The career archive of a NYC paramedic

Tag: paramedic

The Long Distance Girlfriend Experience

The ads on late-night television imply that for about $5 a minute you can speak with an eager nymphomaniac clad in sexy lingerie and writhing about on the satin sheets of her king-size bed. “They’re definitely over 18!” many of the adverts proclaim. The callers probably assume the woman they’re sharing sexual secrets with is doing so from the private comfort of her own home. How romantic (or hardcore) would it be to hold an intimate conversation in a cubicle next to 30 other cubicles?

The phone sex industry exploded in the 1980s with the emergence of 1-900 phone lines. 1-900 phone numbers charged exorbitantly higher rates than regular phone numbers, usually by the minute, and seemed tailor-made for carnal interplay, or psychic readings. Despite the best efforts of puritan government agencies and the later development of technology that delivered porn to your phone, sex chat lines continue to endure to this day. There is a lucrative appeal, apparently, to engage in naughty talk with an anonymous stranger. It provides an outlet for men to engage in a soft-porn fantasy: the long-distance girlfriend experience.

One day I was shipped out to work with someone in downtown Brooklyn and I ended up having one of those “nymphomaniacs” as a patient. It was where my innocent eyes were opened to the elicit world of landline love.

We were sent to an office building in the business district. When the doors opened up on the 6th floor, it looked much like the typical office settings I assume most people work in, though there were some notable differences. The cubicles were larger than any of the cubicles I’d seen elsewhere and the dividers seemed to be covered in a thick soundproofing material. Large billboards near the ceiling, holding messages about bonuses and incentives, had images of shiny, red-painted lips talking into phone receivers held by hands that had shiny, red-painted fingernails.

None of the employees resembled the woman in the pictures hanging overhead. No one wore lip gloss and any manicures were subdued. The uniform of the day appeared to be sweatpants and unmatched leisurewear. There wasn’t a teddy to be found, though there were plenty of hiking boots and flannel shirts. Aside from the relaxed dress code, another thing that let us know we weren’t in the standard American workplace included the two large and very intimidating security guards at the entrance.

A friendly woman greeted us immediately and told us she’d take us to the patient. The woman wore a lanyard around her neck attached to two pieces of official-looking ID proclaiming her name to be “Bambi”, quotation marks included. A quick glance at the other lanyard IDs revealed that a name ending in “i” was likely a prerequisite for employment. We were surrounded by a number of Rikki’s, Tammi’s, Freddi’s, and Toni’s.

As we walked down the path towards the patient we listened in on snippets of raunchy phone interactions. The women vocally expressing their enthusiasm for deviant sex acts did so while filing their non-red nails, thumbing through magazines, and various other multi-tasks. One woman’s attention was intensely directed towards a birdhouse she was building out of popsicle sticks, while at the same time feigning believable interest in bondage. Her face lit up when we admired her handiwork as we walked by.

The whole time we were walking, we were followed by a young man, dressed in a suit and tie, holding something. When we reached our patient, whose lanyard gave her name as “Candi”, quotation marks included, the man propped a prosthetic leg against the wall of the cubicle. He gave a polite nod and left.

“My leg!” shouted “Candi” with delight. “Thank you so much!” She was a fairly large, middle-aged woman with a haircut that resembled a crew cut. It looked as if a tremendous effort was being expended to breathe.

“Bambi” told us that when “Candi” started complaining of difficulty breathing they moved her into a bigger cubicle that had a window, which they opened so she could get some air. “Bambi” proudly told us that “Candi” was their most consistent Gold Star employee and hoped we’d give her Gold Star treatment. Going by the billboards near the ceiling, it meant that she was receiving the highest bonuses.

My partner asked what we were both thinking, “What gets someone a ‘Gold Star’?”

“Call me and you’ll find out,” “Candi” said through labored breaths but with a wink and a sly smile.

“Candi” was sweaty and very pale. Our visual medical impression told us something serious was going on. We got to work quickly putting her on oxygen and assessing her vital signs. When we asked her about her medical history she dumped the contents of her large handbag onto the desk. She dug around through the pile that included her wallet, some keys, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, a few candy wrappers, and a very large rubbery dildo, to hand us her medication bottles. They indicated she had hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and a thyroid condition. She also told us she had renal failure and was under the care of a cardiologist. For someone who was only 45, she had an extensive medical history.

She opened up her flannel work-shirt so we could put on the little pasties for our monitor and we listened to her lungs, which were clear. When I mentioned this to our patient, whose other ID said her name was Mary Robles, she gave a somewhat resigned expression. “Then it’s my heart,” she said.

She pantomimed the cardiac monitor paddles from the days of old, imitating the recoil of being shocked by a jolt of electricity, as her thumbs pressed imaginary buttons. She’d obviously been through this before, apparently with machinery using 1970s technology. When I told her we used sticky pads now, not the old-school paddles, she nodded sadly, knowing as we all did, that the pads did not hold the same dramatic effect.

Our modern cardiac monitor indicated that her heart was beating erratically and very fast. At the time we didn’t carry any drugs that would fix it. As Mary/”Candi” understood, a dramatic jolt of electricity was the only thing we could do. But we did have some drugs that would help our patient with the pain of the procedure. We just had to call our MD to get approval.

“Bambi” waved over to the phone on the desk and told me I could use it to make the call. She went over to help “Candi” put her stuff back into her purse without telling me about the numerous assortment of buttons on the phone. It was hard to stifle a laugh as we watched her try to wrestle that dildo back into the overflowing purse. My partner turned his head as he attempted the easier job of starting an IV. Making the phone call turned out to be far more challenging.

For the youngsters who have never used a landline I’ve provided this video:

I had some difficulty figuring out how to get an outside line with their phone. I couldn’t find a button that produced a dial tone so I started randomly hitting each one. It seemed that each button I tried gave me access to the phone calls being made from the cubicles around me. Each call I inadvertently eavesdropped on was long past any foreplay discussion and some involved heavy moaning. It was rather eye-opening conversation and when “Bambi” noticed my reactions as I quickly hit other buttons, she stepped in to assist me.

Laughing, she explained that we were in a “Quality Control Cubicle” and a regular assignment at this office was listening in on phone calls. “If the customers only knew…” she said.

With her assistance I was able to get in touch with our telemetry doctor who gave us permission to use Valium to sedate Ms. Robles. He and I both expressed some concern over the procedure we were going to do, given the overall precarious health of the patient, but the MD admitted there was no other option. The patient, herself, wasn’t the least bit worried, however.

“Bring it on, I’m ready!” she said, loud enough for the MD to hear.

“Looks like everything will be fine,” he told me.

Cardioversion is a heart-stopping experience, quite literally for the patient, but also for paramedic caregivers as well. After you sedate the patient and charge up the machine, there’s usually a bit of apprehension before hitting the button that will deliver a few joules of electricity through the benign-looking pads we use now, instead of the familiar paddles seen on screens large and small. Interrupting the abnormal electrical activity going on in someone’s heart carries the risk of stopping it permanently. It has never happened for me yet, at least in someone who was sitting and talking to me, but there’s a first time for everything.

In the case of Mary Robles, sending those 100 joules of electricity to her heart did nothing but cause her to utter a loud, prolonged, moaning-type of yell, which fit in quite well with her current surroundings. I’m sure the soundproofing material of those cubicle walls did nothing to block the sound to her fellow moaners nearby. Except Mary/”Candi” wasn’t faking it, this time.

Her heart went right back to the very fast, erratic, and inefficient way it had been beating before. This meant we would be pushing that button again, this time with a slightly higher dose of electricity.

Our patient was unfazed. “Fire away!” she said after we shot her up with another round of Valium.

We were far more nervous than Ms. Robles when we pushed the button a second time. Once again, we delivered the jolt which brought forth another yelling type of moan. It was also followed with a relieved kind of “Whew!”

We all carefully watched the monitor with anticipation. Thankfully the jumbled electrical patterns organized themselves into a regular rhythm. Our patient knew what this meant even before we told her and she raised her arms and yelled a triumphant, “YES!”

She told us she felt much better and her vital signs reflected it as well. As she grabbed her prosthetic leg she told me that losing her leg made her better at her job. I gave a confused look and she just smiled. I still wonder what that meant.

As we headed to the hospital, she told me that many of the employees there were customers of hers. I asked her how she knew but she just gave me another wink and a smile.

A Foul Mouthed Nun

Before I went to a Catholic high school I knew very little about nuns except for the stereotypical things: they wear habits, they pray all day, and they like to beat up little kids who don’t do their homework. I had many Catholic friends growing up and I never heard any of them dispute these accepted norms. My dad was a former Catholic who had left his religion for various ideological reasons but still felt they would provide an excellent education which is how I ended up at an all-girls high school taught by many nuns, most of whom didn’t wear habits and didn’t beat us up for not doing homework (the stern look worked much better anyway). But yet it wasn’t until I had a nun as a patient that I learned there were also nuns into weight-lifting and some of them even cursed like sailors.

Sister Theresa Agnes had been visiting NYC with another sister from a parish upstate where they were both stationed, if that’s the correct term. The two women looked as if they could be actual sisters, with similar features and mannerisms. They had been running around all morning going to the more obscure city landmarks that most tourists don’t see. They were particularly interested in the borough of Brooklyn.

We found her in an old church in, what was then, a ‘bad’ neighborhood in Brooklyn. We had driven past this beautiful structure many times and it had often seemed almost abandoned. It was not illuminated at night like many of the other churches and we had never seen much activity, but, of course, we worked at night. Some of the windows had been broken, the openings protected with makeshift coverings that remained in place for years. But it was still a magnificent building that looked as if it were transported from another, much older, country. When we went inside it confirmed my long-held belief that beautiful architecture cannot be fully appreciated from only the outside.

Our patient was found in a large room with a high ceiling and several huge paintings which seemed very old. It had carved wood walls and furniture. The room smelled pleasantly of wood cleaner and old incense. Sister Theresa and the other nun were holding hands with two priests and they were all praying. When we walked in Sister Theresa perked up noticeably. “Look,” she told them. “They sent us two women! Girl power!”

We were told that Sister Theresa Agnes had passed out not once, but twice. The first time she briefly passed out it was blamed on the heat of the day and a change in schedule and scenery. She remained slightly dizzy and became easily short of breath. The second time she was out slightly longer and it had occurred after walking up a short flight of stairs.

The 58-year-old seemed tired and she looked pale from across the room. She asked one of the priests if she could have some more water and he took a glass that had been near her and went to fill it. Like my high school teachers, neither of the nuns was wearing habits and they both had on running shoes. We talked about how the women had spent their day and asked how long Sister Theresa had been experiencing dizziness and fatigue. Upon much consideration and reflection, she admitted it had probably been going on for a few weeks.

“That would explain how you were able to beat me at tennis,” said the other nun. “She’s very competitive when it comes to sport,” she told us.

“Well I’m glad I’ll have a legitimate excuse now,” said our smiling patient.

When we seemed to have a difficult time counting her pulse, Sister Theresa noted that her heart rate was usually slow because she was a runner.

“Runner, yeah, sure,” said the other sister, rolling her eyes. “She’s a triathlete. She does marathons. She’s a cyclist, swimmer, rock climber, and she lifts weights.”

“It brings me closer to God and I feel better when I’m active,” she told us.

But her heart rate was really slow. It was remarkable that she was sitting up and having this conversation with us. We put her on our monitor and found her to be experiencing a third-degree heart block. It’s an electrical arrhythmia usually cured with a pacemaker. It was probably only because of her excellent physical conditioning that she had been able to tolerate so little oxygen circulating in her system for so long. A third-degree heart block is considered to be extremely rare in healthy, physically active individuals making our patient an interesting anomaly. (We found out later that she had once contracted Lyme disease from her many sojourns outdoors and it had put her at risk).

We gave her an IV and tried our first line of treatment which we knew would probably not work. The drug we gave her, Atropine, works at a higher area of the heart than the area causing her electrical disruption. What she ended up needing was trans-cutaneous pacing (TCP).

TCP works much like an internal pacemaker by sending electrical currents that override the heart’s faulty pathways. It’s done through pads on the patient’s chest. To tolerate the constant influx of small electrical jolts we called our telemetry physician in order to give her narcotics. We would be giving her Valium, which works as an amnesiac. It wouldn’t exactly stop the pain but would make her forget it was happening.

We had everything set up and warned our patient of what was going to be happening. She assured us it would be OK. We started up our pacing and she suddenly started cursing like some sort of sailor. A polite sort of sailor.

