just another day in paradise

I'm getting sick of these up-all-nighters.
I'm workin at VO tonite, doing the 1700-0800. its just shy of 0600 right now.
I was plannin on trying to get some sleep, but obviously that didn't happen.

It's been a relatively peaceful night overall. Got here, went to dinner, came back, watch the new version of The Longest Yard. Most of it anyway. i came into it after 45 minutes or so. Good movie, i think. Anyway, after that i started studying. Gotta make sure i've got a grip on Med Math for class tonite. Med Math isn't too bad. I've been pretty good at fractions all along, so now i finally found the answer to "When the hell am i gonna use this in real life?" It's nice to find the answer to that question now and then.

I studied for a while, did some med math problems/scenarios... finished up and the emergency line rings. Some old dude is calling for chest and arm pain x 3 weeks, getting worse tonite.
0130, of course. My partner was sleeping, but i had just finished studying and wasn't all that tired.

Anyway, got that guy taken care of, came back, studied a little more, then laid down around 0330, figured i'd go for 4 hours of sleep before i had to get up. 4 hours is better than nothing, right? Well, it didn't happen. laid there, tossed and turned, but sleep never came to me. So i got up around 0530ish, grabbed a smoke, and here i am.

I've picked up some hours here, which is nice. i need the extra money really bad. My new job is gonna start sooner than i though, which is good. The bus garage called DMV and started bitchin about the long wait, so they added a few days. Now i do my road test on 12/6. I'll get a few weeks of driving in before christmas break, which is cool. My test was the 22nd of Dec., which would have put my start date for work around 1/6.

Anyway, back to VO. I did the 1700-0800 friday night, also. Wasn't too bad of a shift. Started out with a CPEP run from the hospital here in VO-land to syracuse. Talk about a nut-case. He's had the nurses all nervous i guess. His woman works upstairs from the ER, and he thinks she's cheating on him with a Doc., so he's been hiding in the woods, scoping out the exits with binoculars, tryin to catch her in the act. The nurses were sayin that he's the type who would bust in with an M-16 and peg anyone who might be involved. Once i met the guy, i realized that that concern wasn't too far off base.
He and his girl are quite the pair though. both crazy, dark, twisted individuals.

This guy started talkin about the dream he and his girl had when they were both 12, before they even knew each other. same dream down to the last detail.
He was talkin about how she used to be into witchcraft, he was into satanism, this that and the other thing...
One time when he was talkin he looked me right in the eyes and i swear my hair stood straight up. The look in his eyes... It's been a long time since someone made my hair stand on end. I didn't freak or anything, but i was a lil nervous for a few. He didn't give my any problems though, which is good.

Then in the middle of the night, we had a transfer from a POS hospital we cater to. This place drives all of us here at VO insane. We get some seriously bullshit transfers out of there. Did one one time for a guy who had been choking, dislodged the food, but still felt like there was something in his throat. We got called to transfer him to syracuse because the hospital didnt have the equipment to look down his throat and see if anything was still there.
We do get some nasty ones out of there though.
Cardiacs, bleeds, burns (When the damn hillbilly ambulance halfway between there and syracuse transports him there instead of travelling the same distance in the opposite direction to take him to Upstate's burn unit... assholes)
This hospital doesn't even have a doctor on half of the time. They only have 1 FT doctor covering the ED. the rest are PAs and stuff.

Anyway, this transfer was justified. Lady had a cyst on her liver the size of a football, they said.
So we took her to syracuse. That was another all-nighter, because i had slept all day friday, due to another all-nighter thursday night. It's a vicious cycle.
So here i am, another all-nighter, with class starting back up tonite and us starting IV labs.
I'll try to grab a few hours sleep when i get home and hope QVA isnt too busy (doing a 0900-1500 there)

New York weather never ceases to amaze me. Friday morning around 0300 is started snowin like a SOB. we got called out for an MVC around 0350, and let me tell ya what. if it had been daytime, you would not have been able to see the distance of 2 power poles. We got cancelled before we even rolled though, which was cool. Between 0300 when it started snowin and 0400 when we got cancelled, we had about 4 inches on the ground. It was still snowin like crazy around 0900 when we got hit for another call that ended up being nothing... accidental trip on a medical alarm. It was also about 10 degrees while it was snowin like that. We did get off easy though. it was supposed to snow like that all day friday, dumping up to 2 feet on us by friday evening. it quit snowin around 10 am.

Now tonite, it's been drizzling, and its about 40, 45 out right now. Expect the unexpected should be upstate NY's motto. at least when it comes to weather.

Nothing else too impressive has beein going on. SSDD for the most part. I'm doing another overnighter on tuesday here. It'll be interesting to see how it goes. I'm on shift with the company crab-apple. Ever seen that shirt that says "I'm just one big F&#%ing ray of sunshine, aren't i?" That fits this guy perfectly. He seems to get off on making people's lives miserable around here. There are about 36 people who refuse to work on his shift.
Ah well, life goes on.

My brain is about empty now. Can't think of anything else to write... should i tough it out and stay up, or try to get 1 whopping hour of sleep? I'll think about it.
Cya