Everything has a beginning. An inception of an idea where someone had the ambition to create it. Sometimes by accident. Like so many people in existence today, they were pure mistakes by their parents who had to many glasses of jim beam and there was a lack of entertainment on television. Now two asshole created another asshole who is going to create more assholes because creating assholes feels good.
Even though the statement is slightly jaded, I still feel justified to say it. But then again, in my trade, we don’t always interact with the best of characters. So, the writer in me always creates a story as to how we arrived. A quick hypothesis to turn a shitty call into something we can laugh about.
Also, it makes people human again in my eyes. I have always lived by the statement that humans are bottomless pits of wants and needs. I mainly use it to help me reflect and analyze my ambitions and actions. But, in the healthcare world, this is true. So, at times, when we are rushed taking care of the critical in the back of the truck, or the nurse with four patient’s running frantically to take care of orders, we will lose the humanity behind the patient. Sometimes the patient doesn’t help with this mindset. Like the small lipoma removal who is feeling the sting from the five sutures wondering how he will ever walk again because of the slight pain. Or the fall in the icy parking lot who has a bruise, normal pulse rate and blood pressure, wondering why you are not going to load them up with pain meds.
We all lose the humanity behind the human. In health care, it becomes Burger King medicine, “have it your way!” Or as in JCHO terms, “how’s your pain today?” We become the bottomless pits of wants, needs, desires, and we will not demand for less. We are entitled to how we want things and in the timely manner we expected it. Just like our gossip behind the news story. Just like the lazy boy behind the counter who has no idea how much of a rush I am in. Or the impatience we deliver on our children when they don’t perform exactly how we want that minute.
We lose our humanity quickly. We forget everyone’s story.
Sometimes our interactions where too quick and too brutal that I HAVE to build a story behind you. Draw some color into your character to wash out that ugly action I watched you do or say.
These are my quick five minute fantasies to keep me from getting burned out, again. Its my quick check to brush off the nasty person I just dealt with so I don’t carry the negativity onto the next patient who may need my empathy. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing that EMS provider not giving compassion to the person that needs it because they have been starved of any humanity. They are cold and calculated. They will save your life in minutes but cannot deliver a hug.

Everyone has a story that lead them to me. I become the next chapter when they made that turn with out looking, took the wrong medication, fell off that ladder, or tragically ended their life. I want everyone to continue being human to me instead of the bottomless pits of wants and needs I know they are.

You’re not just an asshole. You’re an asshole with a story. Most of these entries are the stories behind the asshole I met.

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