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Burying The Lede

In Journalism, or what passes for it these days the “lede” of a story is the first paragraph. The way that print stories and to an extent electronic media stories are constructed the most important part of a story is the first paragraph. That’s the lede of the story.

When newspapers were the primary method by which people got the news the practice was to put the most important part of the story first and then with each paragraph less important parts of the story were added. There were two reasons for this. First, readers often had short attention spans or maybe limited time to read articles. Second, if another publication picked up the story they may want to shorten it for various reasons. Since everyone knew how articles were constructed it was easy to just lop off the lower paragraphs.

Those are legitimate uses, but there is another way to use that method to build an article for publication. If you put the most important last, then you can fashion your story so that readers will understand it they way you want them to. If’s a form of lying, but a very subtle one.

Put a minor point, but one that supports your preconceived notion of how the public should understand the story first, then way down near the end put the part that undermines your position. In the news business this is called “Burying the Lede.”

Which brings me to today’s post.

At least 16 people died in California after medics injected sedatives during encounters with police

It was impossible for the AP to determine the exact role injections may have played in many of the 94 deaths involving sedation that reporters found nationally during the investigation’s 2012-2021 timeframe. Few of those deaths were attributed to the sedation and authorities rarely investigated whether injections were appropriate, focusing more often on the use of force by police and the other drugs in people’s systems.

This would be the key information that people should know. Which is that despite the scary headline, the ace reporters at Associated Press are just assuming that they were caused by Midazolam (Versed). Note also that few of the deaths were attributed to drugs. What they don’t tell you is that everyone of the people who died had a complete and in depth autopsy performed. Anyone who dies in police custody gets and autopsy to determine the cause of death.

The AP wants us to believe that Ketamine is a safer drug to use, but Ketamine too has potential adverse effects. Especially if the patient already has drugs in their system. Some of the systems with which I work have withdrawn Ketamine from their medication list. Others have opted not to use it believing that Versed and another medication, Haldol, work better and have less potential to cause harm.

The Eric Jaeger quoted in the article is more than a paramedic. He’s a paramedic and a lawyer who has lectured at many EMS conferences. Knowing that I have to wonder if he was quoted out of context. His statement regards any form of sedation and there is no reason to believe that he thinks that Versed is any more dangerous than any other sedative.

Of course the aggregate data from which AP drew their conclusions was not published.

The articles linked to are no better and just as one sided.

None of the experts quoted addressed how public safety professionals can protect themselves while trying to keep out of control people from harming themselves or the public? If the police had let any of these people go and they subsequently died, we’d be reading about that instead of this.

In the case cited in this article the reporter mentions that Mr. Jackson took Methamphetamine. That’s an illegal drug and one that can make people extremely violent. Having worked most of my career before sedation was used I can attest that having the physically restrain people exposed everyone to the risk of serious injury. One medic I worked with suffered a broken neck and was never able to return to work because of her injury.

Note also that in the linked article AP spends considerable space attacking the very same Ketamine that they seem to laud in the first article. Oh, and the mention the Versed is used as part of the cocktail used to execute people. True, but it’s used to help ensure that the person dies without pain. I won’t go into the other drugs used as part of lethal injection, but they are commonly used for medical reasons and in and of themselves not especially dangerous.

We now know one thing for sure. Reporting by Associated Press is not to be trusted.

 

Jack Pennick

I’ve probably mentioned somewhere along the line that I prefer old movies to current ones. Some of my favorite movies were produced before I was born. Some were produced when my now deceased parents were young and well before they were married.

I like those movies because unlike current movies they depended on the talent of the cast to produce an interesting story. Most of those films were shot in black and white because color film was much more expensive back then.

John Ford was a master director more because he was great at framing shots than he was great at directing the actors. In fact most of the actors who worked with him didn’t like him at all and vice versa. There were a few exceptions, Ward Bond being one. I’ll talk more about Bond in another post.

Ford had an unofficial cast of stock actors who were in many of his films. They’d often play similar characters and thus were actual character actors. Ward Bond was the most frequent member of the this group, but there were others.

The other day I was watching (once again) Fort Apache from 1948. The stars of the film were John Wayne and Henry Fonda. There were many of Ford’s regulars in the cast including Bond, Hank Worden, Victor McLaglen, and Jack Pennick.

Pennick was born in 1895 and had a varied career. A US Marine in World War 1 Pennick worked later on as a horse wrangler. Which is where he met Ford and started working for him as both an actor and a military technical advisor.

During World War 2, Pennick was in the US Navy and became in a photographer in Ford’s photographic unit as part of the Office of Strategic Services. He also was a drill instructor for many of the OSS recruits that came directly from civilian life.

After the war he appeared in a number of Ford’s films including Fort Apache. In 1960 he worked as a technical advisor on another John Wayne/John Ford film “The Alamo.”

Over the years Pennick appeared in over 140 films from 1926 until 1962. His last role was as an uncredited character in the film “How The West Was Won.” Fittingly that segment was directed by Ford and starred John Wayne.

