Some very good news...

I recieved some very surprising and good news last Monday: Kris, my Field Training Officer, cleared me from training rather abruptly. So I found myself in Jerry's office Tuesday, doing a miserable job on the final test as I was not prepared. Nevertheless I cleared, and now I have my own car with my very first partner, who spent today excitedly rubbernecking the various scantily clad women sprawled through the streets and Emergency Rooms of Buffalo, while providing a colorful running commentary. We're not cleared for emergency operations yet, so we do a lot of running from nursing homes to hospitals and hospitals to specialized care centers, and it's all very good for getting a handle on the city's highways, byways and hospitals--one more thing, besides the scads of detail-oriented paperwork, which I am miserably poor at.

Good Part: I don't have to get up at five a.m. anymore--my day can start at eight. Bad Part: no more morning bike rides into the sunrise. work is a two minute ride away.
Good Part: no more four-on/four-off. it's Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, with a three-day weekend.
Bad Part: no more four day weekends...no more automatic overtime...no more beautiful, shiny suburban ambulances.
Good Part: my battered urban ambulance has linoleum kitchen-patterend flooring in the back. Yessssss!


Terminology of the Day: "Burn and Return"--pick a patient up at the hospital, transport to the MACC for chemotherapy, and then return them to said hospital or SNF: Skilled Nursing Facility.

Interesting Sighting of the Day: the guy who, while mumbling incoherently to himself, managed to strip completely naked, climb up and over the rails of his emergency department bed, and take a stumbling leap with resounding crash through the monitors, chairs and IV racks into the curtain separating him from the guy next door. the guy next door was not terribly amused. neither were the nurses in the ED with four patients lined up waiting for admission and every bed, plus the gurneys in the hallway, packed with patients. I don't think the nurses were very packed with patience...

gotcha!