It's gonna be a long thirteen years.

At the library yesterday afternoon with the kiddo because, A) he should be exposed to books and B) it’s a nice warm dry place on a wet crappy day.

So he runs into one of his little friends from Kindergarten. She happens to be a girl.

So my son suddenly switches on, goes into full on showoff mode. Making jokes, regaling her with stories about the stuff they build with blocks, and pretty much transforming into the Life of the Party.

She, for her part, favors him with coy smiles and laughs uproariously at everything he does. Which encourages him to further antics.

Now, I recognize this dynamic. Done the dance myself, and seen it done well and poorly. Nothing new or disturbing here.

But they’re five years old.

I don’t know whether I’m more unsettled at the fact that flirting starts so young, or that the boy just has so much more game than I do.

Backstory is Important

Took the kiddo to Imajine That, an indoor playground since it was rainy and lousy. They have climbing structure, slides, a bouncy house, craft areas and a rack of costumes and hats and stuff to play dress up.

My son winds up wearing a hardhat, safety vest and fairy wings, and has a knight's shield strapped on his arm.

Vessel of the Clan's Hopes and Dreams: "Daddy! Look at me!"

Me: "What are you? A fairy knight construction worker?"

VotCHaD: "Yes."

Me: "That's different."

VotCHaD: "We need to build a bridge for the fairies, then defend it against the trolls."

Me: "...OK then. Strong work."

Ask a Bitter Medic: Vaccinations

I’d like to talk about some facts versus folk wisdom and pseudoscience about vaccinations, and flu shots in particular.

“But the flu shots just makes me sick,” you say. “Why take a shot that makes me sick?”

A fair question, and one that is easily answered, but we’re all too damn overworked, underfunded and harried to explain it, plus, we hear any anti-vaccine stuff and we just roll our eyes and punch a wall, pretending it’s Jenny McCarthy. 

Now, I know Ms McCarthy has tried to make amends for her crimes against public health by posing again in Playboy, and we’re grateful, but, Jenny, that’s not quite gonna cut it.

So, anyway, here goes:

The flu shot does not “make you sick.” It’s a dead virus. Your body recognizes the foreign invader and the body’s immune response can make you feel lousy. Fever, inflammation, nausea, these are all part of your body’s immune response.

The reaction to the flu shot lasts a day, and can be unpleasant. My five year old son got the shot and was cranky and achy for one evening. He coped, and HE’S FIVE.

The alternative is he maybe gets the flu.

Influenza is a highly contagious and dangerous disease. 250,000 to 500,00 people DIE worldwide each year from the flu.  Mostly older people, very young people and those with preexisting medical problems, but even the healthy flu sufferer will have severe symptoms for a week or two. And the flu sucks. You’re not limping in to work, like you have a cold. You are lying in bed with a high fever, praying for death’s sweet release.

Plus, once one member of the family has it, it will rage through the household like Chlamydia through a Christian Youth Bible Camp, and you lose a week’s sick time (or pay, if you’re one of us who doesn’t have all that much sick time) taking care of a sick kid while praying for death’s sweet release.

And if you follow Mitt’s advise and call an ambulance, we will take you to the ER, where they won’t be able to do a damn thing to cure the flu, but will subject everybody else to your germs, and run up a bill.

All the while, thinking “Why didn't you just get the fucking shot?’

This has been a Public service announcement by Bitter Medics Against Pseudoscience. We return you to the internet.

Yeah, we kinda know we’re fighting a losing battle, but there ya go.

Lessons in being a Man.

Today we taught the boy about facing fears and overcoming obstacles.

Like rules.

We went to the park with lots and lots of slides. Now, it was a cloudy, muggy, lousy weekday, so the place was nearly empty. My five year old wanted to climb up the high, twisty slide after sliding down. Now, this is technically verboten. 

But it was awesome and huge and scary. It was, in his young mind, Everest. No way was I going to let something as pointless as The Rules take that way from him.

