Five Calls in Three Days

It's the Thursday-Saturday fun combo! I took off from work on Friday, and so rode the full 12-hour shift. I will be doing so again this week (I'm off the 25th, the day before my birthday). I do enjoy riding more and may go from riding just the half-shift to maybe 3/4 of the shift - until 0300. I'm thinking about it, anyway.

Thursday night was not so bad. We had our first call right at the start of the evening, so that was easy and done while wakeful. That is nice when calls are first thing in the evening. It is much harder when they occur at 0300...

The first call was... was... so memorable I cannot remember it! I know we went to St. Clares as usual... but for the life of me I can't recall what the call was about.

At 2245 we were blown out for "smoke conditions in the boiler room of one of the local schools. We did the standby for the fire district for all of three minutes and were released. OK. That is easy!

That was it for the whole night, but you know I did not sleep for a long time or well. I finally crashed at 0600 and slept until 1300 (!).

Last night was an entirely different animal. We had nothing until my pager triggered at 1945. I listened for a few moments, but there was no message attached. No message... well, I don't know what that means, so I went to the squad house and asked one of the riding members if we were toned out. He said no, he hadn't heard anything. I called dispatch and the adorable-sounding cop said he hadn't toned us out, in fact there had been nothing until he hit 65s tones while I was walking to the squadhouse. OK. I shrugged and went home, and watched Bones until I fell asleep.

I awoke, sore and achey and a little discombobulated around 2207. My right half (arm and foot) were asleep and it had been inserting itself into my dreams... very strange. I sat up and drank some water. Just as I was getting ready to replay the episode I'd fell asleep during, the pager chirped, "Stand by, Car 66"... groan...

I stumbled out of the house and walked across the street. My lieutenant was just pulling in and said, "You're hubby's home." Sure enough, Tom was dropping Luis off. We waited for one of the others but he was outside of the normal response range, so it was just the two of us. We headed to the scene and got to our patient.

We dispersed around 2330 and that was it. I watched a little telly - the one episode - out in the sun room, then went to bed.

At 0253 I was awakened by "Stand by, Car 66" again and was sitting on the edge of the bed trying to pull my socks on with eyes cracked open while the dispatcher (what's his name, not the new guy) said, "Car 66, your services are requested at [Address] for a [patient], difficulty breathing. Time out, 0246." I squinted at the clock. 0246? No. It's later than that. Crazy dispatch office with four different wall clocks with four different times!

One of the others was there pulling the rig out and my lieutenant was just getting into the front. I crawled into the Captain's chair and drowsed while putting on gloves.

We got to the complex and as usual, the patient is on the second floor. Unreal how that never fails to happen...

We had three more calls that night; it was 0500 when I dragged my ass into bed.