Something in the air

In an effort to keep the HIPAA dogs at bay, I have kept my geographical location super-secret. However, I will tell you that I am somewhere in the Land of Humidity. That narrows it down a bit, but not much, as humidity is a plague upon many of us throughout the year.

When I got to work tonight, the weather was beautiful. Not too hot, not too cool, very little moisture in the air. About 2200, I walked outside into a wall of humidity. It was one of those, "Where the hell did all the oxygen go?" moments. So I wasn't at all surprised when shortly thereafter, EMS started bringing in the SOBs. No, not the jerks. The Shortness of Breaths. The jerks are always here.

Within a matter of a couple of hours, we had 2 people on vents, 2 people on Bi-Pap, and you could hear the hiss of the neb treatments all through the ER. Every respiratory therapist in the building was hanging out in the ER. It felt like every COPD/asthma patient in the city was either here or on their way here.

But that wasn't the most bizarre thing. The most bizarre thing is that the drug seekers stayed away. The "clinic" patients weren't rude and demanding. The only crazy guy was a mushroom ingestion that was *gasp* hallucinating.

Apparently, there are occasions when you can walk the "don't really need to be here" patients past 4 people with machines breathing for them, and then surround them by the hiss of oxygen, and they will realize that their minor BS complaints are just that. BS.

Hmm. Who woulda thunk it?