Gagging Firefighters
Turn away, duck and cover
Hide in the closet

I'm done with blog-city and PayPal.

I've established my own domain and moved EMS Haiku.

You can check out the new blog at www.emshaiku.com

Come on over & check it out!  Don't forget to change your bookmarks, etc.

I'm still uploading past posts (gonna be awhile, damn there was a bunch!) as I can't import them automatically.

This blog will still be around for a while, but don't hold your breath...

And thanks for your support!

I hate PayPal.

That's how I pay for this blog.  I have had repeated issues with them cancelling my subscription, resulting in (so far) brief interruptions in this blog being available on-line.

This week, they cancelled my subscription after determining that one of my credit cards associated with my account was expired.  Hell, it was more than expired, it was one that I recently paid off & cancelled!

Needless to say, they totally ignored the debit card that is in good standing.  The one that I HAVE BEEN USING TO PAY THIS SUBSCRIPTION WITH.

Asshats. 

Unfortunately, that's the only way to pay for this blog, and the only way to pay for equipment & supplies for the photo bidness I obtain from Ebay.  I'm stuck.

Maybe it's time to forge ahead with my own EMS Haiku domain...

PayPal, I hate you.  You suck.

Inspired by Rogue Medic:

From Keep Breathing, RRT:

Another blog post about the futility of 'modern medicine', and his current state of burnout:

I give albuterol treatments to people with CHF because the doctor is too retarded to realize that it won’t do anything.

I can relate - not to the burnout, but to ineffective, useless treatments. 

Recently I responded to a call where I met the Fire Dept already on scene.  The Paramedic was ACTUALLY monitoring EtCO2, and even mentioned to me that the waveforms were normal.  Kudos for actually using the equipment we are provided with.

Yet, he started a nebulizer treatment, because the patient had 'wheezes'.

Nebulizer treatments are designed to treat bronchospasm.  Medications in nebulizers are smooth muscle (insert 'bronchial smooth muscle' here) relaxers.  They are meant to relax the smooth muscle in the bronchi and relieve bronchospasm.

"All that wheezes is not asthma"

There are several other causes of wheezing, especially if your patient is obese, on multiple cardiac/CHF medicines, has a temperature, and very poor positioning.  Any one of these, much less a combination, is likely the cause of his/her wheezing.

'Just because we can' is not a decent excuse for administering a treatment, most especially a treatment with potentially dangerous side effects.

"I've got Castrophobia!"

'A fear of Communist Cuban leaders?  Join the long line of American presidents...'

A Fire Department I used to volunteer with had this saying: