It's that $#@! bird again!

    So recently I was transporting an LOL in NAD complaining of back pain. For those of you who do not know that that is, Google it. And if you do not know what “googling” something is, how on earth did you get to this site? At any rate, my partner and I are dispatched to a private residence to transport this patient to a hospital that’s about 20 miles from her home. Going off of previous experience, I was assuming that this patient was going to be located up three flights of stairs in the messiest house and was going to weigh 300+ lbs. Thank goodness I can’t predict the future, because that would have been no bueno.
    We arrive to find a tidy home with ample space to bring the gurney inside. This allowed us to move our LOL in NAD with minimal discomfort to her. She was very sweet and cooperative. As we start talking and getting her history, vitals, and whatnot, we ask her if she would like something for pain. She says “as long as you don’t have to start an IV. I’m a hard stick”. Now I am always one for a challenge, but I didn’t have a change to finish my coffee this morning so I respected her wishes and we took her priority 3 to the hospital.
    Now since staring at one another would not only be uncomfortable, but also super rude, I ask her questions to fill in the gaps in my report. Turns out she is diabetic and did not check her sugar today. I offer to do so, since I didn’t poke her with a needle, I could at least do that for her. So she gives me her hand and says “which finger would you like”, and I reply “it doesn’t matter”. So she picks one, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s her middle finger. Normally that is not an issue. However, after I cleaned it and was ready to poke it with the lancet, it misfired and I had to get another one. It only took me 10 seconds to do so, but I turn back to my pt to find her with her middle finger still up facing the window and not realizing what she is was doing. I took the moment to let it sink it in and to hopefully see an interesting reaction from the many tailgaters we had that morning. Much to my dismay, no one other than myself noticed the bird flying around in the back of the ambulance. So I check her sugar and tell her she can “put that away”. This resulted in a confused look and the shrugging of some shoulders.
    It was interesting to see someone of her age (think WWII vet) throwing up what would normally be seen as an obscene gesture. She didn’t notice and neither did the rest of the world. I guess that was one of those silver linings in an otherwise VERY priority 3 call.