“FANGDAMMER!” she yelled. This unique word hadn’t yet been added to the lexicon of expletives uttered to me by the public. It was quickly followed by “Poo On A Stick!”, “Crappity!”, “Schinittycrapes”, and “Dookerzonks” (I apologize if I’ve utilized incorrect spelling here. I’m going phonetically because my internet dictionary has been of limited use.) She denied being in pain but she continued to spew words like “Craditoollies” and “Snogerites”. It was an interesting phenomenon brought on by the sedation drug.

Rather than be outraged by all this foul language coming from a bonafide representative of a religious order, I wrote many of them down for future use. I figured that these were secret code curse words, backed up by the wrath of God. My enemies had no idea what they had coming to them.

The unorthodox street talk continued as we moved her to the ambulance. One of the priests helped us with our bags and seemed embarrassed by the constant flow of profanity coming from his colleague. We assured him that we had heard it all before, even though we hadn’t, actually. We have to maintain a professional demeanor so we told him that we understood it was just the Valium talking.

When we got to the hospital she thanked us and apologized for her “rancid potty-mouth”. She also said she had been blessed by our care, which was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to us. She was quickly evaluated and it appeared she would be getting her own pacemaker that day. She looked forward to getting back on her feet again soon so she could continue to explore our big city. We said goodbye and thanked her for the new words we would be spewing back at terrible drivers with lesser vocabularies. We had all been blessed that day.

Here is a link if you’d like to learn more about third-degree heart block: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17056-heart-block

The Beeper

Back in the olden days, when access to a web-less internet was obtained through a company called CompuServe, the hottest status symbol of the day was a high tech device called a “pager”. People of importance would never think to leave their homes without the elite electronic device clipped to their waistband. In the egalitarian age of the early tech boom, having a pager didn’t symbolize importance by being wealthy. Having a pager meant that you were important because you were someone people needed to get in touch with. Doctors, deal-makers, and your pot supplier, anyone who kept the supply chain moving. My partner also had a ‘beeper’ because he was a union delegate. As someone who tended to shun excessive social interaction it was nice to vicariously experience the marvels of the modern age through him.

Despite newer technology some beeper stores are still thriving. (photo taken in 2020)

He had his newly upgraded alpha-numeric pager when we were called to a building on the Upper West Side that is renowned for its famous architecture. One of my favorite things about this job is the access it gives us to see the inside of amazing homes and places that most people only hear about or see on screen. Many of the pre-war building in Manhattan have subtle intricacies that are never given enough prestige when presented as part of a background to a movie or news story. Being inside these beautiful old places gives you an historic feeling of old New York and I like to try to imagine what the world looked like to people who lived there decades before.

The call was for an EDP or ’emotionally disturbed person’ who, the caller felt, was not taking care of herself. (When you’re wealthy the term for this is ‘eccentric’). The woman was obviously well off to be able to afford an apartment in this exclusive building that had famous artists and celebrities living it. We took the elevator up with several people dressed in expensive clothing as we wondered if, perhaps, our patient was someone we might have heard of in some way. We knocked on the door and it was opened by a little white-haired woman with the biggest, sweetest smile. She looked at us with awe, as if we were the celebrities and were here to fulfill a spectacular wish.

“What do you freakshow motherfuckers want with me now?” she said. She went on to elaborate that any requests for sexual favors were not going to be met. Her big smile never left her face. She was wearing a stained, purple printed house-dress that was over a set of thermal long-johns. She had uncoordinated socks on her feet and her long nails were dirty. Behind her, we could see what seemed to be a huge, mostly empty, apartment with bare walls and bedsheets haphazardly duct-taped to most of the windows.

“Do you know who called 911?” my partner asked.

Somewhere in the apartment a Jamaican accented voice yelled out “I called for her. I’ll be right there. Let these people in, Miss Jensen.”

Miss Jensen silently opened the door wider and moved to the side. She never took her eyes off us and for a while she fixated on me.

“You better get yourself to a good dermatologist, your face is disgusting,” she told me. “I’m just being nice, seriously, I don’t know if anyone can help you. You really need one of them, plastic doctors. And you should get yourself some cocaine. That would take care of those rolls. You’re a big cake and cookie eater, aren’t you?” She gave me some more advice that she felt might assist me in getting my reproductive organs noticed by the male population.

