Bless the children

If you recall from prior blog entries, you know that I desperately want a family and struggle with adoption and fertility costs. So when I get summoned to a pregnant women with no job, their third pregnancy, a baby-daddy who beat the death a pregnant mother, or some neglected kids suffering abuse from a bipolar one eyed prostitute it really gets to me. This all happened over one week in a town with 12,000 people. What a statement in of itself in what constitutes the state of my local community. I'm willing to bet this is played out all over the country as people struggle over the general dystopic state of our global civilization. Arguably more zombie and clown like in the nation called America. Frustration isn't a strong enough explanation for how I feel when 3 small kids, none of which are older than nine, come stumbling out of smelly stained single wide with a one eyed prostitute smoking a cigarette and a toddler propped on her hip. The five year old had the family's medicaid card...what a little helper. None of the children had shoes, and most had torn pants and smelled of pot. My head was screaming inside as I wrestled my demeanor into the necessary professionalism to ask the necessary question required to explore why I was called. Fever, a kid had a fever, and she never gave any tylenol either. A kid with a low grade fever does in no way constitute an emergency, but this sorta thing is very common with the folks welding medicaid cards. Like it was a health care credit card to the VIP ER, and in some ways it is. Nevertheless, I was happy to obliged knowing I'd have the opportunity to report the situation to DHS at the soonest opportunity, which would be in a few minutes at the nearby ER. So the whole dirty gaggle hopped into the ambulance module to watch a paramedic blow up latex gloves and draw funny faces on them. Settled in for the short trip, vital signs taken, I open the ePCR (electronic pt care report) to begin documenting my findings when the rough one eyed mommy leans over to ask if I had found Jesus Christ and had been saved? This question has always made me uncomfortable for a number of reason, least of which would be guilt, but after so many questions along these lines from fundies I'm become a little more resolute and hardened when I answer. No. I have seen too much in my line of work to believe there's some paternal, trinity family residing in the heavens above that looks out for us. But I won't say there isn't one either, because how would I know. Seems like superstitious nonsense to me though, a belief structure that gives comfort in world full of grief, pain, and misery.  When I die, if there is a god, a soul, life after death, and so on, then god can judge me. But if I'm sentenced to hell because I didn't accept this Jesus despite my life of sacrifice and caring for others, than to hell with god himself. Wouldn't want to hang around a being like that anyway. I didn't go into all this with the mother of course, but that's kinda how I feel after two decades of putting myself into the human circle of tragedy.

I find out en route to the hospital that the mother was just kicked out of her house last night by her husband, and that she was writing these long letters with religious scripture quotes. Her plan being to send these to her evil husband. She was also hearing voices and desiring to tattoo the children with crosses and other such nonsense.

The kids sat quietly darting their eyes around the ambulance trying to ignore their mothers insanity. I sit still myself ruminating over what I would tell the receiving nurse. With such a frivolous complaint we were sent to triage on arrival, just as if she had walked in. Apparently, the ER staff were familiar with this mother, and told me about her house being covered with wall to wall bibles, or that was what other EMS crews had relayed to them on prior visits. DHS was called just as I left for another call. This time a 22 year old man who just up and died, and it wasn't because of drugs either. How bazaar. Hours later I call back to the ER to find that social services had been in the room talking with the mother but that the child had been discharged with her mother a while later. "You've got to be kidding," I'm thinking, but most don't know that it usually takes many repeated DHS activations to take kids from these types of parents. Me on the other hand, oh no, well I have to have perfect credit, a detailed house inspection, can't be over 40, and a steady job to get the state to allow an adoption to occur. Only after handing over 20 grand to make it all happen too. But natural mommies and daddies are given GREAT leeway it seems. The social rot I immerse myself in dissolves the tolerance I have with the so called "system," and with some invisible man in the sky.

