Sometimes I Just Shake My Head

The call came it at oh dark thirty. OK. Really it was about 2:30 am. Right about that time when you're really enjoying being asleep.

Dispatch said that we were responding for leg pain but had the ambulance rolling code 3. Something just didn't add up.

When we arrived on scene I found my patient sitting on the stairs by the open front door. I knelt down and asked her name and what was going on. Her reply, "I can't sleep."

I asked if she was in pain thinking that we might be there for some new onset of pain. She said that she had back pain from the 2 screws and multiple operations she had had. So I followed that question up with an inquiry about any new pain to which she answered in the negative.

I then asked a couple of more questions that might possibly lead me to understand why this woman had called 911 because she couldn't sleep. No dice. She just had insomnia that night.

Fortunately for me the ambulance showed up quickly. I turned to the medic and said, "She can't sleep." That was the sum total of my pass along to the ambulance medic. I was a little frustrated. I felt like telling the insomniac that I couldn't sleep either because of her. But that wouldn't have been very professional. I still wanted to.

For the record insomnia does suck. But calling 911 after not falling asleep for a couple of hours....come on.