“Why, you’re just a lovely beam of sunshine, aren’t you?” I remarked.

“You don’t have to thank me,” she said calmly. “Just get the fuck outta my house.”

“Now, now, Miss Jensen,” said the lady with the accent. A tall, slim, well dressed woman emerged from a room taking off a pair of latex gloves. She reminded me of Iman, the fashion model. “Forgive her, sometimes she’s real mean,” she whispered to us.

“I ain’t mean. I’m honest.” said old lady Jensen. She turned around picked up a plate. “Cookie?” she offered.

The woman with the Jamaican accent gave us a wide eyed serious look and shook her head, as if warning us they were loaded with poison.

Miss Jensen, seeing her plate of cookies rejected, casually threw them in the garbage, along with the plate. She then wandered off into another room. The apartment had a peculiar foul smell, like rotting food, but when the woman went away the odor seemed to travel with her.

“Thank you for coming. I’m Tanya,” said the other woman. “I work for Miss. Jensen’s family.”

“Are you her home attendant or a visiting nurse?” said my partner with a tone indicating that he didn’t believe she was. She wasn’t dressed like a home attendant or visiting nurse.

“No,” said Tanya. “I… I just sort of bring Miss Jensen the things that she needs. You see, her family doesn’t really deal with her anymore. But Miss Jensen isn’t in control of her finances. They gave her a number to call, it’s a service, she is supposed to tell them what she needs, then they page me on this device and I go out and buy it for her.” She showed us her pager that looked just like my partner’s newly upgraded beeper. “But she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She calls the poor people at the service and talks to them about nonsense. So I come here from time to time and fill up her refrigerator and ask her if she wants me to bring her anything.”

Miss Jensen emerged from one of the many rooms of her apartment and went up to my partner just to inform him that he should expect to die alone. Then she turned around and went back. The apartment was mostly empty. There was nothing on the walls and only a few scattered chairs for furniture. There was a path, however, that had been created with two rows of Lladro figurines leading to another room. There was no TV, no books and I wondered what Miss Jensen did all day.

Tanya continued, “I think I am the only one who comes here. I was originally told she had more people, a nurse, a housekeeper, but I think if she did once have them that they no longer come here. Miss Jensen needs help, much more than I can give her. But when I talk to the family they say she is fine. She is not fine. She hasn’t taken any medicine in a long time from what I can see. She’s not taking care of herself and I can’t do it for her. I’m not qualified and they don’t pay me for that. I do all kinds of other things around here because I feel sorry, but I’m not giving her a bath or combing her hair. She sometimes scratches with those long nails of hers. You can’t tell her anything. She won’t listen.”

“Do you know what she’s supposed to take?”‘ I asked.

I heard Miss Jensen yell from wherever she was, “COCAINE! I use cocaine, that’s why I can get a man and you can’t, girly!” She cackled like the evil villain in a Disney movie.

Tanya looked at me, slightly embarrassed and slightly smiling. “She’s supposed to take psychiatric drugs. I do not know what kind”

I went over to find Miss Jensen to see if she would let me take some vital signs. She was actually very pleasant to me and allowed it, rolling up the sleeves of her dirty clothing and revealing a dry, frail arm. Her vitals were pretty good. I asked her if she would go to the hospital with us.

“I’d love to get out of this place for an afternoon,” she told me. “Let me change my dress.” She walked over to a large closet and when she opened it, it appeared that many of the contents of a normal home were stored inside. There were unopened appliances, a large television, boxes of clothing, dishes, and random objects. They were all piled in, seemingly arranged in an intricate balancing act. I feared that when she dug out an identical purple house-dress from a box everything would come tumbling out of alignment but thankfully they didn’t.

Her new going-outside house-dress was also stained and unwashed. She turned her back out of modesty as she took off the old dress and put the new one on over her long johns. Tanya came into the room and asked Miss Jensen if she might want to take a shower or bath before leaving. “It’s my only chance,” she looked at me, pleading. I was very much in favor of the idea.

“What for?” Miss Jensen scowled. “I’m quite lovely just the way I am.” Then she gave us all a big smile. As she walked around her barren apartment she stopped near one room, pointed and said with another big smile “That’s where the… accident happened.”

