Webb Family Blog

Today has been a lazy day… something that I’ve needed for a while. We woke and went out for breakfast at Thunder Valley Casino. We tend to go there frequently, as it is cheap for breakfast. After that, Kellie and I dropped Richard off, back at the house and Kellie and I went out searching for work footwear. I wanted some new boots and Kellie wanted shoes with great pronation support. There isn’t many places to find the boots I wanted… thankfully I knew this… we drove down to Sacramento to Sacramento Uniform and purchased a pair of Bates M-9 boots. We then stopped at several stores before finding some shoes that Kellie liked. We came home and watched TV. Kellie fell asleep on the sofa. We’re planning on going out to eat tonight with Kellie’s friend Crystal.

Tomorrow night is the last Raider game of the season. Richard and I will be going. I hope it doesn’t rain that much.

I just finished working my final day of 2005. We again had a pretty busy shift, as we did on Tuesday… 3 calls. It was my last day working with Dave. It will be different next year, as Will’s personality is VERY different to Dave’s.

We started off with a call from Kaiser Hospital Sacramento-North to Mercy General Hospital… this is one of our most common pathways that we do. Our second call was out of Methodist Hospital, which was my first time there. I’ve been working full-time since August 1st, and this was my first time. I’ve been to, I believe, every other hospital in the Greater Sacramento area except for Methodist until now.

Tomorrow will be my last day working with Dave. Next week I’ll begin working with Will. Eventually I’ll have another partner, but I don’t know exactly when. I was told that my other partner is active in the Air Force at the moment, but is supposed to be back soon.

Today, we went to post in Lodi. Posting is when we move and hang-out in a strategic location, to keep response times to anywhere equal within our geographic region. AMR CCT Northern California breaks up Northern California into different divisions. I am a part of the “Valley Division.” We have 3 daytime rigs and 1 night rig out of Sacramento. In addition to Sacramento, there is a day and night CCT-RN rig in Lodi and a weekday rig from Modesto. There is also a CCT-Paramedic rig that HAS been based out of Stockton. Apparently, in San Joaquin County, there are a lot of changes being made. First off, AMR has been granted exclusive emergency ambulance coverage for the entire county. There has been other ambulances covering the county, but now there will be one. That means that they will be putting more ambulances in-service in that county. More ambulances means more places for them to respond from. They wanted to kick out the CCT ambulances from stations where they needed to add ambulances to, so the CCT-P and CCT-RN rigs needed to find a new home. They DID find a new home and they moved in today. Our posting to Lodi coincided with the moving truck. We helped move furniture and supplies for the new station. It WILL be a nicer station in the long-run. The only problem I for-see at this point is that they won’t be able to have both rigs parked inside, which would be nice during the rain.

If anyone has tried to view my blog over the past week, you may have experienced many errors. I apologize for this. I had a problem and was researching how to fix it, but thankfully the people at Host Department, my website hosting system, were able to fix the problem for me today. I was receiving a ton of PHP errors. I still don’t know exactly what happened.

Well, Christmas has come and past. Kellie and I hosted a joint family Christmas celebration. Being our first Christmas together, we wanted some happy bonds to form between our families. They had a limited time to interact at our wedding, but that has been about it. Kellie appeared quite stressed due to all the preparation. We ended up not doing everything we were planning on doing (ie… using our new Sephra Chocolate fountain.) We did have a fun time.

I had fun playing with my niece (Quinn) and nephew (Xander). On Saturday afternoon, we went to the park. It was a lot of fun. Quinn is nearly 3 and Xander is 5. Unfortunately, Kellie taught Quinn that I was ticklish, so Quinn started trying to tickle me when I went down the slide. It was still quite fun.

I’ve worked the past two days and have been quite busy at work. Kellie returns to work in the morning. Life is beginning to get back to normal, but not quite. It is getting late and I need to get to bed. Maybe I’ll write more tomorrow if I have more time.

Well, I went to the dentist. Kellie has seen this same dentist since she was little. She says that he’s very nice. Obviously, something has changed. He was quite rude and un-caring yesterday as I went to get my tooth taken care of. From our first interaction, I could tell things were not going to be good. First off, I gag and panic easily when I have someone’s hands in my mouth. The whole experience is always highly anxiety causing. I told the dentist this when he was about to begin. Instead of saying something calming, like “I understand your fears and I’ll try to do my best to accommodate you.” He said, “Deal with it, unless you don’t want to do anything about it. It will just get worse.” As he began his work, he shoved these gauze-like sticks between my lip and gums. He poked around for about 2 minutes, then he and his assistant left… without saying a word. He was gone for a little over 15 minutes. I could hear him talking with other staff people and dealing with other stuff. I was getting quite furious. I had no idea why he left. He finally came back and finished, but when I reminded him that I was EXTREMELY nervous… my legs were twitching like crazy and my fingers were also twitching like crazy, he replied, “I’ve been doing this job for 35 years. I haven’t met anyone that likes having this done.” This cold and uncaring statement made me want to get out of the chair and hit this jerk. I have GOT to find someone that is nicer to their patients.

