Wednesday, January 20, 2010

EMS and Email

I was extremely impressed when I got a phone call from the 911 center. A woman had been assigned to follow up with me, double checking our address, and making suggestions for better marking our right-of-way. That’s a service I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get in the big city.

The second step of my plan to track down a solution to my worries concerning Richard’s emergency care was to visit the EMS ambulance service. The director of the EMS gave me as much of his time as I needed to plead my case, and had the first responder coordinator sit in. They made several suggestions for making Richard’s medical information obvious to whoever arrives on the scene.

The director has an uncle who received a liver transplant, so he had some knowledge of what we’re up against in terms of special knowledge required for post-transplant medical care. The first responder coordinator lives in Coker Creek, so she has knowledge of our logistics issues for expedient transportation off the mountain.

The next step will be the EMS director talking to the medical air lift helicopter director, and me contacting the director of the private subscription air evacuation service serving Coker Creek. Meanwhile, my concerns are driving Richard to distraction. I think he may rather be dead than have all this attention focused on him. Too bad for him, I don’t feel the same way.

Whenever I talk about the situation Richard involuntarily rolls his eyes and purses his lips. I told him that I saw those eyes rolling and asked if he’d like for me to get him a pair of mirrored sun glasses so I wouldn’t see it. He did like this idea, but I let him know his pursed lips would still be a tell. I offered to give him a big paper bag to cover his face when I bring up these issues. He likes this idea, as long as I give him warning before speaking.

The big problem with that is he’d have another excuse for not hearing a word I said. As my granddaughter Miya says to her brother, “I see your mouth moving, but all I hear is ‘Blah, Blah, Blah , Blah, Blah’.” Or, he might be silently slipping into sleeping while I think I have his rapt attention. Poor thing, I’ve taken to emailing him my worries. Maybe that’s why his computer began shutting down on a regular basis; I melted the hard drive.

I love email communication. I never feel guilty about anything I email to someone. I figure they can read it or not. I also figure they can wait until they’re in the proper frame of mind before reading the missive. It’s great therapy for me; I can get the worry off my mind while it’s still fresh -- like when it awakens me at three in the morning. The recipient has all the time in the world to respond – or not.