Riding in an ambulance is not as much fun as one would think

Before we got caught in a fire in our home, I had never been in an ambulance.  I don’t know if I ever thought about what it’d be like to be in one but I must have sometime because everything about being in one wasn’t like I thought it’d be.

I was asked a couple of questions and the EMT introduced himself.  He was very cordial and when he asked, I gave my name and address, age, contact numbers and some other things. I wasn’t asked for my social security number so that was good.  I was asked my weight and I said, “oh, come on” and the EMT guy said it was okay if I didn’t give it and chatted a little bit about how he was going to put a blood pressure cuff on me and I explained that I was naked under my coat and he gave me a blanket and he did stuff.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear an ambulance, mostly I think that someone’s fooling around with the siren so that they don’t have to be in traffic and I think I might do that sometimes too if I had a siren and an ambulance.  But I make sure that I’m out of the way and I do that on the chance that there’s someone who needs help and I always hope everyone’s okay.    Also, I always think that the person’s lying down on a stretcher gasping for breath and waiting to exit.  But, it wasn’t like that at all.

First of all, it wasn’t luxurious.  And it’s not like one expects luxury but it was a stripped down van decked out with an impressive array of scary looking equipment in easy reach.  It was a pretty bumpy ride and disappointedly I couldn’t hear the siren and I wasn’t aware that we were going through red lights and I would have liked to have been. I did think though that better shock absorbers were needed but that’s probably because I tend to take care of the cars in the family and I’ve been sold them many times.

Then the guy and I talked.  He told me he was going to give me an iv and that was okay.  Then he asked me what I did and I said that I was a dilettante and also I had found out that I was highly unskilled.  He told me that he had been unemployed for a long time and that he was really glad to get this gig and we talked a bit about how hard it was to find a job and I told him I was glad that he found one and he said he was too.

Then he told me that we were going to Weil Cornell and he asked me if I had ever been there before. An I told him that I had my son there and was sort of holding a grudge against them because when that happened the nurses were going on strike and the Shah of Iran was there for cancer treatments and there were all these armed guys all over the place and there were all these demonstrators.  I said that I knew that I wasn’t being fair about that and also my son is 30 so it was a really long grudge for a really long time.  But it probably didn’t matter as I haven’t had much hospital business to pass to them anyway.

Then he said that he knew for sure that there weren’t any demonstrations or armed guards at the hospital and I said that I was happy to know that even though I already did.

I told him that my husband wouldn't be able to hear questions if people were asking him things so he took down information about Terry too.  First he didn't want to but when I told him that I was married to the guy for more than 35 years he was good about it.

I really wanted a drink of water but the EMT guy said he didn’t have any and also he wasn’t allowed to give me any and I asked him why and he said that he didn’t know.  And when I found out why they don’t let you have any water I pretty much figured that he lied to me and that turned out to be a good thing which I’ll tell you about when I post again.