That said, there's a reason they have that rule. It's so we don't have a six toddler pile up as some other kiddo comes barreling down and mows his young legs from under him. Although that is also part of growing up. So I explained why the rule says no climbing, and why it didn't apply today and how we're Men, and we were damn well going to climb that mother.

So now he both knows the heady rush adrenaline of overcoming you fear of heights, and that when confronted with a Rule, one should as "why?" if the answer is something like "So you don't wind up breathing through a tube," that's a rule you should obey. If the answer is "because it Says So," then you can get all Henry David Thoreau on its ass.

Changes

Plenty has happened since I've neglected this space for the past few months.

I changed jobs. Well, ok, I was asked to change jobs, and had two very scary, stress inducing months without a paycheck before landing a new job for slightly better pay at a company with an atmosphere more to my taste, but there you go.

My son is finishing his last summer as a free man. Next week, he enters the belly of the beast and starts Kindergarten.  I could make some Pink Floyd references, if I were truly pessimistic, but I'll keep it light and think of the Indigo Girls. He can spend the next few years prostrate to the higher mind, get his paper and be free.

My book is out. Go buy it. It's brilliant. It's available as an ebook this second. Paperback books coming soon. The proofs are done, off to the printers, not sure how long until you can buy one, but soon.

It's a paranormal thriller set against the background of a private EMS company in a tough, economically depressed town. Fun for the whole family. If you ever wondered what the bastard offspring of Robert B Parker and Roger Zelanzy would look like, but lack the background in necromancy and  genetics to make that happen, this book is for you.

I'll try to be better about this blog. 

Fun, differing definitions of

Going over the copyedit for "Out of Nowhere."

Imagine the combined fun of an employee review, a note from your ex telling you why she left, and your mom giving you advice on your lifestyle.

It's not quite that much fun.

On Aspirations, Realistc

Starting work at a new ambulance company next week. My goal is to hit the four year mark at a company.

  A dream I've had unfulfilled for twelve years.

I reckon you'd get your ass kicked for something like that.

A medic friend of mine had his toothpaste stolen at work. From his toiletry bag which was in the base bathroom. He became incensed at this, and had some choice words for the perpetrator. I think those words were "pathological lying scumbag thieving shit bag coworkers."


People told him to calm down, toothpaste costs a buck, keep his perspective.


Fuck that.


Stealing a squeeze of toothpaste from a tube left out on the sink, sure. going through another guy's bag and taking the tube is another.

It stuns me because I've always found people to be ready to lend stuff if asked. I've lent toothpaste, soap, shampoo, uniform parts, stethoscopes, ibuprofen, allergy medicine, money, food, and a few times my car to co-workers. People I only knew from working the truck. And I've borrowed most of those things when I needed them. All without thinking. I've come in early and stayed late for people. Taken somebody else's call because they needed a shower in the middle of a double shift.

In this business, we should look out for one another, and expect our co-workers to do the same for us. Having one another's back used to be the expected standard.


If I can't trust you with my $1.29 tube of Colgate, how can I trust you when you say you checked the cardiac monitor batteries? Or the expiration dates on the drugs? Or that you'll speak up when I'm headed down the wrong path on a complex medical call on no sleep at 3 in the morning?

Yeah, toothpaste is minor, but the disrespect is a betrayal. You don't steal from your partners, and you watch their backs, because EMTs and Medics are the only people who will look out for other EMTs and Medics.

If we can't count on one another, what does that leave us?

New Plan for the Publishing Industry...

They're going to stop rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and start colluding against icebergs.

There has been a lot of moaning by publishers and big bookstore chains about how e-books and Amazon are threatening to put them out of business. E-books are outselling hardcopy books, Amazon is undercutting  prices, e-books sell for less, so the profit to the publisher--oh, yeah, and some other guy...Oh! Right, the author-- is lower.

Doom and despondency all around.

What I'm not hearing at all is whether total book sales, e-books included, are up or down. Paperbacks are down, yes. And despite the handwringing, that doesn't mean a damn thing. CD sales are down as well, but people still buy new music. Eight track sales may never recover.