Richard arrived Friday night on time. Kellie had to work Saturday, so she stayed home while I went and picked him up. On Saturday, Richard and I did very little. On Sunday, Kellie had to work again, but Richard and I went to the Oakland Raider game. We took Amtrak to the game from Sacramento. The Raiders SHOULD have won the game, but the officials didn’t want them to, so the Browns won the game in a last second field goal. After coming home, Richard and I picked up Kellie and headed for Chili’s for supper. We also met up with Crystal, Kellie’s friend. As we were eating, I all-of-a-sudden had an odd feeling in my mouth. The backside of my right upper lateral incisor… #7 tooth felt quite rough… it felt like something was missing. I went to the bathroom to look in a mirror… there appears to be a larger gap between that tooth and the one further back. I guess I’m going to HAVE to go to the dentist now.

I HATE going to the dentist. I don’t like having someone with his or her hands in my mouth. I gag quite easily. I have had issues where a dentist was “nearly done” while I was gagging and couldn’t spit out the “crap” that was in my mouth.

Well, Kellie and I have both taken today, Monday, off to take care of my dental needs. She knows the dentist and his office. I’ve been on an “emergency stand-by”. I finally got a time for 3PM. It is now 1PM. I hope it goes OK. The good thing is that my smile doesn’t look any different due to this broken tooth.

Wow, I’m nearly done with another week at work. I’ve had some interesting calls. We are sent all over the place. Yesterday, they started with us hanging out in Roseville, then around Cal Expo, then Elk Grove, then Lodi, then Elk Grove. Around 4:30PM, they send us from Elk Grove to Fairfield. We got as far as Davis, when we were told to turn around and head for Placerville with lights and siren. We made it through extremely heavy freeway traffic to the Business-80/US-50/CA-99 interchange, at which point we were cancelled from the Placerville call and re-directed back to Fairfield.

Richard, my brother, will be arriving tomorrow night. That should be cool. He hasn’t been to our new house yet… actually, now that I think of it, my parents are my only family to have seen the house… none of my siblings have seen it yet. On Sunday, Richard and I will head to an Oakland Raiders game.

I’m still not sure what Richard will be doing next week… while I’m at work. I hope he finds something to keep himself occupied. I guess I have a nice HDTV and DVRs that can record 4 things at the same time, plus you can watch a 5th channel without DVR function. I also have high-speed internet at home. One could waste a lot of time with each.

The weekend has come and gone. Kellie and I planned to do quite a bit this weekend. In the end, we DID accomplish SOME of what we planned, but not that much. We were both pretty tired.

On Friday, while Kellie was at work, I put up Christmas decorations outside. Starting off, we had some little light trees to put on the lawn. In order to power the lights though, I needed to run a power cord out to them. I quickly realized that the best way to run power out to them would be with Christmas lights. I had to come up with some creative ways to string the lights. I worked backwards… toward the plug from the trees. The outside of our house is a stucco finish, so there is no good way to attach lights to it. The nearest part of the house to the trees is a column on the walkway. I ran the lights up this column, using fishing line wrapped around the column to hold the lights from swinging loosely in the wind. I then ran it up to the rain gutter and used some plastic hooks that are designed for that. I then had to come down under the eves to plug it in, and had to go over the door to get there. My plastic clips wouldn’t work well here, and neither Wal-Mart nor Target had clips that go into wood (doorframe). I then found “cup hooks” with a “safety” that I thought was perfect. I was able to pull some tension between the rain gutter to the door, to keep the lights from sagging. It’s hard to describe in words… if you see it, you hopefully will understand the issues I was dealing with.

Another project I worked on, on Friday, is for our Christmas stockings. We plan to have Christmas stockings for everyone at our Christmas party on Christmas Day. There will be quite a few of us in our house. Where do we put all these stockings? When I was a little kid, and went to Grandma Webb’s (McMillan after she married George), there was a stocking rack, made for hanging clothes to dry indoors. We don’t have anything like that, nor do I really want to get one. I thought of an ingenious way of hanging stockings. We have a “peninsula” between our family room from living room areas. I figured we could hang the stocking up around it… but we don’t want to put holes in it. On Friday, I bought some 2×4s. I then went over to my in-laws and mitered them on my father-in-laws chop-saw. I then screwed on some L-brackets to make a big rectangle. This frame will rest on top of the peninsula. We will hot glue on some clothespins around the frame and cover the whole thing in cottony sheets of fake snow. The stockings will hang from the clothespins. We have purchased stockings for everyone and will put everyone’s name on their stocking.