The radio squawks again for a pregnant woman involved in an assault out in a part of town known for drugs, poverty, and what can only be described as human baby mills. 18 year old, 3rd pregnancy, no job, no diploma, who had been beaten up by her so called boyfriend and father of the current one. Elbowed with primitive abandoned straight to the 8 month belly and she was bleeding heavily. Give me a bat and 5 mins with this little punk daddy want-a-be and his progeny making ways would end in blood and bruises. She lost the baby and nearly died herself. There's a god? Really? Meanwhile, no kiddies for me, I'm now 40 with bad credit, so the great state of MS that just released some kids to a Jesus freak hungry for coco puffs and pop smoking babies thinks my wife and I are bad candidates. Obviously the above two examples are the preferred environment to raise children. Not my household it seems which has a nice paid for house, a white picket fence, a dual income earning family with the love and compassion ready to give.

God? Where? A sunset maybe; whereas I must be in the valley of death.

Eating poo

OK, the title probably has you wondering what the hell this post is going to be about, but here goes - as the first day of  Fall descends on the deep South the rednecks begin scanning the roadside with their spotlights looking for future game; that is, deer. The mornings are a little cooler, but compared to my foray in Vermont, I'd have to describe them as mildly cool given that our Summer sees morning lows in the mid 80's and at least now we're making it into the 60's and 70's. The kind of sauna that doesn't require any specialized services. They call it Indian summer around here. Football, whether high school, college, or NFL, is the prevalent topic on the tongue of many. There has to be something entertaining to attune to other than wondering whether you're going to make enough to pay the mortgage, and while many appear to be "getting by," others are down right taking drastic measures to survive. For instance, there are more than a few scrap metal thieves searching properties in these rural counties looking for copper, aluminum, and whatever else they can turn in. There was an incident not far from where I lived where a homeowner shot a metal thief after he caught him brandishing a hatchet while cutting out copper. Allegedly, the thief came at him when he was discovered. Self defense...I hope. I've had a number of neighbors, impoverished people in their old beat up pickup trucks come by my house asking if I had any metal junk to get rid of. Any metal that I find clearing the property I put out on the curb for them to take as a consequence. I have a friend that works at a scrap metal processing center that reports being inundated with people bringing in old batteries, cans, metal pipes, copper wire, etc. Things like that tell me the local economy is echoing current and future troubles. But wait, there's more. I'm out on a car crash at the interstate waiting for the tow truck to show up when I overhear the deputies talking about a rash of air conditioners that have been stolen for scrap. Whole units ripped out of windows and even the big central units. My dogs have probably kept me from suffering the same fate.

If the thieves get past my beasties than I'll know for sure that our economy has deteriorated to the next level. It's not just the increase in scrap metal theft either, I'm noticing it at work too. I've seen young mothers, 8 months pregnant, being beaten by their husbands/boyfriends to the point of losing their babies. Why? Because of the emotional turmoil surrounding losing a job, a home, or a car...if you can believe it. Embarrassed desperation is expressed as they stare speechless into my transparent supply cabinets on the way to the ER. They just wish it to end. Most people have no idea what's going on out there because people are so private about it until they express it violently - sadly.  More people than ever are calling for psychiatric help too, whether it be depression or two in the morning panic attacks. As paramedics, we ask our pt's what medicines they're on and I regularly find anti-anxiety and antidepressant. I suppose that's keeping the pharmaceutical companies in business, that is, as long as the federal government continues to backstop Medicare and medicaid. There's no guarantee these social backstops will survive given the GOP cheering executions and promising healthcare elitism. The rolls of medicaid continue to grow until their political deficit cutting barbarism is full expressed, and I certainly do believe it's coming. That has to be one of those straws of violent protest ready to be broken.

I find these signs of social calamity on just about every emergency run I make. Last night was no different, except by which that social parabola is measured. Responding to a residence in an especially poor part of town that I find a young man crouched on the floor of his bedroom. Something wretched stifled the air as we came to care for this person. The man was nude, shaking, and covered in excrement. He turns to see who has come into his room while stuffing a turd into his mouth chewing it as if it was a babe ruth candy bar. My partner couldn't stomach the sight and was backed up behind the police. Trying not to let the profound grossness effect my care, I come to find that the man had just lost his job and this behavior was supposedly making him feel secure. I know it seems incredulous and extreme, surely the man is crazy, but if it isn't poo eating, it's people cutting their arms, beating their heads, to having someone pee on them.

People are scared, and looking for security where there is none. I guess we're all eating poo to some extent.