If the publishing industry as a whole is selling more books, whether through Amazon, Apple, brick and mortar or whatever, that is a net boon to writers. The potential audience is growing. People who live out in the sticks, people in countries where their native tongue isn't the standard, all can now get any book any time, via online e-book sales. This is a Good Thing.

And Amazon isn't piracy. People pay for the e-books. So the author gets something, and with the longer reach, the author should get a piece of greater overall potential sales.

E-books should not cost the same as print. Yes, the author worked just as hard on it. So did the editor. But there are savings in production, shipping, storage and returns. This is truth. And an e-book is less valuable to the consumer, since it's harder to lend, you can't sell it at a yard sale or donate it to the local library when you finish it.  If an e-book is $10 I will stick to print. And I will buy half as many books as if I can get a $4.99 e-book.

Maybe the publishing industry should try to sell more books, encourage more reading among the next generation (say what you like but the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series have done all writers a great service by introducing recreational reading to more young people) than trying to ensure they get the same cut they always have.

They need to stop rhapsodizing the longbow and crying when the enemy bring a machine gun to the field.
Amazon sells a boatload of books. Let's encourage the selling of a boatload of books.

The Doomsayers Who Cry "Wolf"

A friend of mine recently wondered why nobody takes "preppers" seriously.  I thought about it. I know I don't take most of them seriously.  My friend is an exception. He lives out in the woods, off a dirt road in an area that has a low population and lot of seasonal residents. So it's last on the priority list for the utility crews and the snowplows. It's not uncommon for him to lose the electrical grid for days on end, or to be cut off from the main roads. So he made sure he has some electricity from a solar panel array, and ha woodstove that can heat the house or cook a meal, and he always has some dry food stored. He considers himself a prepper, but I say he's just embraced the reality of his situation.

We don't make fun of the guy with a generator or a few gallons of bottled water. If your road floods twice a year, maybe you want to own a boat.

The guys we laugh at are the ones who have a bomb shelter. They guys who stockpiled 9 mm ammo after Obama won the election so that you couldn't get it in stores. The guys who bury a box of gold in the backyard.

Why do we laugh at the "Doomsday Preppers?" Why don't we take people seriously when they warn of the coming apocalypse?

Because we've gotten used to them.

There is always somebody screaming that the world will end. And it never does.

The millennium, the plague, the Mongol invasion, the rise of Fascism, of communism, the Cold War, the UN, going off the Gold Standard, Electing a Catholic president, missiles in Cuba, the energy crisis (pick one), the Y2K crisis,  weapons of Mass Destruction, electing a black president, the mortgage bubble, global warming.

We've grown numb to the cries. Everything else has proven survivable, so this next thing will be too.

Yes, there are dangers on the horizon. Many of the things I mentioned above had real potential to cause havoc, bring down the established order. Not many did. Sure, people suffered, but some people will always be getting it in the neck somewhere, and if it's not you or anyone you know, it's hard to get worked up. Sometimes, maybe we should worry, but they've become like a car alarm. Nobody looks up or calls the police when they hear a car alarm. they complain about the noise.

The average person worries about working to keep the family fed and sheltered, and wants to enjoy their few precious free moments, not spend them fretting about an apocalypse that has never returned a phone call. 

So, being busy, being jaded at the consistent ability of doomsayers to be dead wrong. That's understandable. But we do sometimes get worked up about a waning. If the weather guy on channel 4 says it will snow, everyone in the state has to run to the store for milk and bread. Why does he warrant a listen, make us look up from or lives of quiet desperation, but not the guy who warns of an impending fiat currency collapse? Both of them are probably overstating it for the ratings.

Well, it comes down to perceived legitimacy. If the President says terrorists have weapons of mass destruction, we think, since he has advisors and an intelligence agency and a foreign service and all, maybe he knows something. Turns out that's really not a good call, but it makes sense.

If you own no clothing that isn't camouflaged and have a beard like an Old Testament prophet, nobody's going to listen. If your friends are still in debt from all the Ramen Noodles and peanut butter you convinced them to buy for Y2K, they've stopped listening. I'm pretty sure Noah's neighbors saw him working on the Ark and pretended not to be home when he knocked on the door asking if he could borrow a male and a female scorpion.