Just another character actor who added a lot of character to the films he was in. The little known performers who made big contributions to cinema.

The 72 Hour Rule(s)

The first 72 Hour Rule says to wait no less than 48 hour and ideally 72 hours before believing any reports on  the Main Stream Media or the Internet about a large scale incident.

As soon as the first coverage gets out, the whacky internet rumors start. Remember that the Main Stream Media (MSM) lives by getting stories out first. He who breaks a story gets the most eyeballs and advertising money. It doesn’t matter if those eyeballs are on broadcast TV, cable TV news, blogs, websites, or even print.

Getting the story out quickly and accurately used to be the rule, but that’s gone now. When you put something out in the days of print you had to live with your mistakes pretty much forever.

This happened before I was born, but is still infamous to this day.

Harry S. Truman, president-elect, holds up an edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune with the erroneous headline “Dewey Defeats Truman”. 

Ooops.

Now, if something is said or published incorrectly, the story can be “stealth edited” so that if you look at it later there is no trace of the earlier incorrect story. That happens on TV and cable news as well. If there was a clip saved to a website, it ill be deleted and replaced with the correct story. That’s fine except that there will be no notation that a previous story was incorrect.

When the MV Dali hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the middle of the night last week most people awoke and saw the story with some alarm. Initial reports were that numerous cars were at the bottom of the bay, which turned out to be false.

Shortly after the story broke, the whacky rumors started. Putin ordered the attack as revenge for the US blowing up the Nordstream Pipeline. A Muslim terror group did as revenge for US support for Israel. The US government did it to uh, do something or other. The Harbor Pilots had panicked and hit a secret button to kill power to the ship on purpose.

Self proclaimed experts decreed that the tug boats pulled away prematurely for some unknown reason.

It was a few days before the story came out that the ship had had power system problems. The ship despite being built only in 2016 had a history of shoddy maintenance and had had problems before.

Most of the crew were Indian nationals working under contract and the officers were all licensed merchant mariners.

Oh, and ships hit bridges and docks with distressing regularity.

The problem with silly rumors is that people will believe them because conspiracy theories can be tailored to account for any false information.

Remember dimwit Rosie O’Dumbell claimed that fire had never melted steel before September 11, 2001. Fat dimwit Michael Mooreon produced a movie blaming Pres. G.W. Bush for the tragedy. In his case, his lie filled money made the so called socialist millions of dollars. Yet, people believe that unmitigated BS.

Back when I was working as a paramedic I lived by the motto, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Which meant do just do something because you could. There is a lot more potential for harm than help in just about every piece of EMS equipment we have, including our vehicles.

The point being to make sure you know what’s going on before acting. In a large event like the Key bridge crash it’s going to take a while to sort out what actually happened versus what the media tells you. That’s even if the media isn’t making shit up to get on the air.

The second 72 Hour Rule says that in a wide scale disaster you need to be prepared to survive for 48-72 hours before help gets to your area. That’s particularly if the federal government is the help for which you are waiting. It doesn’t matter who is in control in Washington, DC it’s going to take that long. The story line in the media will be different depending on which political party is in control, but the fact remains.

If the disaster is large enough it’s very likely that the local and state resources will be unable to respond. Their local resources may be overwhelmed or degraded to the point where they can barely (if at all) able to help themselves and will have no resources to spare. That includes law enforcement, fire suppression, and medical. Medical includes EMS, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and even individual practitioners. Public Safety personnel are not immune to floods, fires, blizzards, earthquakes, or tornadoes. In addition to possibly being killed or disabled, they have families, friends, and residences to worry about.

Make sure you have a sufficient supply of food, water, medications, and shelter to last up to 72 hours. Have a generator of some sort to provide power so you can heat or cool your living space in some degree of comfort. Have firearms to protect yourself and your family as the police instead of being minutes away could be hours away or just not coming.

Have first aid supplies and know how to use them in case someone gets ill or injured.

Don’t forget your pets. One of the biggest post Katrina complaints was that there were no provisions to treat, transport, or shelter people’s pets. In the years following Katrina FEMA bought (meaning you and I paid for it) all sorts of vehicles and equipment to rescue pets. This is not an internet story as I saw those vehicles in 2006 when I went to a FEMA training course.

Now, they have all sorts of information on the FEMA website, but other than dogs for Urban Search and Rescue they don’t seem to have all of the equipment that they used to. Nobody can waste money like the government.

So, there are the two 72 Hour Rules. One is not to believe what you hear right after a disaster, the other is to prepare to be self sufficient after a disaster.

For what it’s worth, I once suggested that the functions of FEMA should be contracted out to Walmart. Which might explain why I was never invited back to another FEMA event.

 

It’s Still The Same Old Story

Calif. county’s ambulance response times delaying FFs on scene up to 25 minutes

I’ll dispense with the lame joke about how they are just Falcking around.

