Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!ucla-cs!stjhmc!f81.n129.z1.fidonet.org!Rob.Carr@asuvax.asu.edu
From: stjhmc!f81.n129.z1.fidonet.org!Rob.Carr@asuvax.asu.edu (Rob Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: PWAs and EMS
Message-ID: <24762@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 10 Jun 89 14:25:37 GMT
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/81 - NorthStar Pitt, Whitehall PA
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Approved: aids@cs.ucla.edu
Archive-number: 970

I keep trying to write this message, but I seem to have trouble finding the  
words I want to say.  I'm a paramedic here in Pittsburgh.  I don't know if it's  
because I've studied more about HIV/ARC/AIDS etc. or what, but I seem to get  
more than the average number of PWAs.  Fortunately, being prepared (including  
nebbing on this echo) seems to help.  Recently I took a PWA in the endstage of  
AIDS to the hospital.
 
He was my age.  That was the second thing I noticed.  The first was that he was  
dying.  Human beings shouldn't ever have to look that sick.  His breathing was  
labored as all hell, and except for the KS, his face was colorless.  He was so  
short of breath, he couldn't even talk.  His eyes seemed to say all the things  
his lungs wouldn't let him.  He was frightened.  Of the shortness of breath, of  
the dying, and of some stranger who came to take him to the hospital.  He was  
frightened of me.  

Not that I wasn't frightened myself.  I wasn't worried so much about getting  
HIV.  Excluding needle sticks, the chances are better that I'll be hit by a  
meteorite.  The thought did cross my mind though.  Mostly I was worried that I  
wouldn't be able to do as good a job helping him as I would want someone to do  
for me.  Also, I didn't want to look like a jerk.
 
He'd authorized his nurse to inform us that he was HIV positive and to give us  
a list of his medicines.  I appreciated the honesty, even if the situation was  
a bit obvious.  Kneeling down so that he could see me easier, I put a hand on  
his arm and told him that my partner and I would try to take as good a care of  
him as we could.  No gloves were needed.  I tried to explain what I was doing,  
taking vitals, listening to his lungs, putting him in a stair chair to get him  
to the stretcher downstairs.
 
I confused the doctor during the consult.  I stated that the patient was a  
"PWA," figuring that was enough.  Fortunately, though the doc didn't know the  
abreviation, he did know the medicines.  He agreed that the nebulized albuterol  
might help, and asked me to start a prophylactic IV D5W KVO.  Since the fellow  
already had a shunt in, he didn't need me poking him with needles and  
introducing more germs into his system, so I told the doc this.  Paramedic IV's  
tend to infect easily, possibly as high as 30%.  So we did the albuterol and  
went to the hospital.
 
While rechecking vitals, I prayed for him.  I try to do that with for all my  
patients.  I asked that he'd be healed.  I'm not sure I believed that he would  
or if I was just realistic, so I also asked that if he were to die, that God  
would be with him and comfort him.  Pretty lousy prayer, but I tried.
 
At the hospital, he got a word out to me.  "Thanks."  A friend of his who went  
with us also thanked me, but he also said something sad.  He said I was the  
first paramedic to treat him so professionally and so humanly.
 
A short time later, the patient died.
 
It still hurts, but it still feels good.  At least I feel like there's an  
excuse for my existance in this world.  I really wish he hadn't died.

---
 * Origin: NorthStar Pitt - Pittsburgh, PA (412-881-1749) (Opus 1:129/81)
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