And if your preps involve a defensible island fortress to hold off the UN invasion when the come for your handguns, just realize that when you have your heart attack brought on by a steady diet of MREs and stress about black helicopters, the Mooseknuckle Notch Volunteer Ambulance takes a long time to get there. And they've seen two heart attacks this year. It's been busy.

So, yeah, that's funny.

Maybe they'll be laughing at me when I am clawing at the shelter door begging for  some radiation sickness pills. But my money's on the guy who lives in the city, surrounded by leftists and minorities and world class hospitals.

The scariest power of all.

So the kiddo is really into Transformers right now. This afternoon, the wife pointed out a minivan to him that had a Decepticon sticker on it. For those of you who neither grew up in the 80s or have young children, the Decepticons are the evil Transformers, robots who can disguise themselves as everyday vehicles.

Kiddo: Is he a Decepticon?
Mom: Looks like.
Kiddo: What's his name?
Mom: I'm not sure. I think he's in disguise, waiting to transform.
Kiddo: What does he do?
Dad: His name is Suburbo. He steals your dreams.

Deaf Comedy Jam

We get a lot of patients on the ambulance who are hard of hearing. And there are a lot of accidental straight lines and perfect double entendres thrown out in everyday conversation that are hard to resist. When these two things occur simultaneously, we tend not to resist, and this leads to some escalation where we try to keep a straight face and make one another break or laugh first, without the patient actually realizing what we're doing.

Yeah, it's childish, but, hey, we're childish.

An actual exchange between my partner and I this past weekend.

We picked up a somewhat deaf elderly patient with chest pain, and transported her to the hospital. She first complained of having choked on chicken, and my partner asked a lot of "choking on the chicken" questions, while the Firefighters and I made the obligatory comments about how that could lead to blindness, carpal tunnel, etc. I won that round, since the Firefighters always break first.

Then we did our assessment and drove her to the hospital. I was driving, so my partner was in back treating the patient. When we pulled in to the ER and I opened the back doors, he was looking frustrated at her arms and taping some gauze over a missed IV attempt.

Now, since A Hospital Which Cannot Be Named wants all the work done for them, like lab draws and IV starts or they get bitchy, we hate to bring in a patient without a line established, so he asked me to hop in and take a look at her right arm while he looked for another site on her left.

I jumped in the truck and checked, and, while her veins were lousy, I did find a likely candidate and successfully started an IV, and drew blood.

This is the dialogue which followed:

Me: I'm in.

Him: Good job.

Patient: Oh, you're good.

Me: Thanks.

Patient: But you must hear that all the time.

Me: Once in a while, but it's always nice to hear.

Patient: I hardly felt you put it in.

Him (quiet enough so I heard it but the patient didn't): He hears that a lot.

So I was trying so hard not to laugh that as I finished the blood draw and started to hook up the IV tubing, I fumbled a bit so blood leaked back out of the IV catheter before I could get the line hooked up and running. Not a big deal, it just looks a bit messy. And I mean, like a few cc's of blood, not a lot.

Him: Man, we better have the ER order some O Negative! There gonna need if with you starting IVs today. That never happens to me.

Me: (in my best preschool teacher voice) Well, that's because it only happens when you hit a vein.

_____________________

The best version of the game ever was played between me and my old EMT partner Nicole, who was (and probably still is, come to think of it) a drop dead gorgeous blond. We would pretty much just drive around all day trading sexually inappropriate comments and the one who laughed the most, lost. Our partnership was completely platonic. My wife and I had dinner with her and her fiance, and we danced at their wedding.

But our conversations on the truck were consistently sleazy and inappropriate.

One time I was trying to lift the stretcher into the ambulance with a very deaf patient on it.

