Sad Lives

It always amazes me to see how some people live. Whether it is the chain smoker sitting in a small hot room, to the huge mansions with a lonely lady all by herself. Last night we went out on a medical call because an elderly female was going "downhill". We arrived to find a 60 year old female in a hospital style bed. The caretaker identified herself at the patient's daughter-in-law and stated she had not been able to get the patient to eat or take her medications. The caretaker had made some minor attempts to clean the patient but the patient was protesting loudly at any motion, possibly due to the lack pain medication. The patient was covered in feces and when we rolled the patient over, we discovered significant bed sores and a discarded hamburger infested with maggots. Meanwhile, I looked around the tiny apartment and realized that the stuff on the floor was a literal carpet of spilled food, with mold working its way up sides of the dirty couch. A little girl showed up and began screaming for attention. She continued screaming for the entire 15-20 minutes that we were there. The parents were trying to calm her, but it was obvious that she was in control.

I was proud of my crew. I did hear one of them tell another, "I will pay you $50 if you take care of this call for me!" They managed to not "toss their cookies" on the scene, even though the stench was like a physical assault. There was a lot of suttle gagging and choking, but everyone was very professional and treated the lady with all the gentleness they could muster. Everyone went back the station, took showers, and tried to wipe that odor from memory.

The funny thing about odors - for some reason they seem to live forever in the brain. One whiff of something like that years later will bring the memory rushing back.