An Old & Humble Writer
I picked her up from her home. She had fallen. For a woman in her late 70s, she wanted to refuse taking an ambulance, but she had a rather big laceration to her leg, which would require stitches. This in addition to blood thinners, would mean she would need to be seen.
Anyway, we got to talking. We met her dog and her husband who were in the living room just keeping her company. She told me she was a writer. I asked if it would be anything I would know. She told me it was a blog, so I said I was happy to look it up and read it after. She had been in Public Relations, like me before I switched my career path during COVID.
The entire time we were with her was enjoyable. It happens rarely that we enjoy spending time with patients. We pick up citizens who are altered, in severe pain, in a panic, etc. so it is understandable that we are always trying to do our best with our time with patients. But she was different.
She had an elegance about her. A positive outlook. She told us of her travels, about her home out of state and how she came back to recover from a surgery. She didn't allow anything in her life to affect her love for live. She was kind. She was SO funny. She was gentle. I remember hoping that I would be like her when I aged.
This lady started talking to me like she had known me my entire life. But more than that, she saw that I had a passion for what I did. She noticed the little things I did to care for her, even though she was not in a life-threatening emergency. She said things like she saw right through me. And it all felt so comfortable, which usually doesn't happen to me at work.
So, we dropped her off and I cleaned the stretcher and prepared it for the next patient. I got back in the ambulance. As my partner finished up the paperwork, I started reading. She wrote about life. She wrote about love. She wrote about old and and all of the wonders that come with it.
I noticed that she stopped writing around the time of her surgery. I still check in every couple of weeks to see if there is anything new in her life.
It's those people that stay with you as a medic. The ones you learn something from. The people who see you for who you are, not having known you a day in your life.