Tanya looked at me seriously and whispered, “Her family thinks she killed her husband. A big wall unit fell down on top of him. That’s why they want nothing to do with her. I don’t think she was ever strong enough to crush him like that. But I think she wants everyone thinking she could. Then again, she is very resourceful.” She also added, “I don’t think it was a happy marriage.”

Maybe we were in the home of a noteworthy individual. If Google had existed I would have checked her out. Scanning through miles of microfiche at the local library didn’t hold the same instant gratification.

Tanya said she had to go, she had some errands, but promised to meet Miss Jensen in the hospital. Miss Jensen was ready to go shortly after. She seemed to be happy to go outside and said she hoped she’d see the same MD she saw the last time Tanya made her go.

When got into the elevator to go down there were four other people already inside. As the doors closed, their faces indicated that they had gotten a whiff of the malodorous cloud that surrounded our patient. We slowly went down another few floors before stopping to let another person in. I could see the people in the back considering whether to get out or not but they didn’t decide quickly enough and were stuck with us for the duration. The person who got in clearly regretted it. Suddenly my partners beeper started beeping loudly.

“What’s that?” Miss Jensen asked angrily, looking around.

Without missing a beat, my quick witted partner whipped out his pager and checked the message. He looked at Miss Jensen and said, “Why, it’s my smell-o-meter. According to this, you are exceeding acceptable clean air standards by 65%. It might be time to do something about that.” I burst out laughing. The others in the elevator didn’t seem to know what to do. They looked scared but also seemed to smile a little.

Miss Jensen considered this, for the first time thinking about taking advice instead of giving it. She demonstratively sniffed the air, and herself. “You might be right,” she said quietly. “It might be time.”

The Polygamist

Along with smoking and poor diet there are other factors that can endanger one’s health and longevity. Although not cardiac in nature, one man’s poor lifestyle choices led him to call 911 for chest pain on several occasions. His heart problems began when he complicated his life by sharing a 700 square foot apartment with the three girlfriends he was juggling. “I’m a man who loves too much,” he would say. “I can’t help it. No one woman could handle all that I have to give. My heart is just too big.”

“He’s having a heart attack,” said one of the girlfriends as we arrived. She said it with no great urgency, just matter-of-fact, and directed us behind her. We entered an apartment whose decorating scheme centered around large storage container boxes doubling as furniture. In addition to the containers being used as tables and stools, one held a small toddler who would be pushed around the apartment by 5 or 6 other small children while we were there, all happily oblivious to the events going around them. The place was already chaotic and we hadn’t even met all the wives yet.

We found our 42 year old male sitting in a chair flanked by the other two women in his life. They were each holding an arm and stroking his hair. He was hyperventilating and clutching his considerable belly. A plethora of prescription bottles were found on a bright red plastic storage container that doubled as an end table.

“Please,” he said looking back and forth to each woman with a pained expression on his face. “Please get me a cold wet rag for my forehead.” The two ladies looked at each other for a few moments before one of them reluctantly got up. She must have known doing so would cause her to lose her spot. When she got up the woman who had answered the door took over the left arm position which clearly annoyed the woman getting the wet rag.

As we cleared some space for our equipment a chubby little arm attached to a curious little girl stretched out with a lollypop for me. As I declined, I told our patient, Miguel, how cute I thought his daughter was and how we shared a proclivity for sweets.

“Oh she’s not his.” said one of the girlfriends. “Only three of these are his, two with me and one with her,” pointing to the other older girlfriend.

“And another on the way,” said the youngest one, proudly patting her belly.

As we extended our congratulations we noticed the other two women looked at each other and rolled their eyes in displeasure. The younger woman saw this and smiled even more. There was definitely and underlying dynamic going on here.

“I got other children too,” said Miguel. “They just don’t live with me.”

This man had quite an extensive love life, obviously. What kind of charm did he hold? He definitely wouldn’t be considered attractive in the conventional sense. He was overweight and missing a front tooth in a set of broken yellow teeth. Hygiene didn’t seem to be an priority, including the food clinging to an oddly shaped handlebar moustache. How did this man have three women fighting over him?

