Sunday, 07 September, 1997 08:05

....In the middle of the night....

Well, it's Saturday night
And I ain't got no-body...

Well, nobody to xray right now, anyway... I'm quite happy about that.

I had a really good ego-booster earlier, though. A lady came in to get xrayed, and she had her eighteen-month-old daughter with her. The daughter couldn't go into the room with her, so I was elected to be baby-sitter while mom had her exam done.

The little girl didn't want anything to do with me initially, but I got her warmed up pretty good in the next ten minutes. Then, when mom was done, she didn't want to go with her, she wanted to stay and play with me! Well, I would've loved to play with her all night, but I had to work, dammit. Her mom drug her away and she was crying and reaching out to me.

It's still really early to tell how this night will go, but I do have a good feeling about it. I did get enough sleep today, and I'm feeling better generally.

Here's a picture that I took with my SX-70 Polaroid in 1980 South of Fort Deposit, and I have no idea where in the world that is. I have always liked the picture, though. Since I have a great amount of consideration for my readers, I'm just putting a thumbnail on this page... to see the picture in it's full glory, just click on the thumbnail. I probably should start doing that with all of my photos, I guess.

One bad thing about bringing my lunch to work... it didn't last until lunch-time. Not too busy, and I had already smoked enough for the whole night. So, what's left to do? Why, EAT of course! So my lunch was gone by 24:00. By 01:00 I was hungry again, so I went to the cafeteria and had roast pork and potatoes and gravy. I don't know why I'm not fatter than I am. I will probably be really soon if I don't change my ways...

I'm saving my Mint Dream until later. MMMM-mmmm love those mint dreams. When I started buying them, they cost 30 cents. Now they're $0.85. Someone please tell me why there is no inflation? In the last ten years, candy bars in general have gone from $0.25 to $0.60, more than doubling in price. And they're Smaller too! Are they selling fewer candy bars, so that they have to make up their profits from an increase in price? Or are they just greedy? Are sugar prices up a bunch? What? They're just greedy. I'm greedy, too. I want More Candy for my Money!

I guess I'll go eat my Mint Dream now.

Yes, that Mint Dream was good.

Things went along pretty good until about 04:45, then the shit hit the fan. Three people came in on spine boards, two from an MVA and the other one... well, we'll get to him later.

I had to do complete spine films on the first guy, which was no problem; he was a very cooperative patient. I also did a CT of his head. He kept asking me the same questions every five minutes, which is not uncommon with a head injury. He would ask me how his girl friend was, and then ask me to tell her that he loved her.

After I finished taking his xrays, I did his girl friend. She asked me once if he could remember anything yet... and that was the end of her questions. No "How is he?" or anything else. I decided that this is probably a one-sided relationship here....

The third guy... well, he had been smoking some crack and went pretty crazy. He became very paranoid, according to witnesses, and jumped through a neighbor's window and ran screaming through the house and then jumped out the back window. He was so impressed with his performance that he did the same thing in two more houses. These windows had glass in them, yes they did. Before he started, anyway.

We got him after he had been pretty well sewed up and was hardly bleeding anymore at all. One of my favorite co-workers did most of his films while I was finishing up some other stuff. She was taking the patient back (the patient was accompanied by a big burly cop) when he jumped off of the gurney and started running. He didn't get but three steps before the cop tackled him and held him on the floor.

Security was immediately called for assistance, and the first guy to get there sauntered up and got some gloves out of his pocket and was leisurely putting them on when the second guy (who had been staying over from third shift, getting in some overtime) ran up, fully gloved already, and got control of the situation. I was proud of the second guy, and glad that I didn't have to work with the first guy.

Anyway, this excitement ended my day. I finished up and came home, and I'm glad to be here. I start on my twelves tonight, so I need to get my rest.

Three more nights...