ALAMEDA COUNTY, Calif. —In a recent and strongly worded letter, the managers of two Bay Area cities demanded improvement from Falck, the private ambulance company tasked with responding to emergencies in Alameda County.

The officials from Livermore and Pleasanton alleged poor performance and delayed response times that were “outside of those dictated” by Falck’s contract. In sum, the letter reported that ambulances were late to about one in every six medical emergencies in their cities.

“The expectation of our community is a quicker ambulance response when 911 is called,” the letter read.

About 90% of the complaints at my former employer were about response times, not patient care issues. People don’t much care what we DO as long as we show up quickly.

The accepted “standard” response time in EMS is 8 minutes and 59 seconds. This is based on the inaccurate and obsolete premise that that is the maximum time a person in cardiac arrest can survive without CPR. There was never any data to support it, but so called “experts” in EMS latched on to it and set it as a standard.

One of the ways that private services under municipal contract use to meet that standard is by sending fire department first responder to stop the clock. The fire service organizations that represent fire fighters and fire chiefs latched on to this starting in the mid 1980s for one reason. Jobs. At the time smoke detectors and fire sprinkler systems were cutting the number of fires that needed to be responded to and some cities were talking about cutting back on fire department staffing.

So the two organizations which I won’t name came up with the idea of fire first response to medical calls. Note that the people who came up with the idea were not the same people who were going to be getting up at all hours of the night to go to medical calls for which they were poorly trained. If they were trained at all. Thus was born the fire service “Stare of Life” where in the fire fighters stood around while the officer got on his radio to ask for the ETA of the ambulance.

Although firefighters are often the first responders on a scene, they are not technically allowed to transport patients to the hospital — even in emergency situations. Because Falck has an exclusive contract with the county, only their ambulances are permitted to conduct such transports.

According to Woerner, that often creates a situation in which firefighters end up waiting on the scene 15, 20, or even 25 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, even with critically injured patients.

“In my world, it’s not acceptable,” Woerner said of Falck’s delayed response times.

Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

Some observers think a better system would be the “alliance model,” a public-private partnership where the county EMS agency contracts with the fire departments, which in turn manages the ambulance system. The system is used successfully in Contra Costa County , and San Diego just recently reached an agreement with Falck to take over billing and staffing in a similar model.

San Diego had a previous incarnation of this type of system with a different private ambulance service. I forget which one and it might now be out of business. Then again San Diego has always had weird EMS delivery models.

But I digress.

“Response times are only important and influence clinical care and patient outcomes in a small fraction of cases,” spokesperson Troy Espera wrote in a statement.

This is 100% accurate. It’s also 100% irrelevant. Why?

Because as stated above all people who call for an ambulance care about is that someone gets there fast.

Although Oakland only represents 30 % of the population, 50 % of the call volume in Alameda County comes from the city.

I’ve never been to Oakland and with luck will never go to Oakland. I know little other than it’s baseball and football teams have fled to other areas. One other thing I know is that Oakland has a lot of poor people. Poor people utilize, some say abuse, EMS for a bunch of reasons that I won’t go in to. It’s not just Oakland, but every city of any size anywhere in the country.

All sorts of alternatives have been tried to sending ambulance that essentially function as taxi cabs, but if anyone has found one that works I’ve not heard about it.

{Hayward Fire Chief Garrett} Contreras

“Our residents shouldn’t have to have an understanding on how this all works,” [Hayward Fire Chief Garrett] Contreras said. “The expectation the public has is that when there’s a problem, we’re going to fix it. So let’s fix it.”

Hate to break it to you Chief, but you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Thus has it ever been, thus it seems it will always be as time goes by.

 

 

More Bad EMS

This is getting very concerning. It seems that at least once a week I’m reading a story about a disastrous EMS incident. Sadly, I could rename this blog “The Journal of Iatrogenic Medicine” and have plenty of material.

This is a story from down in Texas right next to Austin.

 

Pflugerville widow struggling with support year after husband died of medical negligence

In the autopsy report, pathologist Satish Chundru said Samerigo received a cricothyroidotomy, an incision through the skin on the throat, that he did not need. It also said that after Samerigo received two doses of the nerve-blocking agent midazolam intranasally, he could have only survived if an airway was established. When one was not established, it compromised his heart and led to his death, according to the report.

Keep in mind that this is a non medical publication, however that description is a bit confusing, at least to me. The description of the cricothyroidotomy is correct, but the description of Midazolam is confusing. Midazolam, better known as Versed is a drug somewhat similar to Valium. It’s has somewhat different effects, but a nerve block is not one that I ever knew about.

It is used for procedural sedation, anesthesia, seizures, and acute behavioral emergencies. So, I don’t know Mr. Samerigo actually received Midazolam or received a neuromuscular blocking drug of the type to induce chemical paralysis during surgery or other procedures requiring that.

Although I know what a cricothyroidotomy is and have done one, I don’t know why or even where in the patient contact that was done. In reference to the airway, that is what a cricothyroidotomy is supposed to provide. It is also not the first type of airway that I’d consider UNLESS the patient had either severe facial injuries or his jaw was clenched so tightly that an oral airway couldn’t be placed. Even then, I’d consider a nasal airway before a surgical airway.

The Texas Department of State Health Services investigated the 2023 incident and found that the paramedic, Hiram Edmundo Ortega, violated state codes related to providing emergency medical services. On Sept. 13, the department sent Ortega a notice of intent to revoke his license.

The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is pretty aggressive in investigating and disciplining EMS practitioners. If you read the state codes linked above you’ll see that there are a lot of things for which EMS practitioners can be disciplined. It’s not a surprise that they decided to revoke Mr. Ortega’s license.

The article then goes on to cite a lot of recent difficulty with EMS in Pflugerville. I’m not going to quote any of that, but you should definitely read it.

Just to help you out in many parts of Texas outside of major cities voters agree to create Emergency Services Districts (ESD). An ESD is a government entity, but operates independently. So, although they call themselves the Pflugerville Fire Department, they are not a city agency. PFD doesn’t provide transport, they provide first response. They then hand off the patient to whoever the transporting service. At one time it was Austin/Travis County EMS, but there were complaints that ATCEMS had long response times. The ESD known as Pflugerville Fire Department tried it’s hand at running an ambulance service, but the taxpayer complained about the cost and the ESD opted to contract with a private service.

For a very short time, they used Acadian Ambulance Service, however there were complaints (again) that Acadian took too long to respond. The city of Pflugerville also complained about the cost.

The ESD then contracted with Allegiance Mobile Health, which while not nearly as big as Acadian has widespread operations in Texas. There website says that they provide 9-1-1 services to a variety of  cities, counties, and other places in Texas.

Allow me to editorialize on EMS in general, not specifically this case.

EMS is expensive to operate. While a top quality ambulance for emergency responses can cost over $250,000.00 if fully equipped that’s not the most expensive part of the operation. Neither is additional equipment or supplies. Or insurance, for that matter.

The most expensive part of an EMS system in paying EMTs and paramedics to work on those ambulances. The work is not easy and EMS has a high burnout rate. Even without that people often leave to find jobs that pay more, they like better, or give them more time off. Or some combination of those.

EMS system operators will cut corners where they can. One of those is on paying their EMTs and paramedics. To have a good service you need to have good care providers. To have good care providers who will hang around for a while you need to pay them well and give them benefits. If you don’t you’ll have a lot of turn over and a lot of inexperienced care providers in critical roles.

Low pay is common in the private service industry, along with poor benefits, and a hard schedule. There is a lot of turnover as providers look at better job options in and out of EMS.

There is no good and cheap EMS. You can have good EMS, but it will cost you. You can have cheap EMS, but it will likely end up costing you even more.

Sadly, that’s a lesson that is only learned the hard way and all too often the lesson doesn’t stick.

The Big, Rotten Apple

2

So, our trip to New York City.

We went for friends son’s wedding. The bride is from NYC and so that’s where the wedding was. We had been invited well before we knew that we were going to be able to make the move from the northeast to Texas. Although it probably wouldn’t have made a difference as they are good friends, it was small wedding, and were happy they invited us.

We flew out of Austin to Dallas Fort Worth and then to LaGuardia. No direct flights from Austin to LaGuardia that fit our schedule as we were invited to the rehearsal dinner as well.

We breezed through TSA in Austin and didn’t need to go through TSA at DFW. No, they came to us for a “random” ID and boarding pass check. Not us specifically, but everyone on the plane. Six TSA officers and two plainclothes DHS officers. Some people were “randomly” stopped a second time just beyond the entry to the Jetway.

We made it to LGA on time and took an Uber to the hotel. 10 miles, 35 minutes, $65.00 plus tip. It’s New York City, so that’s to be expected. Of course Uber costs more because NYC makes Uber drivers get cab driver’s licenses.

The hotel was nice, but the rooms were about the size of a large walk in closet. As a friend joked, it’s so small that you have to go outside to change your mind.

I went out to get a cup of coffee and on the way back walked by a pile of laundry and a guy sleeping on an army cot under about three blankets. I know from working with a lot of homeless people that some of them just refuse to go into shelters, but this seemed a bit extreme. Sleeping on the sidewalk in Manhattan on an army cot.

My wife and I had the same impression of the city. It’s dirty, noisy, even the high end buildings look like they need a pressure washing. Traffic is a mess as the city has turned traffic lanes into bike lanes. Roads have one lane for motor vehicles, one for bikes, and one for buses. Then people wonder why traffic doesn’t move. Bikes and scooters are everywhere. Frankly and bluntly, it’s like some Third World shit hole.

No one seems to speak English and there are few, if any, native New Yorkers in Manhattan. I don’t know where they are, but they aren’t there.

There are police, but not a lot of them. I haven’t been in NYC for years, but before the Plandemic there were cops walking beats all over the place. Not now. Now there are one or two police cars sitting on the side of the road with their lights on and two officers sitting in side.

Something else I noticed was jaywalking. Pedestrians in NYC used to obey the no crossing lights, but that seems to have gone out the window.

One thing I will say is that the food in NYC is very good. The rehearsal dinner was great, the breakfast I had the next morning in a hole in the wall restaurant was tasty and not expensive. I was lucky to find a seat in the restaurant as it was a tiny place with five or six two seat tables. A lot of people were sitting outside in the 35 degree temperature eating in little huts (for lack of a better term) with three walls and no heat. In what is supposed to be the most sophisticated city on the planet.

The wedding was a lot of fun. We got to talk to friends we haven’t seen since we moved and don’t quite know when we’ll see them again. My oldest friend and his wife were also invited and we got to see them as well. Plans were made for them to come down to Texas for a visit in the spring.

Sunday morning we got up, got dressed, packed and took another Uber ride to the airport. We once again breezed through TSA and headed for our gate. We were early, but I prefer to
arrive early rather than miss a flight. We had breakfast and sat down to wait. The gate agent announced that they were looking for two people to sit in the emergency exit row. Normally they
charge extra for that, so Mrs. EMS Artifact went up and volunteered us. For some odd reason we got the window and aisle seats and were separated by a passenger who paid for the center seat.

When we were called to board, once again we had a “random” extra, bonus, screening from the TSA. This time they also wanted to see peoples laptops and tablets. They also had a bonus canine, which I surmise was an explosive sniffing dog. They once again gave extra screening to some people for no obvious reason.

That slowed down the boarding process and we ended up pushing back from the gate about 15 minutes late. The weather was cold with snow/rain falling intermittently, so we went to the de icing station. Twice. Then we waited some more. All told, we were about an hour late in taking off.

As a result, we were going to miss our connecting flight in Dallas. I kept checking the airline app to see what our options were and all of a sudden it became moot because our connecting flight was now delayed. By four hours. Great. More sitting around an airport.

We landed in Dallas about the time we were originally scheduled to land in Austin and landed in Austin about the time I had planned to be in bed at home. The bonus was that we got a free upgrade to First Class. Of course being a forty five minute flight we got no drinks or snacks, but the seats were comfortable.

All in all, I can’t see a reason that I will ever go to New York City again. It offers me nothing that I want and everything that I don’t.

I have one more trip planned to the northeast, but I don’t have the exact dates picked out yet. After that, I’ll be content to be home in Texas.

Not How To EMS

This is not a new EMS incident, it actually goes back to 2019. The article I am linking to is from December 2021. Well, the main article I am linking to is from 2021. There are other articles as well.

He is the link from EMS1 that covers much of the story of that fateful days events,

State board cites 7 Kan. responders for failing to transport patient to hospital

This is a fairly long article, but it’s well worth reading.

The Kansas Board of Emergency Medical Services has proposed disciplining seven Wichita-area emergency responders for failing to take a suicide victim to a hospital five minutes away, even though he had a pulse and labored breathing.

Instead, the man — who had shot himself in the head — was covered with a white sheet and taken to hospice where he died more than 10 1/2 hours after the shooting.

Ahh, if it was only that simple. They didn’t immediately take him to hospice. Actually they NEVER should have taken him anywhere but an Emergency Department.

In my career, especially at the beginning, we often transported patients that we knew had no chance of survival. It was just the way of the world even though we didn’t like doing it and the hospitals didn’t like us having to do it. That finally started to change in the late 1980s in my system and continues to evolve even though I am long (eleven years now) retired.

The patient was left on the floor of his downtown Wichita apartment for five hours. At times, he appeared to be in pain, “moaning loudly,” the order says.

The “Bring Out Your Dead” scene in Month Python and The Holy Grail was supposed to be comedy, not a how to film.

A review by the Sedgwick County Medical Society found the patient was handled properly. Sedgwick County and Wichita government agencies have hired an attorney to defend their employees’ conduct.

On what planet is it proper to leave a suffering person on the floor for five hours?

The voice of sanity is heard,

Article found here, State board asks for probe of EMS leader after man left to die in Wichita apartment

But the Kansas Board of Emergency Medical Services, which licenses EMTs and paramedics across the state, says the patient was not given proper care. If a patient is breathing or has a heart beat, EMS protocol is to transport the person to an emergency room.

 

Well, yeah. Maybe, just maybe, the Sedgewick County Medical Society is trying to cover for a member. Believe me, if they could find a way to toss the EMS providers under the ambulance to protect Gallagher, they would do it.

Think it can’t get worse? Think again,

Two months after the call, Sedgwick County consolidated its EMS services and the Office of the Medical Director, placing Gallagher, a physician, as the top official in the county’s EMS system.

Two months after this debacle, Gallagher was promoted to EMS director.

I’ll stop quoting parts of the article as the reader might think I’m making this up or misquoting what the article says. I’m not.

Two years later, Gallagher was removed as medical director.

Sedgwick County removes EMS director Dr. John Gallagher

I had some bad bosses over the years, but this one takes the cake.

Eventually the County paid Dr. Gallagher to go away. We used to call this “addition by subtraction” at work.

EMS Director Dr. John Gallagher resigns; Sedgwick County to pay him $85,000

Money well spent I say.

There is no news article about what happened to the seven providers that the state cited. The only hint is that an eighth provider, a supervisor, was also being charged with something.

Whatever their fates, this was an EMS failure at all levels from field provider to medical director.

It’s definitely not the way to do EMS.

I know that the featured image is more than a bit harsh, but there is plenty of fail here to go around.

2023 in Review

Each year since 2019 seems to have been worse than the one before it.

2020 featured a not very severe virus that was used as an excuse to make much of the world prisoners in their own homes. That in turn lead to riots that were intended to, and did, change the course of a Presidential election.

That election was, shall we say, of dubious honesty. We ended up with a corrupt moron sitting in the Oval Office with someone else pulling the strings.

2021 continued the silliness with even more ridiculous efforts to end the not so serious pandemic plandemic. The spring insanity was the government in the form of the senile fool in the Oval Office telling us that if we took the magic shot of undetermined efficacy we could all go back to our normal way of living.

A lie.

The fake insurrection was used as an excuse to attack the freedoms we’ve enjoyed for 250 years.

On a personal note, both of our lovely cats and my Mother in Law passed away. While all were difficult the death of our first cat in the spring was particularly painful as the veterinary hospital wouldn’t allow us to come to be with him in his last moments. There was no reason for that other than our state’s health department imposing more stringent rules on veterinary facilities than human medical facilities. I never understood that and it still makes me mad.

Despite my spry 102 year old Mother in Law not being very ill, we couldn’t visit her for the 10 days she was in the hospital. She was cleared of COVID and release to a rehabilitation facility where she got very ill very quickly. Despite the best efforts of a pretty good hospital, she lingered for a week and then died. At least we got to visit her even though she wasn’t conscious.

Simultaneously our other cat got very ill and I decided to spend more money that was reasonable to keep her alive so that my wife didn’t have to deal with both of them dying at the same time.

Family things made that a teeth grinding process.

2022 continued to the suckage of the two years before. Nothing specific, but of course inflation, shortages of everything due to shipping problems across the globe, and the increasing division in this country made things worse.

Mrs. EMS Artifact was responsible for settling her mothers affairs and again that was a teeth grinding affair thanks to her sister.

During the course of the year I accelerated my efforts to get our house in saleable condition. I’d been doing that starting a couple of years after I retired, but I did more in 2022 as the agreement that Mrs. EMS Artifact and I came to was that once her mothers estate was settled we’d put the house on the market and move south. There were multiple reasons to move south, among them family, weather, politics, and finances.

2023 came and in some ways it’s been both the best and worst post COVID year.

The year started with a minor car crash that put me in a rental car for a month. I was lucky because the body shop I use was quoting 2-3 months due to the difficulty in getting parts. I’ve done enough business with the owner over the years that he squeezed my truck in and got it fixed.

In the middle of January, my best friend of over 40 years died. Not suddenly, but slowly from Dementia and other medical issues. The Dementia and other issues worked together to make his illness untreatable and his ordeal over three years.

For some, maybe much, I blame the COVID response. His Dementia was first diagnosed in late 2019 and when COVID came along the hysterical response delayed routine medical care for months and months. As his condition worsened, he became more difficult to deal with. At some points I was the only person he’d listen to and at some points he wouldn’t listen even to me.

It was very difficult for all of us to watch him die by degrees.

In May a long time co worker died after a long illness. Not unexpected, but another co worker cheated out of a well deserved retirement.

In late June a friend of about twenty years died. His death was unexpected by everyone but him. He knew he had a terminal illnesses, but didn’t want to burden anyone with his problems. His funeral took place while my wife and I were out of state, so we missed the chance to say goodbye.

Things seem to have started turning around in late Summer, but not without a few hiccups. In September we completed preparations to put our house in the Northeast up for sale. We also flew down to Texas to look at properties. We found a house we liked and at the same time we had an acceptable offer for our house.

We committed to the house in Texas with a seven day opt out. Which worked out as our “buyer” turned out to be a nut case and she backed out at the last possible minute. So, we had to back out of our house.

It looked like we’d be stuck in the Northeast forever, but our realtors both there and in Texas did yeoman’s work and getting our house back on the market and sold, as well as finding another house in Texas.

All of this shortened our timeline for moving by almost a month. We head to be out of our house before the end of October, but couldn’t close on the house in Texas until right before Thanksgiving. We spent a frantic month packing up Forty-Three years of living and getting it on the moving truck and then into storage.

