History? History? History? Anybody?

A bit of an interesting call today- unconscious male, possibly having a stroke. Okay, no prob.
Get on scene to find at least 12 people in this house with a very conscious man who is looking around but not saying anything. He will follow commands but just isn't speaking.
He has a hx of stroke, but on which side? About half say on the left side, about half say on the right side, and there are a few in the middle who say that he doesn't have any deficits at all.
How active is he? Some say he does everything but walk and he totally takes care of himself, some say he only is able to feed himself, and some say that it depends on the day.
How much does he normally talk? Some say full conversations, others say not at all "we just scream at him sometimes to ask questions and he will only look at us and nod or shake his head", while others say that he talks a little but some days he can go a whole day without saying a word.
VERY HELPFUL! *sarcasm* Seriously, how do over 12 family members all NOT agree on the patient's normal status??!!?? I can see if I was perhaps asking two parents "how much of a vocabulary does your child have?" and one is a stay-at-home parent and the other works 80 hours a week. I would expect at least slightly different answers. This was just plain foolishness!

Respect.....

• ... Everybody deserves it, at least in the beginning.


• *a non-EMS rant*


• An afternoon a few days ago, my boyfried (who is also a paramedic) and I went to a local Mexican restaurant that we both really like. The restaurant is part of a small chain locally and we have never had any problems getting good service and great food there. We were seated and our server, Katrina, approached quickly, introduced herself, and started to take our drink order.


• During this time, DB is busy talking with the table next to us, with three women and two small children, with another server standing nearby also talking to DB and the table. The table left some cash for the tip, which we could overhear them say "this is for you and Katrina", so DB calls Katrina over after she has served our drinks and queso. He makes a point of pulling off two $1 bills and handing it to her, but keeps the $10 bill that was left as a tip and put them in his apron. She smiled, thanked the table, and turned back to us to take our order. Now, I don't agree with this. If it was a matter of the table saying "this part is for you and this part is for her" and wanting to make sure that they each got the part that was designated for them. It irks me when somebody purposefully tries to put someone "in their place" in front of customers.


• When we talked to Katrina as she was refilling our drinks, we asked her questions such as how long she had been doing this, etc. Turns out, this was her first serving job and only her first day on the floor.


• I don't see any reason to physically grab somebody or pull them around. This is an adult, trying to do a good job, not a toddler who is throwing a tantrum in a store and has to be picked up off the floor. This was pretty much the icing on the cake for us. We are both FTO's at our jobs and would never do this to somebody we are training.


• Yes, we ended up tipping him (more because I didn't want him to be blaming her for him getting a shitty tip). We found a manager on our way out and explained the whole situation, and how much it had pissed us off to watch somebody be treated like crap. I've been a restaurant hostess before and as part of that we did have to go through quite a bit of the server training at the restaurant I worked at, in case we had to work as server's due to a shortage. Treating somebody like crap that you are supposed to be training is completely uncalled for, in my opinion. The manager stated that he didn't know that was occuring with this trainer and trainee and that it would definitely be addressed. We made sure to praise Katrina and told him that she will do wonderfully, but that the issues with the trainer needed to be addressed.


• Sorry for the bullets, I'm having issues getting paragraphs to form.


• Promise to be back to EMS stuff soon.