The acrid scent of catshit greeted us at the door. With it were two old women, short and fat.
It was New Year's Eve on 6 Kilo. Lisa was driving.
It had been one of those weeks. I hadn't had a day off in two weeks, and didn't have another one scheduled for another 10 days.
"What's going on today?" I asked, grimacing at the smell.
"My back's hurting, see," answered one of the women. "I need you to tell me what's wrong with me."
"Uh huh," I said, still trying not to breathe.
The woman was having low back pain. It had started in the morning, increased, then dissapated mostly by the time I'd arrived. And of course, she didn't want to go to the hospital. There's just one problem: in New York City, if you're over 65, you gotta go, unless you can convince a Telemetry doctor otherwise. It's kind of a bullshit rule, but we gotta follow it, regardless.
So we had to do the whole workup: multiple sets of vital signs, 12-lead EKG, blah blah blah.
I get down on my knee in front of the woman to place the EKG electrodes. "Okay ma'am," I explained, drawing forth a bundle of wires from the monitor, "I just need to lift up your shirt a little bit and put on these EKG stickies."
"You have such pretty eyes," she responded, smiling. "Do you have a date tonight?"
Lisa placed a hand over her mouth, trying to silence her chortling. "I'm going to leave you two alone," she said, walking out of the room, grinning from ear to ear.
I stared at her wryly. "Thanks," I said.
"You want a laugh?" the woman asked.
"Sure," I said, clicking the electrodes to the monitor, one by one, shaking my head.
"I live upstate," said the woman, "and a few years ago I was doing housework in the dead of summer. And it gets so hot in my house. I've got no AC. So I take my clothes off. I just walk around stark naked. ME...NAKED..."
I moved my head slightly to the right, straining to see the front door. A bitter taste began to develop in my mouth. "Yeah," I said, wincing slightly.
"...and I slipped on the wet floor and I couldn't get up. So I called 911 and the paramedics came. These two young, attractive guys came and they had a student with them. Their student was Jewish, one of these Rabbi-types. I don't think he'd ever seen a naked a Irish-Catholic before. And there I was, naked as the day I was born. The rabbi took off running. He knocked over some furniture and jumped over a fence. I don't think he'd ever seen a naked woman before."
"That's great," I said, frowning as I lifted up the woman's shirt to place the electrodes on her chest.
"Isn't that a laugh!" she proclaimed, farting loudly.
I used the back of my hand to lift the great mound that was her breast. Underneath it would go 4 electrodes. In my mind, I was swatting away images of the bare woman. I turned my head to the side, pulling away slightly.
"Do you want me to take off my brazier?" she asked, reaching for the clip in the back.
"No, No." I said, "Please No...It's just...it's fine. Really. Please. Just...No."
"Okay," she nodded. Flubber from her chin flapping dangerously close to me. "But I can do it if you want."
After I got everything I needed, I called telemetry. On the phone was the dreaded Dr. Silverman, a man universally despised by paramedics throughout the city.
"Okay, put her on the phone," he said.
I handed the phone to the woman with the oversized brazier. She started nodding vigorously, her speech punctuated by "yes's" every few seconds.
She handed the phone back to me. She was going to the hospital.
"I want you to carry me," she said, putting on her hat.
"What?" I asked.
"I want you to carry me to the ambulance," she said, farting again. "I'm paranoid of falling."
"Uhh," I hesistated. "I don't know about that. It's snowing outside and those steps are really steep. We dropped someone yesterday, ya know. How about if we help you?"
"I'm very paranoid," she repeated.
"I can see that," I said, turning bitterly to Lisa. "How about if we both help you."
"Okay," she said, "but I want you to carry me accross the street to the ambulance. I am very paranoid of falling."
"Sure. Whatever." I muttered, grabbing the cardiac monitor.
She farted again in the back of the ambulance.
At the hospital, we put her into a bed. She grabbed my hand as I walked away. "You really have such nice eyes," she said. "Thank you. You're so kind."
I smiled with one side of my face. "No problem," I said, pausing for a moment. "It's my job."
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