“I have a run for you guys, are you ready for the info?”

McHottie and I had barely taken three steps into the station and set our bags down when another EMT tossed us the Nextel.  While he worked for this service a few years back, it was my very first night.

I scribbled down the address, a private residence.  We were going to be taking the patient to Hospice.

I’ve done several of these runs, and they’ve yet to get any easier, emotionally.  We’re going into this house, this home.  Many times the patient has lived there for more years than I’ve been alive.  Typically there are three, four, even five generations of family there waiting.

**********

The truck drove better than I had anticipated given it’s cosmetic condition.  I’ve had trucks that looked much nicer than this one that quite literally fell apart while I drove.  Not this truck.  We found the street, but couldn’t find the house.  After circling the block twice a family member flagged us down.  Apparently dispatch had given us the wrong address.  Our address didn’t exist.

Probably why we couldn’t find it.

The narrow crowded street would not allow us to back in to the driveway as we normally would.  McHottie put the truck in park and left the lights on.

“Ma’am, I don’t think he’s going to be able to make it all the way out here to the truck.”  His voice was cracking.  I’m guessing that he was a Grandson of our Patient.  I couldn’t understand what he meant.

“What do you mean?” I asked as I put my gloves on.

“Well, Ma’am, the ice and all…  I don’t think he’ll be able to navigate both that and the long walk to the truck.  Could you bring your stretcher up to the porch?”

Oh my God, he thinks we’re going to make his Grandpa walk to the truck.

McHottie spoke up, “No Sir, we’re going to bring the stretcher right into the house if that’s okay, he gets the VIP treatment.  We’ll take him directly from his bed to the truck.”

The Patient’s relative was instantly relieved.  “Oh that’s wonderful!” He paused, clearly wanting to tell us something else.  “Uhm, I do want to warn you that it’s pretty emotional in there.”

“I understand,” I said.  “We’ll do everything we can to put your family at ease.  We’ll take excellent care of him.”

“Thank you.  Just know it’s going to be pretty emotional.  I think some of us aren’t really ready for him to go to hospice.”

I understood what he was talking about.

**********

The house was huge.  I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a house that large before.  There were rooms that led into other rooms that branched off into other rooms… Well, you get the picture.  In every room were family members of all ages, I’m guessing five generations were represented, including the siblings of the patient, who was in his 90′s.  Little ones my children’s ages ran through some of the rooms, while two tiny babies were rocked by their Mother and Grandmother.  There are so many people milling about that I realize I have no idea who the patient is.  There was no one laying in the hospital bed.  Everyone was talking at once.

McHottie leaned over to the family member who met us outside.  “Where’s our patient,” he asked.  The family member motioned towards the couch.  Our patient sat there patiently, a tiny man, swimming in his nightclothes.  His hands were on his knees.  He sat alone while his family swarmed through the house.

His bags were packed with close to 40 pounds of medications and TPN.  Not much else.

It was about the same time we found our patient that everyone in the house realized we found our patient.  All of their attention instantly was focused on the man who was soon leaving them.  In more ways than one.

“Make sure he has his shoes on…”

“Here, I have his coat, put his coat on him.”

“Do you have extra blankets?  It’s very cold outside.”

“Grab his coat… Where’s his coat?”

We both assured the family that they could take their time.

**********

We navigated the steps and ice covered driveway with relative ease.  With our patient and a few family members safely in the warm truck, we started the trip to the Hospice center, a few miles away.

I was filling out the run report when the Wife of our Patient started to cry.  Her Granddaughter rubbed her back and held her hand.  The Wife’s other hand was on her husband arm.  She was staring at her husband with this look on her face…

There is so much that can relayed in just a look.

Pity.  Love.  Hate.  Shock.  Desperation. Joy.

In this case it was adoration and concern.  And fear.  She was trying to be strong, something that she had probably been doing for a long time.  It was the realization that the man she loved, the man she respected, the father to her children, the grandfather to her grandbabies, and so on… Well, he was fighting a losing battle.  He didn’t have much in the way of time.  This constant in her life soon wouldn’t be there.  Whose hand would she hold?  Who would she tell her secrets to?  Who would she go to when she was scared?