Lifting the stretcher is routine, but involved. You roll the cot until the head end is in the truck, then lift the foot end off the ground and roll it the rest of the way while your partner raises the wheels. After raising the stretcher, you have to roll it into a yoke and then slide one of the struts into a clamp that closes and locks when the strut hits a tiny retaining pin that keep the clamp open. Add to this the fact that the company was cheap and busy, so we slammed the stretchers into place a lot, and the maintenance was pretty sketchy, so the clamp often failed to lock, or had to be finessed into place.

The ambulance is kinda high, I'm pretty short, plus, this time I was standing in a dip, so I had to lift even higher than usual. So, I'm raising it, Nicole is lifting the wheels, then I need to roll it in, guiding it into place and hitting the damn pin just right which, in this particular shitbox truck, involved a complex slide/pull/shimmy maneuver.

So, I'm struggling a bit.

Nicole: Having trouble?

Patrick: No, no, I got it.

N: Can't get it up? It happens to a lot of guys.

P: No, it's up, I just can't get it all the way in. Happens to me a lot.

N: Well, you gotta work at it. If you put some more finesse into it, it would slide in a lot easier.

P: It's not enough to slam it in. It's all about hitting the right spot.

N: So, you're having a tough time finding the spot? That happens to a lot of guys, too.

P: (tears of silent laughter) I think I'm gonna need you to help me out here....

By which time, everything you say is dirty, since you've put your mind there, and we are emotionally as mature as the average third grade boy.

Thank God we treat a lot of very hard-of-hearing patients.

What I learned while installing a medicine cabinet.

1. There is no such thing as a standard sized medicine cabinet.

2. Stores will try, without any visible flicker of remorse, try to charge you $300.00 for an aluminum box with two shelves and a mirrored door.

3. The guy who invented wallpaper deserved to die a horrible, slow and lingering death. I hope he did.

4. My house was built in 1964. If it is representative of mid 60's American craftsmanship, it's no wonder we lost the Vietnam War.

5. Other than the outlet on the old, crappy, rusty, awful medicine cabinet, there was no outlet at all in the room. The '60's sucked.

6. But they did have the heaviest gauge wire known to man. I could have built a suspension bridge out of that stuff. Which made installing a new outlet loads of fun.

My Brief Incarceration at Catholic School.

When I was in first grade, about six years old, I came home from St Joseph's elementary school (AKA The Atheist Factory) and asked, "Mom, what does ‘strewn' mean?"

Somewhat surprised, she replied "It means ‘spread around.'"

"Oh," I said. "That makes sense."

"Why do you ask?"

"Sister Rosemary used it."

"Was that a vocabulary word?" mom asked, thinking that was a pretty advanced word for six year olds.

"No. She said that if we didn't quiet down, there would be dead bodies strewn all around the room, and when the police showed up, they'd say ‘Sister Rosemary, we understand'."

I went to second grade in  public school.

You're going to get it anyway, may as well laugh at it

Like most computer users, I get a lot of unsolicited email. Most of it is just junk, of no real interest, and gets deleted. I am happy with my marriage, the size of my penis, and my lack of cheap, under the table prescription drugs.

But once in a while, some of the stuff is unintentionally hilarious. I submit the following:

" Sir,
I am a lady accountant with a bank here in London. There is a fixed
deposit of £150,000,000.00 (One Hundred and Fifty Million Pounds
Starling) made to this bank...."

First of all, I found it amusing that the writer would point out that this is from a lady accountant. That's like when Rimmer in Red Dwarf talks about having "a woman's period." The fact you feel you have to say it means it's not real.

BUT..the part that broke me up was the "One Hundred Fifty Million Pound Starling" I got the image of an enormous songbird sitting atop the London skyline, uttering a bass "TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET" and leaving the nation's millet supply in tatters.

Well, I found it funny.

Think of the droppings.....

Why I am a Luddite

So, at the local hospital, they have a shiny new computerized medical records system which allows nurses to pull up patient charts on the computer and view all the relevant history, meds, allergies, etc and add documentation right there.

Sounds great, right.

Well, so did the Titanic.

Ok, the problem is that now, instead of the old way when I dropped off a patient, where the nurse would walk into the room with me --maybe with a pen and paper or maybe like a really good waitress, just her perfect memory -- take my report, help get the patient moved over to the hospital cot, switch over the EKG leads, take vitals and start treatment, now they need to Pull Up The Record.

