Chicken Thief

Last shift was steady until after midnight. Thankfully, we all got sleep undisturbed after that. :).  I’m afraid that’s the only  excuse I have for not posting this earlier. And I honestly have none for yesterday, I just lost track of time. Enough of my lame and absent excuses; on to  my belated boo-boo bus tale. So here goes: we was dispatched to a residence for  a 50-something year old female that is unconscious with a history of diabetes. Now, this residence takes approximately 20 min to reach running lights and sirens. Oh, the joys of rural EMS! Anyhow, we remembered going to this residence once before when her blood sugar was too high. She had been combative then; we hoped she wouldn’t be this time. Neither of us was in the mood to bob and weave while trying to do our jobs. Unfortunately, this residence is a trailor located in a makeshift trailer lot in the midst of some woods. This lot is super sketchy... as in, nicknamed Sketchville with the occasional Methville thrown in. Ok, enough back story. So, as we’re bee-do-ing along to the house, dispatch advised us that the volunteer agency had been toned twice without any response. They wanted to know if we wanted them toned a third time. Now, our dispatch has to contact their dispatch who contacts them. So, instead of going through all of that rig-a-ma-row, my partner called their dispatch. They was able to contact the chief and got a firefighter en route. Once we arrived, the firefighter was already there, but he hadn’t gone in yet. I grabbed the red bag and lead the way. We found our pt half on and half off the bed. We moved her entirely on to the bed and began assessing her. She would barely move her arms in response to a sternal rub (a form of painful stimuli used to determine just how out of it someone is; it works great to change the minds of most folks playing possum ;)]. She was breathing just fine and continued snoring while we prepped our equipnent. She was freezing to the touch with damp clothing. Her husband said that he last saw her about a hour ago, so we’re guessed that she had been down for close to that amount of time. Our glucometer read low, which means that her blood glucose is less than 20 or 25; I forget which it is with our glucometers. Anyway, I had the boys hold her arms down as I went to start an IV. Just as I saw flash, she twisted her arm just enough to pop the needle through the other side of her vein. I moved to the other side of her bed and realized that I was going to have to climb across the bed. Not my most favoritest thing to do in places of highly questionable clean-ness. At least there wasn’t enough light to see too terribly much. I hopped up, without falling, might I add, which was nothing short of a miracle, and crawled over to her. I found a lovely vein, had the firefighter hold her arm and off we went. After placing that line with very minimal movements from the pt, I gave her an entire amp of D-50. Now, this usually works great. After several minutes, the pt usually returns to normal. She was a bit slower coming around. She slowly started to move some and opened her eyes and looked around.  We kept coaxing her and finally got her to tell us her name. She kept complaining of being cold, so her husband sweetly covered her with blankets. Whenever we would ask her anything, she would just say “I don’t know” and “I’m cold.”  I finally coaxed her into looking around the room. “Where do you think you are?” Why, I’m at my home.” “Correct! Now, can you tell me what year it is?” “Nope.” “How bout you give me a wild guess?” “No, I don’t think so. I’m cold.”  “Ok, if we help you sit up, do you think you can eat a sandwich? The medicine we gave you will wear off soon.”  She wasn’t too sure about that, but she was awake enough to eat now, so we pulled her up to a sitting position. She was also very adamant that she did not want to go to the hospital.  Her husband came back with juice and asked if she wanted her ham sandwich heated or not. As expected, she practically yelled “Heated!” We kept trying to coax her into guessing the year without any luck. She’s always a stubborn fart and this time was no different. We coaxed her into drinking most of the juice and eating her sandwich. Her husband had sweetly cut the sandwich into bite-sized pieces, which sped the process up. She asked if she could have something warm to drink. A few minutes later, her husband returned with some soup broth. By this time, we had collectively bundled her up like an Eskimo, but she was still cold. By this time, the firefighter, my partner, and myself were getting a bit jittery. We had been on scene for close to a hour; my partner had a recliner that needed held down at the station, and I had a movie to watch and project to stitch. Gotta watch those recliners and projects; they’re liable to jump up and run away if no one is there to hold them down! We kept coaxing and begging her to no avail. We couldn’t leave until she became A&Ox4 (alert and oriented to person, place, time, and event). My partner grabbed our bag and headed to the truck to grab the computer. I kept trying to get her to either guess the year or agree to go to the hospital. She remained stubborn about both. When my partner returned, he had an odd look on his face. I asked him what was wrong; he told me he would tell me later. After much pleading for close to a hour, she was finally able to tell us the month and year. We obtained her info and signature, asked the husband to keep an eye on her, and went out to our truck. We thanked the firefighter and headed out. My partner told me that when he was tossing the bag in the back, he heard clucking. He looked inside and saw a chicken sitting in the middle of our cot. Apparently,  she felt that if her owner wouldn’t allow us to bring her to the hospital, then it’s a loyal chicken’s  duty to go in her owner’s place. When my partner closed the side door, she squawked and left out the back doors in a flurry of feathers. And that, my dear friends, is how I almost became a chicken thief. I hope your stitching is chicken free!
Happy Stitching from Yours Truly,
The Unintentional Almost Chicken Thief