After a days wear my, and a lot of other peoples, crotch stitching failed.

I don't think that crotchless uniforms was the look that they were trying for.

Today has been an interesting and fun day. I was working with someone I hadn't worked with for a long time and it was very nice. Feet have been a problem for two of our patients.

The first was a lady who was 100 years old. She had Parkinsons disease but still lived alone. She had help come in but basically coped for herself. We were called because she told her carer that she had numb feet.

The carer was very much of the opinion that we MUST take her to hospital. Now when someone says that to me it really gets my back up but we had a little chat with the lady and took a few basic observations. I tickled her feet. They weren't very numb.

We got her to her feet and she bimbled about her flat. She seemed ok, apart from being old. We asked her if she wanted to go to hospital. She gave us a withering look.

"Oh. No", she said. That was good enough for us. We left, pausing only to arrange for a GP to come and see her later.

The next person with feet problems was the complete opposite in many ways. A 15 year old girl at school.

She had had a panic attack, pain in her neck and no she was saying that she couldn't move her legs.

Hmmm. Sounds unlikely, we thought. Nevermind. We treat everyone as ill until we can prove otherwise.

Off we went to the school. We were met by a bystander at the gate. And she showed us the way. We left her behind at one point. It wasn't really a fair race. She was on foot and we were in an ambulance.

Got to the patient. I got my crewmate to tickle her feet this time. She reacted like I hoped she would.

She hadn't had an accident or a fall so there wasn't any damage. We chatted for a while. Then we sat her up. All well and good. We got her to bend her legs, which she did. We stood her up.

Lo, We made the lame walk.

Healing hands you see.

I think that it was a combination of the panic attack, an ongoing back problem and a bit of attention seeking.

We left her with her dad and left everyone else pondering the miracle we had just wrought.

Walking down the stairs on the way out we were passed by two women teachers. After the second one passed us I looked at my crewmate, she looked at me.

"Did She just fart?"