Here's a quick example of the old Stone Age way we did things, and the New Improved way.

Stone Age Emergency Medicine.

We arrive at ER. Go straight into a room with the patient. A nurse and a tech come in with us, the tech helps move the patient, the nurse poises her pen.

Nurse: What'cha got.

Medic: This is Bob. He's 56, and awoke this morning with 8 of 10 crushing chest pain radiating to his jaw and down his left arm. Took two of his own nitro tabs without relief. On our arrival he was pale, cool, sweaty, radial pulse of 92. EKG was sinus rhythm, 12 lead shows elevation in V2,3 and 4, BP 150/90, lung sounds clear, denies shortness of breath, nausea, or dizziness. Past history of high blood pressure, past MI [Myocardial Infarction, or heart attack] insulin dependent diabetic. Takes [lists meds] allergic to [lists]. We started a 20 gauge IV normal saline in his left hand, gave 325 mg of aspirin, two sublingual nitro, patient had some relief, states pain is  now 4 of 10. O2 at 4 liters, here are the bloods we drew. Any questions?

Nurse: Nope. Sounds good

Door to treatment time: 30 seconds.

New and Improved Emergency Medicine

Patient into room. Nurse out at computer, tech comes in to help.

Medic: Ok, this is Bob--

Tech: I can't take report.

M: Ah.

*moves patient over, not giving report. Goes out to computer where nurse is typing with both fingers.*

Nurse: What'cha got?

M: 56 year old male--

N: What's the name?

M: Uhm, Robert Lamontaigne. So, he's 56, woke up with--

N: How do you spell that?

M: -a-i-g-n-e. So, woke with 8 of 10 chest pain--

N: (to screen) Dammit. Do you have his date of birth?

M: Yeeaaaaaah...hang on... *looks at notes* ...May 12, 1956. So, 8 of 10 crushing--

N: Does he still live at 104 Oak Street?

M: Yeah. Sure. So two nitro with no relief--

N: Past Medical history?

M: Uh..high BP, lemme see...yeah, MI in '07, and insulin dependent--

N: Dammit! Is his PCP still Steinberg?

M: *blinks* Not a clue.

N: *to patient* Mr Lamontaigne! Do you still have Doctor Steinberg?

Bob: For my heart I have some Indian guy.

N: Patel?

B: Sounds right. The pain is coming back...

M: Yeah, so, chest pain. Got nitro and aspirin. Here's his EKG. IV in his--

N: You guys gave Oxygen?

M: No. Wait! Yeah. 4 liters. So he was in a sinus rhythm with ST changes in leads--

N: *sighs* Why won't this enter? Ok, Meds?

M: *completely lost train of report, grasping at straws* Uh...aspirin...um... Here *hands med list to nurse* So, he was pale, cool and --

N: *looking at list* Mr Lamontaigne, what do you take the Prednisone for?

B: Oh, I stopped that last May. I feel kinda dizzy...

*Partner signing frantically. Either we have a bad call or she really needs coffee.*

M: *rips page from notebook, hands over with EKG printout and med list* Yeah, have fun with Bob, here, we have a call...

N: *muttering to self* These Paramedics can't keep their reports straight.

Door to treatment time: Like a month. Dunno. I left while she was slapping the computer and yelling. Bob was looking worse than when I found him.

God, I love progress!

End of life planning

We recently had a class on the new MOLST form, or Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment, which is replacing the old DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) form.

It's better, since it applies to all healthcare providers, when the old one was specific to EMS, so hospitals, nursing homes and so on often had their own internal forms, which we couldn't legally honor, so a bunch of people who really didn't want a closed casket got shocked and intubated and had their ribs broken. Plus, it's more customizable, so you can indicate what treatment you do want. Like, "please do CPR, but don't keep me on a feeding tube."  


This got me thinking, and a few pints later and I have developed a brilliant theory on how to make your wishes known on withholding life support, without worrying that the kids will off you for a hangover.