Then we lived in hotels for almost a month. Hotels are nice, but you don’t want to live in one for a month with only a week’s worth of clothing and belongings. At least we didn’t.

November passed and we moved into our new home. That went pretty smoothly, except for the part where we needed a section of sewer line replaced because of a tree root that insisted on breaking into it.

We had Thanksgiving with our daughter and her boyfriend. We keep hoping that something will happen along those lines, but of course we have no control over that.

Side note to any Dads reading this who happen to have cute little daughters. After they turn about 12, you will have NO control over their lives. None, even if you think you do. Instill good values in them when they are in the single digits and you’ll be fine.

Anyway, we’re now on the verge of 2024. I’m back to what passes for work, we’re getting comfortable in our new state, county, city, and house.

I can only hope that 2024 turns out to be a better year than were the previous three.

 

Being Tested

2

Texas seems to be testing me to see if I’m worthy to live in the state.

First, before we bought our house I got what I refer to as a “Welcome to Texas Sinus Infection.” Just note that I never get sinus infections and even when I have a cold it passes pretty quickly. Mrs. EMS Artifact says that all my years in EMS have given me a strong immune system. Maybe, but it’s also probably the fact that I work out frequently, eat properly (for the most part) and watch my weight.

Anyway this whatever it was made me miserable enough to go to urgent care not once, but twice. The first time got me a prescription for cough medicine and some suggestions on how to get through the next few days. After the next few days and I was worse, I went back to urgent care and got antibiotics and a steroid. In the interim I had a nose bleed that almost caused me to go to an Emergency Department, but fortunately stopped before that.

In due course I got better and we proceeded to buy our house and move in.

Move in day came and I had to use the bathroom. Flushing the toilet resulted in nothing happening. Well nothing good. I went on line and found a local plumber. He came out and cleared the line, but told me it was likely that the lovely Live Oak in the front yard had invaded the pipe via the roots boring through the PVC. He dropped a camera down and sure enough there were pieces of root sticking through the PVC. The prospect of having to call the plumber at random intervals to clear that obstruction was not viable, so we paid to have that section of soil pipe dug out and replaced.

We also had a refill valve replaced because of what my wife refers to as a “Toilet Ghost.” The tank would partially refill at random. The usual cause of this is a bad seal on the flush valve, but in our case the fill valve also needed replacement.

Side note: We never met the sellers of our house as that’s not done at closings any more. We only met the buyers of our house because they wanted to come over and do some measuring before the closing. Elsewise, we wouldn’t have met them.

My post move in impression is that the sellers were not all that much interested in routine maintenance. Which is not to say that they knew about the root problem and didn’t tell us. Those things aren’t predictable. Still, I’ve been doing a lot of little repairs that are not all that much different than what I did to our old house before we put it on the market and even after we had a deal to sell. Just the way I was raised, I guess.

One of the things that they didn’t take care of was the water softener system. As in it never worked in the five years they owned the house. Apparently the original owner didn’t do anything about it either. Our section of Texas has the hardest water in America. Yay us. Which means that water softeners are pretty much a requirement unless you like to buy new appliances every five years or so. We don’t, so we are having the plumbers come back sometime in the next few weeks to install a new system with a ten year guarantee. Hopefully that will save our four year old water heater and less than four year old dishwasher and washing machine.

So, that brings us up to Sunday. Which happened to be my birthday. I decided to move one of the very nice recliners we moved with us to my new “TV room.” Forgetting that I was no longer 40 years old (or close) I decided to move it without partially disassembling it.

Mistake.

I felt a pop in my left bicep followed by a burning pain. At which point I decided to disassemble th chair into it’s three components. I was able to move everything and get the chair back together.

My bicep was another question. Being quasi medical, I self diagnosed and decided that Tylenol was in order for the pain. Truthfully, there was no sense in going to urgent care or a free standing Emergency Department because that’s pretty much what they would do. Plus, before a surgeon could look at it the swelling had to subside.

In the mean time, I selected a new Primary Care Provider and signed up with his office. My only source of information was on line reviews of him. They were uniformly excellent and because he deals with a lot of older people he has a lot of experience with things that afflict older people.

While talking to his scheduler I mentioned my arm and she suggested a visit to an urgent care affiliated with the hospital with which he is affiliated. That way I could get my problem into the system and get a referral to an orthopedic surgeon.

So, today I went to the urgent care facility and was examined by a very nice and competent Nurse Practitioner. The good news is that it’s “only” a bicep muscle tear and not a tendon separation. Which means that the surgery is much less extensive as are the recovery and whatever rehab I might need. She ordered an ultrasound of my bicep and sent in the request for a referral to an orthopedic surgeon affiliated with the same hospital.

The doctor who was overseeing the urgent care center advised that I’d be better off foregoing my three times a week rowing machine sessions as that could cause scar tissue to form and make the surgery that much harder. Great. I’ll have to develop some other exercises for my forearms and shoulders.

