Welcome to our regular Saturday feature “What Aggravates Me”
By Comedian John Knight
Just to let you know, this is my contribution to EMS week here at YaJagoff. Since I have never worked in the field, this story will deal with an experience I had with the great people that do.
Let me start off by saying that my mother has been dying most of her adult life…There was never anything wrong with her…well, physically anyway. It was just any minor pain or cough and she would be diagnosing herself with an incurable ailment. If a new disease came along and they talked about it on the news, she would start to get the symptoms. It was almost impossible to convince her that she didn’t have Ebola.
Also, whenever she takes a new medication, she reads the list of side effects and gets all of them. If she only gets one or two, they will be the most bizarre and rare. She wouldn’t even take vitamin C when I told her it would help get rid of her Ebola.
Do I think she actually gets these side effects? No.
Do I think she’s nuts? Absolutely.
Because of her insanity…I’m sorry, stubbornness, she refuses to take vitamins or calcium supplements. The calcium would have prevented a lot of the actual ailments she has had over the past few years, but too late now. I bought them for her countless times and she wouldn’t take them.
Then there was the time when she was having some stomach problems and was scheduled for a colonoscopy. She spent the day before fasting and prepping. If you don’t know what that involves, look it up. Too disgusting to write about.
Right when she was about to go in, she decided she had chest pains. Mom couldn’t decide whether she was having a heart attack or slept funny. Either way, they couldn’t do the procedure. Let me explain that a few months earlier when I took her in for her annual check-up, she decided she was having the same chest pains. Her doctor sent her to the hospital for tests and she ended up spending the night in Allegheny General.
Was there anything wrong with her? Of course not.
So with my knowledge of her history, we trekked on over to the North Side…I’m sorry, North Shore…I keep doing that. Although, is it still the North Shore once you get inland by the hospital? It really isn’t along the shore anymore…C’mon, there is no shore! It’s a river bank. If anything it should be the North Bank.
Anyway, when we arrived bright and early at the colonoscopy center and my mother began with the chest pains, let’s say I was a little pissed. So now, I’m the bad guy. These people don’t know my mother. All they can see is this terrible, uncaring son, trying to force his poor old mother into a colonoscopy when she’s about to go into cardiac arrest.
As we got in the car to leave, her symptoms suddenly disappeared. It’s amazing that men with nets haven’t dragged me away.
I know, what does this have to do with EMS? I was getting there. It was January, two years ago. It was around 6:30 at night and I got a call from my sister. My mother had fallen and wasn’t able to walk. She had somehow managed to get herself up on the sofa and sat there for an hour before calling anyone. She was hoping somehow the pain would go away.
On my way to her house, I knew that it was probably a broken hip. When my sister and I arrived at my mother’s house, we found her in the same position she had gotten herself into. I told her we were going to have to call an ambulance. She said to let her just sit there and maybe it would go start to feel better.
We let her sit there for half hour or so and finally she realized, this time there was a real problem. When the EMS arrived, they couldn’t have been better. They checked her vital signs, talked to her in a calming manner and could see that her hip was broken from the way one leg appeared shorter than the other.
The paramedics were a young man and young woman. I rode with them in the ambulance. I was in front and the young man was in back with my mother, keeping her calm. I can’t thank them enough for the way they took care of her. Thanks to you, mom is alive and kicking, just not kicking as high as she used to. The men with the nets should be coming for me any day.
Follow John on Twitter @jknight841
Order his book by clicking the icon below.