I've seen enough lousy quality of life in the nursing homes I've been to on the ambulance to have decided how I want to be treated, should I ever wind up in one.

Every morning the nurse is to ask me "Sir, we're going to shoot you in the head today. Is that ok with you?"

If I am able to answer in an intelligible fashion (or at least shake my head vigorously) they are to treat me as usual.

If I am unable (or unwilling) to respond, or can only go "Pppppppppppppllllllllllbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

bbbbbbb!!!!!!!!!!!!" or say something like "How do you like my dress, Mrs Haversham?" they are to bust a cap in me like I was Ol' Yeller.

Overheard at bathtime in the Paracynic household

Me: Ok, little buddy. Time for tubby.
Seth: Can I take my clothes off?
Me: That would help, yes.
Seth: Can I take my pants off and dance?
Me (shrugs): Sure. We'll just pretend it's Last Call.

What? He asked.

My four year old son was asking me about primary and secondary colors.

Him: Daddy, what do you get when you mix red and blue?
Me: Purple.
Him: How about blue and yellow?
Me: green.
Him: What do you get when you mix green and orange?
Me: Centuries of sectarian violence.

Now, tell me if I'm missing something

But as far as I can see, the only reason to oppose gay marriage is that you are an asshole.

Nothing about letting other people have the same rights as you takes away anything from your marriage. It matters to them because it will allow couples a handful of important legal rights in very stressful situations.

If I am brought to the hospital in a coma, and my wife tells the doctor to treat me aggressively, or to let me go peacefully, they will listen to her. My girlfriend of twenty years will get no respect at the ER.

Especially if she shows up while my wife is there, deciding whether to pull the plug.

For sick partners, end of life decisions, child custody, inheritance, all those things that occur when we really don't need added stress, the married person is pretty much covered, the life partner, regardless of how long they've been together, or how committed they are, is not.

So, why not extend that  courtesy to a long term partner, who wants to commit to someone?

It's not about hurting the "sacred" nature of marriage. Liz Taylor, Larry King, and Britney Spears have already made a mockery of that, and nobody's trying to take marriage away from celebrities.  It's not about religion. No really, it's not.  The Catholic Church won't marry gays, but neither will it marry two Jews or Muslims, or even Protestants, but we aren't trying to take marriage away from heathens.  It's not about producing children, since we don't try to take marriage away from infertile couples, or couples who just don't want kids.

So, the only thing that I can come up with is that you think gays are icky, and don't want to give them rights.  We go down that road and we'll have to let broads vote and darkies drink out of the same fountains.

Now, if anybody has a real, constitutionally defensible reason we should treat homosexuals like second class citizens, please let me know, because right now, I'm just gonna run with the theory that you're an asshole.

40 Hours? I though you said you work full time.

When I was growing up, my dad worked one full time job.  He had one degree. We had a three bedroom ranch house, two cars, and went on vacations. We lived pretty well. My mom didn’t work until all three kids were in school.  We all had extra activities like art lessons, riding lessons karate, dance, whatever.

I am pretty much right at the median household income in America.  I work 64 hours in an average week. And not at a minimum wage, unskilled job, but as a paramedic and an orthopaedic technologist.  I have two degrees.  We live in a two bedroom ranch house in the same town I grew up in. We drive a ten year old car and a thirteen year old car. We have one child who has activities.

Everyone I work with on the ambulance has a second job. A mere 48 hours at a skilled, demanding, professional job requiring multiple licenses, continuing education and constant recertification doesn’t put us at a median household income.

When attempting to quantify the progress the middle class has made in the last thirty years, the best value I can think of is “fuck all.”

We shouldn't be shocked

An American soldier snapped and killed some Afghan civillians.

This is terrible. Inexcusable. There's no justifying this action.

But, although the man who pulled the trigger must be held responsible-- and it looks like he will be-- the military should look at how they failed.  One thing I learned in the Corps is that when one of your people fails, it's your fault.  You, as his superior, should have seen the signs, should have tried harder, done better.

