An older couple accompanies a woman on a stretcher with hematemesis and a severely distended abdomen into room 9.  She’s legally blind and keeps asking if they are in the room.  The old man continually assures her with a soft “I’m here, mom.”  I consider the overflowing landfills briefly as my non-latex glove count hits double digits in an hour.  Another bout of black vomit snaps me back to reality.  Mother Earth can take the hit tonight.  The nurse readies an NG tube while I wipe off the patient’s chin with a warm wash cloth and tell her she looks pretty again.  She smiles.

Every time I walk past room 20 I hear a woman sobbing into the phone.  She was out celebrating tonight and a dozen margaritas later she woke up on a stretcher with a fractured tibia and fibula from tripping over a curb in a parking lot.  Somewhere between the bar and the hospital she’s lost her purse, her clothes, and her self respect.  All she can do is apologize to her mother on the phone through sobbing breaths, over and over.

The hours pass by.  A 22 year old woman has an abscess under her eye; the doctor decides to drain it with a needle instead of a knife because he doesn’t want to cut up a young girl’s face.  A 27 year old male has a seizure because he stopped taking his medicine; he says his doctor never gave it to him.  A woman in room 10 watches hospital security put restraints on her husband so he doesn’t roll off his stretcher or hurt someone.  An 84 year old man with dysphasia (he can’t speak) watches in silent pain as a nurse tries to get an IV started for the third time.  An old man tells jokes to his wife and the assistant who is setting up for an EKG; the only interruption of his smile is every few minutes when he’s curled up and clutching his chest in pain.

The Emergency Department showcases the extremes of the emotional spectrum – the best and the worst of human nature.  In one bed is a 27 year old female with cuts on her wrists who washed down all the pills in her medicine cabinet with a bottle of vodka – 20 hours later she wakes up long enough to ask to go to the bathroom and then passes back out.  Two rooms down is a man with Alzheimer’s, cursing at the nurses for trying to remove his shirt.  His wife tells me that half the time he doesn’t remember his name, but he always remembers how to swear.  She tells him she loves him as she calms him down.  They’ll be together forever.

When I drive away from the ER that night Loveline is on the radio.  It’s some girl complaining that her boyfriend doesn’t try hard enough in bed.  The world’s problems seem trivial.

I became an EMT last year and as a part of the course I had to work a twelve hour shift in the emergency department. I wrote this essay for the class, but it seemed like something to share here also. Read out of context it may sound like I didn’t enjoy the night, but that was definitely not the case – I had a great time and learned a lot. I would definitely volunteer to work there again if they had the room.

I remembered my neighbor left his phone number so I gave him a quick call about an hour before the meeting to let him know I wouldn’t be able to make it. After confirming that he wasn’t the one giving the presentation tonight I told him that it was all a multi-level marketing scam and was wondering if he was aware of that. He started to get a little defensive and said his friends we’re all involved (where have I heard that?) and it sounded pretty good. I don’t think he knew much about the internet so I told him I just wanted to give him a heads up and that there were a lot of stories online about people getting scammed with madebig. Hell, google for madebig and scam.com is the second link. Here’s a short excerpt and also my final realization that going down there would be a huge waste of time:

Me: Just do a little research on them before you give them your money. The entire scam is documented online.
Him: Ok, thanks. I’ll ask them about that at the meeting.
Me: You’ll ask them if they are a scam?
Him: Yeah.

And with that I wished him good-luck and got off the phone. What a waste.

Moral of the story: People don’t give money away. Use your head. Also, I should care less about what other people do.

(For the record, turns out pyramid schemes are actually illegal in Oregon under ORS 646.609.)

I probed for some details but apparently he’s only been a member of this money-laden organization for a week so he didn’t know much. He did drop some key words like Internet, Ebay, and social networking. With an endorsement like that, how could I resist? A guy with no knowledge of a company claiming it can make big money and asking others to join? Sounds like a pyramid scheme to me.

So, I had a look at this flyer, and it’s actually for madebig.com. Hoping to get smacked in the face with some web 2.0 goodness I checked it out and was disappointed to see everything is hidden behind a login. A mysterious club I have to join with the promise of money? I can’t sign up fast enough! Also, the flyer says I can join their “Fast Start Bonus” plan.

Some brief googling looks like it will reveal the details of the scam, but I kind of want to be surprised. Since I’ve never made a poll before, and I’m not planning on making another one in the future, I’m going old school and just providing four options. If you care enough, vote in the comments – and if you want to go, let me know.

1. Give into the siren call. Go to the meeting. Sign up. Get rich.
2. Go to the meeting. Take a bunch of pictures of whoever is presenting it and at the end raise my hand and ask how it’s not a scam.
3. Get to the meeting early, change their signs to point to a different meeting room and host my own scam when everyone shows up.
4. Don’t go to the meeting. They’re actually planning on mugging you.

(Sorry for the <24 hour notice )