a shitty call

[you're reading what?]

By far one of the most disgusting calls I've had the pleasure of
responding to happened several years ago.

My unit was called to an elderly housing project for the 'woman that
hadn't been seen in several days.' Upon arrival at the complex, we were
met by the police and fire departments. We trudged up the several
flights of stairs _all_ elderly housing complexes seem to have, each of
us carrying our respective pieces of equipment:

me - airway bag [15 lbs], cardiac monitor [25 lbs]
my partner - drug box [30 lbs], oxygen tank [20 lbs]
fire dept - axes [10 lbs] - 'cause they don't look like firemen without
axes

An aside: it seems to me that most firefighters suffer what is known as
'Paul Bunyen' syndrome. It's the notion that whatever can't be fixed
with an axe, should be destroyed with one. Oh well, what other job
entitles you to carry an axe down the streets of a metropolitan city
without people jumping behinds desks - and get paid for it?

police dept - paperwork clipboard [2 lbs], donut [3 oz] and cup of coffee [12 fl oz] <- not really fair, since both are gone before the
call is over

As you can see, there is a major disparity in the distribution of
equipment and their weight.

We were met at the top of the stairs by a 'gaggle' of 'cackling hens' -
the woman's neighbors. Seems that with the arrival of the ambulance,
they gossip about their neighbors - past and present.

Neighbor 1:[clucks her tongue] "I bet it's Esther - she hasn't been
herself lately."

Neighbor2: [double-cluck] "Ever since her hip ..."

Neighbor 3: [cluck thrown in for good measure] "You know, my hip hasn't
been the same either, since the surgery."

Neighbor 1: [wants to cluck - but already did] "You remember poor Alice,
from a few years ago? Such a nice girl ... Passed away, and no one found
her for days."

A collective shiver runs through the old ladies - was it the fear of
death, or delight in being one of the living? They all start to cluck
their tongues at the same time, and they quickly make the sign of the
cross. Someday I'll come back for each of them. I can't wait.

"Who is it? Do you know who it is?" an old woman asks eagerly.

"Nope, sorry - won't know until I get inside." I answer.

They quickly make way so the entertainment can continue.

We reach the apartment door. The police officer knocks on it with his
flashlight - "Hello? Is anyone home?" No response.

The firefighter steps up with a rings of keys, holding a master key for
every elderly housing complex in the city. He finds the right one, and
with a little jiggling, the door swings open.

On this hot, humid summer day, I can think of better places to be when
the acrid, ammonia-like smell of urine, and musty odor of shit, washes
over me. I gag a little. But, hopefully, there is no smell of rotting
meat. We enter the apartment. The little eat-in-kitchen has open, half-
eaten cans of stew, the sink is full of unwashed dishes, food particles
long dried onto them. The refrigerator has a large flourescent sticker
on it, which says "Vial of Life inside." I open it to see if I can find
anything - yup there it is, next to a container of water, a jar of green
mayonnaise, and not much else.

My partner calls to me - "Tae, we found her."

I go into the bedroom, where everyone had gathered.

She looks to be about seventy or so. But let's face it - after fifty,
they all look the same age - old. She's on her side, on the floor, next
to her bed, naked. My guess would be that she slipped and fell while
trying to get out of bed, and remained there for several days. There is
a darker semi-circle on the hardwood floor that surrounds her. This is
where the urine dried, and being acidic enough, permanently darkens and
stains it. It smells rather strong. But even stronger is the smell of
shit. She had several bowel movements during her stay on the floor,
which she had either rolled around in, or covered herself in, from head
to toe. Her ears were full of shit, her nostrils, her hair was matted-
down with it. She was still alive.

My partner went to her head, and began to administer oxygen to her. She
first removed the woman's dentures - which were also covered in shit,
and was repelled by the fetid, ketonic breath of someone who'd been
living off of their stored fat. Joanne began to retch. So did everyone
else.

I took a pillow case off one of the pillows to wrap her arm in, so that
I could put on the blood pressure cuff without getting it dirty. Her
pressure was low, and her pulse was thready. I pinched the skin near her
wrist, and it remained 'tented' - a sign of poor turgor, and fluid
depletion. We placed her on a long wooden board, strapped her down, and
carried her out of the apartment, past her wide-eyed, now genuflecting
neighbors, down the stairs, and into the ambulance.

I jumped in back [brave guy, me] and began looking for an IV site.
Usually, we use little 2 x 2 in alcohol swabs to clean the IV site, but
I didn't think it'd do the trick. So, I got a towel, poured an entire
bottle of alcohol onto it, and proceeded to clean her entire left arm.
The towel turned brown from all the dried shit I cleaned off of her.
Eventually I got to clean skin. I stuck a _huge_ needle into this
woman's arm, and began to pour fluid into to her - to combat her low
blood pressure and dehydration.

While enroute to the hospital - her blood pressure began to climb, so
did her level of consciousness. She came to, her eyes opened, and she
turned her head ever so slightly left and right. She settled her eyes
on me.

"Are you my son?" she asked.

Now, old women always seem to ask this question - not just to me, of
course, but to every male their corneal-occluded eyes and age-addled
brains encounter. Normally, I would tell them no - and they would gnash
their teeth and wail - and ask for their son, usually some long dead
oldster himself. But for some reason, my little black heart let out a
little sympathy for this woman - this urine and shit-covered woman, who
would most likely die in the next few days. So I figured that I'd play
along, and answered "yes."

"Funny ... I don't remember sleeping with any Chinese men."

I laughed long and hard all the way to the hospital.

- Tae