3. "I had a repeat patient (not quite frequent flyer status) as a medic who would always call for a severe allergic reaction to shellfish every other month or so. She had always had an allergy and knew her reactions were getting worse. After a year (six or seven calls) of this silliness, my crew and I stayed in the hospital ER with her and talked at length about the situation since she'd always stay mum about how it kept happening."
"She told us she comes from a patriarchal culture, and her father made this amazing seafood soup. If she didn't eat it and 'force her body not to reject his gift to the family,' she would lose her car, phone, or whatever punishment her father deemed necessary. We pleaded with her to do whatever it took to show him it was deadly and carry her Epi-Pens with her.
Fast forward a few years, when I took a course in nursing and joined that ER. I saw a familiar bloated face. She had gone to college in another state and hadn't been home for a while but had visited her folks for a holiday. Of course, she had the soup, and despite hitting herself with the Epi-Pen when her throat started tightening, the reaction continued. Her mom, who I had never seen before, told me she tried to eat it fast and rushed to the bathroom, where she was found on the floor.
Medics couldn't tube her in the field, so they tried medical management until they could drive her to our ER. Doc performed a tracheotomy at the bedside and she went to the ICU. It took a week for her to recover, and I was told by the ICU nurses that her father 'finally got it' and that her allergy was a real medical condition."
8. "My grandpa is the patient. He's told, 'Come straight back if you have any chest pain.' He didn't go back, and this is what followed: a blood clot traveled to his brain, which led to three strokes, and he had bleeding on the brain. He then had two more minor strokes. He was paralyzed in his left arm and right foot. He ended up having Broca's Aphasia."
"He went from being a man nearing his 80s who was old school. He worked as a school crossing guard, grew all of his own vegetables, fed the birds, built tables, biked six miles on the weekends, walked everywhere, and was still able to play darts despite his eyesight being that of a visually impaired gnat because he knew the board so well.
He went from that to living in a care home and being unable to talk. Has he lost his stubbornness? Nope. He won't do his rehabilitation, and so even though he could get his speech back to a decent degree, he doesn't want to do the therapy. Using communication cards humiliates him, so we're left trying to decipher random eyebrow movements so we can guess what he's trying to say."
10. "I was an assistant manager of a group home. We had a resident who had epilepsy and was also very reclusive. He would get agitated if we entered his room or knocked on the door. However, the policy said he had to be checked on every 30 minutes because of his seizure risk. That wasn't being done, so I discussed this with the manager. She said she knew this, but it was okay to bend the rules because he would get really upset when we checked in on him. I really wasn't comfortable with her answer, but I was young and assumed she knew better than I did."
"When I was on duty, I checked on him every 30 minutes, and he would yell at me, but I didn't let it bother me. About six months later, after I had been reassigned to another group home, he had a seizure alone in his room and was found dead a day later. Now I'm older and a little smarter. When I find a problem like this, I stick with it and don't let people talk me out of it. Not again. Rest in peace, D. Gone but not forgotten."