Kellie appears to be getting a bit stressed out with all the planning for Christmas. Our party will consist of Kellie and I (obviously), my parents, Kellie’s parents, my grandmother, Kellie’s grandparents, Kellie’s sister Leslie, my brother Richard, my sister Vicki and her husband and 2 kids (Xander and Quinn), and my sister Terri and her husband… if our math is correct… that is 17 people. We have dinner wear for all, but where does everyone sit? Not all in the same area very easily. When we open presents, some people may need to sit on the floor. Kellie has been talking with her sister and mother about dinner plans. We are planning on having a Christmas Eve dinner and a Christmas Day dinner. Not everyone will be there for Christmas Eve. There are many things to take into consideration when it comes to food. My family is primarily vegetarian (lacto-ovo) (except for my two brother-in-laws) with my parents being vegan-vegetarian. Kellie’s family and my two brother-in-laws are omnivorous.

I guess I didn’t write anything yesterday. Yesterday I had two calls… both the same patient. Once from Kaiser Sacramento South to Kaiser Sacramento North, then a few hours later, we took him back. The odd thing was on our return trip. As we were headed southbound on CA-99, just south of US-50, we came across a 3-car collision in the #1 lane (fast lane). We had a patient on board, but this was a major traffic hazard. Our patient was stable, so we stopped and one of my partners checked for injuries. Upon arrival of the CHP, we continued. We didn’t get very far though. Within a 1/2 mile, we came across a second 3-car collision in the #1 lane. My patient was still stable, so we again stayed until the CHP arrived. All in all, it didn’t delay us very much… it took us just over 30 minutes to go 14 miles. It took longer on our first trip, without stops.

This morning, I didn’t feel like going to the health club… actually, I had already decided not to go when I went to bed last night. Kellie and I went up to Thunder Valley Casino for breakfast.

Upon arriving to work today, I gave my partner, Dave, his Christmas gift. It was Season 1 of Jack Webb’s (unfortunately I don’t think he’s related) Emergency! This show is responsible for many people being firefighters, EMTs and paramedics today. I loved to watch it (syndicated re-runs) as a child. Looking back on it and knowing now how things are and used to be, I find it somewhat funny. The show was quite accurate for the day. Far more accurate than any medical shows on now. Thankfully, things have improved since then. The “Mother-May-I” approach to paramedicine has been phased out in most places in favor of standing protocols. In many areas, even MICN (Mobile Intensive Care Nurses… like Dixie McCall RN) have been phased out. A year or two ago, the Coastal Valley EMS Agency, from which Napa County is apart of, did away with their MICN program. I used to be an MICN at The Queen of the Valley Hospital. Back in the day, paramedics had to get permission to do any skill. That progressed to where paramedics could do SOME skills before contacting the hospital, but needed to run it by an MICN to do more. Now, the paramedics’ protocols cover more situations and if permission is needed, they have to speak directly with a busy ER doctor that may be in the middle of a sterile procedure and can’t leave to talk about a situation in which they don’t quite comprehend, since their training pertains to being INSIDE a hospital. As you can tell from my inflection, I don’t agree with the abandonment of the MICN program. In order to be an MICN, the nurse would have to take a class to understand what paramedics can and can’t do and includes ride-alongs with paramedics so the nurse can understand the limitations and restraints that paramedics have to deal with. The MICN was the greatest liaison between the ER doctor and the paramedics. O well, a few steps forward, a few steps backwards.

OK, I’ve stepped back off my soapbox. I guess I got on a rant there.

Currently, I’m sitting at a Starbuck’s on East Roseville Parkway, near Sunrise Blvd. in Roseville, since they have a T-Mobile Hotspot for me to get online. Dave and my other partner today, Adam, are sitting outside in the ambulance. We haven’t gotten a call yet today.

Wanting to have a date with an activity that allowed communication, I figured miniature golf would be a fun activity. Kellie and I met on December 20, 2004 at 10AM at Scandia in Sacramento, near Madison and I-80. We were the first and only people there to play miniature golf. I’m guessing that a temperature of 40 degrees on a Monday had something to do with that. About 9-holes into the game, we were getting cold, so we went in for some hot apple cider. After warming up, we went back out to finish the game. After 17 holes, we were tied. I was having fun. Although I was quite nervous, I felt more comfortable with Kellie than I felt with most girls. On the 18th hole, I got a lucky “Hole-in-One.” We then decided to go get something to eat. We went to The Olive Garden in Citrus Heights, near the intersection of Madison Ave and Sunrise Blvd. We showed up around noon. Thankfully, they weren’t very busy… especially considering it was noon. By around 3PM, Kellie felt that they might like their table back. We were having so much fun talking to each other, we had lost track of time. We decided to move across the parking lot to a coffee shop, where we continued talking for a few more hours, before calling it a date. It was nearly 6PM when I headed back for Napa.

When I returned to work, my co-workers could tell I was a changed person. I was floating around. I was working with Kim French and Ann-Marie Parkey. They wanted to know all the details. They asked me what I was planning on getting her for our second date… December 26… the day after Christmas. I hadn’t thought of it. They told me I HAD to get her something. I had no objection to the idea. Ann-Marie volunteered to get something for me. She went and bought (at my expense) some rabbit-fur lined, leather gloves and a multi-colored scarf. I thought that was a reasonable gift, considering how cold we got on that first date.