This as yet unnamed soldier had done four combat tours between Iraq and Afghanistan.  He had suffered a head trauma. He was returned to active duty in a combat zone. None of that excuses what he did, but should we be surprised?

We've been at war for over a decade. A nasty, ugly sort of war without clear objectives. A war where enemies dressed in the uniforms of our Afghan Army allies attack and kill coalition troops. Where the enemy fighters vanish into the population. The lines between soldier and civilian, enemy and friend, are blurred.

We've been fighting too long, with too few troops on the ground.  People have been rotated back into the line of fire time and time again.  It's only a matter of time before somebody goes off the rails. We've seen it before, and we probably will again if we fail to take a hard look at our procedures.

In this kind of war, we rely on the locals to help us identify the enemy. To spot the booby traps. To support the new civilian government. A year of careful positive work winning hearts and minds can be erased by one atrocity.

We, as electors of the people who send out troops into harms way, have to understand and accept that you can't fight a war on the cheap, and that actions and strategies have consequences.  We need to demand that our leaders do a better job, or admit that it's not working and cut our losses.

War is one of those things that should be done right or not at all.

Just Pretend He's a Labrador Retreiver.

I figured out how to handle my issues with Firefighters.

It came to me when we were called to assist a BLS Fire Department ambulance.  The patient was an elderly man with a fever, who had been in rehab for an infection. He was absolutely stable, but needed a ride to the ER for some blood work and maybe a new antibiotic.

As the obvious rookie Firefighter-EMT gave me a hurried and breathless report on the patient’s condition, I noticed something in his expression.

Eyes wide, leaning forward, muscles tensed, mouth slightly open.

The expression that anyone who has ever played with a lab knows. Behind those eyes, the racing thought was Throwtheballthrowtheballthrowtheball.

Firefighter; "Yeah, he ‘s complaining of chills and shakes.” Throwtheballthrowtheball

Paracynic: “Ok. Is he oriented?’

FF (blinks): "Ummm...yeah. History of diabetes." Throwtheballthrowtheballthrowtheball

PC : "But he’s oriented?"

FF: "Uh-huh." Throwtheballthrowtheballthrowtheball

PC: "You check his vitals?"

FF: *pause* "Yeah. Pulse is 92 and bounding." (only Firefighters use “thready” or “bounding” like this) "I couldn’t hear his systolic BP, but his diastolic is 52." BALLBALLBALL!

PC: "Ok. You could palpate a pulse, so his systolic is decent, and his diastolic is decent and he’s oriented. He’s already being treated for infection. It sounds like he just needs a ride to the ER. You comfortable taking him?"

FF; *silence*  OMGBALL!!!!!!!!!!!

PC: "...Y’know what? Why don’t I start an IV line and ride this in with you?"

FF: *nodding hyperactively* WOOT! BALLBALLBALL!


Now that I’ve reframed the way I look at it, I’m ok. It’s really quite liberating.

State of the Kitchen Address

Every single thing we own is on the kitchen table. And none of it is clean.

In case you were wondering....

Sick as a dog today.

I'm leaving a trail of mucus wherever I go. Like a surly, alcoholic garden slug.

This week on "Ask A Clergyman:"

Dear Catholic Bishops,

OK, what the fuck?  Why the contraception hate? You do realize that 98% of American Catholics use some form of contraception, right?

Apart from the fact that you really should be barred from discussing morality at all after your multigenerational coverup of child abuse, what could possibly be wrong with contraception? 

I can say, quite comfortably, that I have had all the kids I want in this life. I can also say that I certainly haven't had all the sex I want.  In fact, if I had to list modern advances I would keep after the collapse of civilization, contraception would come pretty high on the list. Probably right after safe drinking water.

And, let's be honest (which I realize goes against your training) but what do you hate more, abortion or contraception?  Because safe, cheap, educated access to the second dramatically reduces the need for the first.

Hi all.

I'm a paramedic, father and struggling fiction writer with a background in history and a brief time in the Marines.  

This is my new blog. Expect to see rants on EMS,policts and life in general, as well as plugs for my upcoming book.