Also on the good side I was successful in navigating the Texas process for registering motor vehicles and was able to obtain license plates for both of our vehicles. That’s important because Texas will not issue drivers license if you don’t have a vehicle registered or can prove that you don’t have a vehicle. After that Mrs. EMS Artifact and I found a state drivers license office that isn’t booked into next year and got our licenses.

Why the rush? Because you need a Texas drivers license to file for property tax exemptions. Who doesn’t love property tax exemptions?

While talking about the differences in how things are done in Texas versus our old state I joked that Texas is like a whole different state. Mrs. EMS Artifact said, only half joking, that it’s more like a different country.

Which ever it is, I sure hope that it likes me enough to let me stay.

Settled

2

The moving truck was here first thing on Tuesday. Which right now seems about a year ago. Driver and two helpers were very efficient, pleasant, and helpful.

I let them do their thing while I dealt with a serious issue. Our main sewer line clogged and nothing would flush away. I went on line and found a local plumbing company. The lady on the phone was very pleasant and helpful. She found a crew finishing up a job nearby and promised to send them along. About half an hour later a plumber and his helper showed up.

I explained the problem and they got right to work. This area had clean out access outside the house, which is nice. It took the crew about 20 minutes to get things, uh, flowing again. They then offered the option of dropping a camera into the line to see if they could find the cause. Truth is, the plumber had a really good idea of what was going on because as we say, it wasn’t his first big job. Sure enough one of the pretty oak trees in the front yard had bored it’s way through the sewer line in search of water.

Great.

The plumber wrote up the estimate and sent it back to the office for approval and forwarding to me. Not a pleasant surprise, but I came to find out that this is not uncommon even in this neighborhood. I think that I’ll have the tree removed unless the HOA objects, which they shouldn’t since I’ll still meet the one tree requirement. I just have to find a landscaping company to do the work.

Two things that all home owners find out pretty quickly. With a house there is ALWAYS something that needs to be done. Home owners, at least the all the ones I know have an assortment of tools, develop some pretty good handy man skills, have a lot of spare screws, bolts, nuts, and other assorted hardware around the house. They also have a “Rolodex.” Even if these days it’s kept in a smart phone. For some reason, a reliable plumber who won’t over charge and will show up is always at the top of the list. An electrician is sort of a distant second as at least in my case I can change outlets, switches, lights, and even in the past ran Romex and installed new outlets where there was none before.

I have to add a handy man to the list even though for the past forty three years I was mostly my own handy man. My oldest friend was my helper and when he needed to do a job I was his. He is of course 2,000+ miles away, so not an option. He’s going to be impossible to replace. Growing up we lived five minutes from each other. We went to different colleges, but when we graduated we returned for a short while to our respective childhood homes.

In due time, we both got married and for a few years we saw each other less. Then my wife and bought a house. A couple of years later my friend and his wife bought a house in the same time. Once again we were about five minutes from each other.

Our daughters coined the term “Heterosexual Life Partners” and as funny as that sounds, it’s true.

All of which is to explain why I need a handy man to do things that my friend and I used to tackle together.

I’ll have to find a lawn company, hopefully one that can also get rid of that pesky tree. I have no intention of dropping a tree on my house by accident.

On the good side, I don’t need a guy to clear my driveway of snow. I sold my snow blower to a friend and I was very happy to wave goodbye to it. I gave away assorted shovels, driveway markers, ice scrapers, and other snow tools to a friends son in law. Again, we were both happy.

Back to moving in. Everything is unloaded, but there is still a lot to unpack. I think my wife is going to end up donating a lot of stuff to Goodwill. Despite my suggestion, she over packed and we still have about 40 boxes of the original 140 that were packed. My office is still a mess as I’m awaiting delivery of a new to me office desk. I was hesitant to buy an expensive desk, but my wife insisted it was a good deal. So, I’ll have a nice office when it’s done. And a separate TV room to relax in, but I won’t bore you with that story.

This weeks tasks include registering our vehicles in Texas and getting our drivers licenses. The latter is important because there are significant discount to property taxes we’re eligible for, however you need to prove residency and the only way to do that is with a drivers license or state ID. Oh, we’ll need those licenses in order to vote too. And we intend to vote.

Texas requires vehicles to be registered before being eligible to get a drivers license or declare that you don’t own any vehicles. There’s a process, of course.

We’re getting used to doing things differently. Doesn’t matter if we think those ways are better or worse, because we don’t expect Texas to change how they do things. I really hate the people who start out their “welcome” with some advice not to try to bring out old state ways. Yeah, I get that part and don’t know Mrs. Kravitz to tell me.

Other than that we’re getting used to no snow, warm to hot as Hades weather throughout the years. H-E-B, and everything else that goes along with living in Texas.

I miss my friends, but modern technology allows me to stay in touch.

In another week I’ll start doing what passes for work. Another thing I’ll have to figure out is how to do it all remotely. Not exactly rocket science, but just different.

Just note that the featured picture is not our house, it’s just a house picture I picked at random.