Let me just say that I was very grateful for the dim lights in the back of the truck because after seeing the look on her face, I fell apart.

*********

We delivered our patient.  We got him settled, and comfortable.  We talked to the family, and reassured them that he was well taken care of at Hospice.  Still, I couldn’t get the look on his Wife’s face out of my head.  I started to cry again on the way out of the building.  I dream about that kind of love and at the same time I fear it.

I hate that about myself.  I hate the fact that I cry so easily on these runs.  I hate it.  I don’t want to lose the empathy that I feel for my patients and their families, but I hate the fact that I can let those tears fall. I’m not a sobbing mess, no, but those tears do fall.  Most of the time I’m not in front of the patient and their families, but sometimes…  Well, those are the times that really bother me.

I need to be tougher.  I need to be stronger.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t care, right? I wear my emotions on my sleeve.  I always have.  And if there is one thing about myself that frustrates me to no end it’s that.

“Are you okay?” McHottie asked.

“I’m fine,” I replied, quickly wiping the tears from my cheeks.

I’m back on the truck.  Smelling like diesel and running hospice runs like it’s nobody’s business.

So far, it’s been excellent.  McHottie was the ying to my yang.  We worked as well tonight as we ever have given the truck and two of the situations we found ourselves in.  I’ll write about them soon, I promise.

The truck was jank.  Heh.  (I got that from a Hannah Montana episode.  It’s my new favorite word.)  It was literally, (I have pictures stuck on my phone) held together by duct tape. The side door to the patient compartment wouldn’t open from the outside.  The back door could only be opened by sprinkling magic pixie dust and chanting to the Gods of EMS.

In other words, I couldn’t open it.  McHottie had to.  What can I say, he has muscles, I don’t. I ended up taking all of the patients tonight.

It was a good night.  I’m back on the truck.  :)

My girl NinjaMedic wrote recently about her Shadows… I think most of us have those shadows.  Those memories of patients, those people.  Young, old, sometimes in-between who leave their mark on you forever.

You never forget them.

She was 13-years-old with beautiful red curly hair that people would pay money to have.  I know, because I’m one of them.  When I first saw her she was curled up in the fetal position on the couch sucking oxygen from a NRB.  Her eyes were closed.  The living room was trashed.  Pizza boxes and beer bottles littered the floor.  Two of the pictures that hung on the wall were now laying on the floor, the glass broken and scattered around it.

Then it hit me.  There were no adults here, the place was trashed, and we had a minor on the couch on oxygen.

What in the hell is going on.

“Uhm, so what’s going on?” Pseudo Dad was clearly reading my mind.  Typically we get a heads up before we enter the house.  This night there was no FF outside to meet us and give us that information.

“Well…  We’re not really sure,” the FF admitted sheepishly.  “She’s not talking.  We got the call from TPD as a 911 hang-up.  She was having a fit when we got here, so Jeff threw on the O2.  Medics checked her out, but they had a code called in, so…”

I blinked.  “So… ” I started.

“So She’s yours.” He motioned to our young patient.

I could hear PD asking the Firefighter what exactly was meant by the term “fit”. I could see tears escaping her closed eyelids.  They rolled down her overly blushed cheeks and landed on the blue pillow beneath her head and mass of red hair.  I knelt down next to the couch and very calmly addressed her.  “What’s your name?”

“Ashley.” She whispered back, her voice cracking.  The room went silent when she spoke.

“Ashley, I’m Epi, I’m with EMS.  What’s going on tonight?  What happened?”

She opened her eyes.  “Can you get rid of the guys?”

My stomach dropped instantly.  I motioned for the males in the room (everyone but myself) to move closer to the door so that we’d have some privacy.

“Talk to me honey,” I started, my hand on her arm.

**********

While I’ve pretty much bared my soul on this blog for everyone to read, I can’t and won’t share what she told me that night.  Even using pseudonames, changing details and locations and partners.  There are just some things that I can’t talk about.

She exists, however.  And I’ll never forget her.