| Don't downplay chest pains
My son recently died of a heart attack. I heard people at work and a relative knew he was having chest pains hours before. Apparently, he said it was stress. He was told he should see a doctor, but no one called 911 or offered to take him to the hospital. I understand ambivalence, that at 45 a heart attack seems unlikely, that it might be embarrassing to call 911 and find that it was only indigestion. But heart pain and heartburn have the same symptoms. Medical professionals sometimes are hard-pressed to tell the difference. The consequence of inaction may be deadly. Stuart was acting odd, so I asked him three times if he was OK. Each time, he said everything was OK. On my way to bed, I knocked on his door and asked him again. He said, cheerily, "I'm fine. Good night, Mom." My family tells me he didn't want to worry me! Please, please, don't try to protect your family.
Paramedic training turns to real-life emergency
A training session for fire department paramedics turned into a real-life drama Friday when one of the students went into cardiac arrest.
Three paramedics from Long Island and a lieutenant from Howard Beach sprang into action and stabilized the student, Jeffrey Sanger, possibly saving his life.
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When to go to the ER
But you've experienced indigestion before. Maybe this pain in the gut is simply a sour reaction to that heavy barbecue you ate earlier in the day. So you take an antacid, get off your feet and figure the problem will take care of itself. But a couple of hours later, the pain is worse. And it's Sunday, meaning a phone call to your physician's office reaches an answering service that can't schedule you for an appointment for at least 24 hours. The pain seems too intense to wait a day or two. What do you do? There's always the emergency department of your closest hospital or medical center. Certainly that's a popular option. An estimated 300,000 people visit emergency rooms around the country every day, according to data collected by the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Taste of life behind restaurant doors - read if you dare
Got a bee in your bonnet, but nobody will listen? Why, honey child, you just haven't come to the right place. This interesting letter from Lori Goff is a good example. “Once again I had fast food, and once again, it was messed up. I have decided that working in a fast-food [restaurant] has got to be pretty fun. I mean, after all, you get to decide if someone can actually HAVE what they order and pay for. Then you get to decide if you do let them have it, exactly how bad you are going to SCREW IT UP! I also wonder if after the shift, everyone splits up the overages. Such as, someone orders something with guacamole and sour cream, that's about $1.25 extra. If you decide that NO, they can't have it and continue doing so the entire shift, that adds up to a lot of money. Maybe this is where the incentives come in - like, if we hire you, you get extra cash daily by simply not giving people what they pay for.
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