And what of these women? What was in this for them? Were things that grim in the dating world? I felt that they could probably do better. They were more than moderately attractive with pretty faces. It seemed that Miguel had a ‘type’ in that all three of the ‘wives’ looked as if they could be sisters, or at least related.They were on the tall side, taller than Miguel, heavy-set and had long curly hair. Two of the women were probably in their late 30’s. The younger one was in her early 20’s.

As I attached our cardiac monitor to Miguel and took some vital signs my partner approached one of the older women and asked if they could assist by providing some basic information. The other older woman shoved her out of the way and said “Ask me. I’ve been with him 11 years. I know him better!”

The first one then shoved her way back over and said “Well I’ve been with him NINE years! So you should ask me!” Perhaps she was just bad at math or maybe the seniority rules worked differently over here. The two argued briefly over who should be giving out his information, each insisting that they were more knowledgeable, based on their many years clutching his arm and providing wet rags. Another tangent they went off on centered on how slow the other was in obtaining the damp rags and not holding the arm supportively enough. My partner looked over at me with the same pained expression Miguel had when we walked though the door. The younger one walked over with an ID or Medicaid card and attempted to hand it to my partner. One of the other ladies took it out of her hands and threw it on the ground.

“Stay out of this!” she told the newest wife. She shrugged and walked away, resuming her seat on a futon.

“Good luck,” she told my partner.

“I get heart attacks all the time.” Miguel said to me. He handed me his latest discharge paper from the local hospital. It was dated only a few days earlier.

“ACUTE ANXIETY” was the diagnosis. The paper showed he was prescribed another anti-anxiety drug with instructions to “reduce stress.”

“It feels the same now as it did then?” I asked. He nodded. “What was going on when this came on?”

“They was fighting.” he said casually.

“Ahhh…” I said.

“Oh that’s nothing,” he said. “They always fighting. Every day. This is nothing new.” Then he took off the oxygen mask we had given him and said very loudly towards the women, “But I love all my wives EQUALLY!”

The woman kind rolled their eyes a little but the nine year veteran looked at the younger one and said “That’s right! We are all EQUAL”

The youngest just patted her belly and nodded with a sly expression that made me think that she had a slight advantage over the other two.

I went through the medications that were next to the lamp on the storage container table and noted they were all for anxiety and acid reflux.

“Oh yeah,” Miguel said. “I get a lot of anxiety. And acid from anxiety. I had it a long time. I get disability for it.

“So you don’t work.” said my partner, not as a question but as a statement. “And you’re home all day. Here. With the wives. And they’re home all day too. With you. And each other. And you’re all just together. Here.”

Miguel nodded. The wife with 11 years pointed out that she and the 9 year wife don’t work either. “We are here all the time to take care of him,” she said. “He’s a very sick man. He needs help. That’s our job. But she works. She’s out working a lot of the time.” she said pointing to the youngest with contempt.

“Hell yeah!” said the youngest wife. “And be here with you all day? How do you think we pay for this place? And your QVC habit?”

The tension had just gone up a few notches. “Take me to the other room,” said the 11 year wife to the 9 year wife, “before I get arrested for slapping down a pregnant woman.”

“You do like the QVC.” the nine year wife told her as she walked away.

With the exam wrapped up all signs pointed to another anxiety attack, with some possible GI issues as well.

“So I don’t have to go?” asked Miguel.

“Oh no,” yelled my partner from the other side of the room. “There’s no way we are leaving you here.”

Miguel’s symptoms seemed to decrease considerably when we left the apartment. I found it strange that none of the women offered to accompany him but I learned later that a previous crew had made this a rule and it seemed to work out better for all involved to not have anyone go instead of having a huge fight over who would stay with the children and who would go to the hospital.

We returned to the same apartment a few months later on Valentines Day. The three wives had gotten into a brawl over the gifts Miguel had chosen for them. As another testament to his high desirability he had made sure it was the thought that counted, rather than the price of the gifts. The three women had each gotten some kind of NYC tourist trinket, the kind sold by street vendors. A clock highlighting the Statue of Liberty lay broken on the floor. Miguel’s love for NYC, or perhaps just NYC souvenir items, was an unsaid point of consternation, I felt. There was also a difference of opinion on the amount paid for each item with the consensus being that the little replica NYC taxicab cost more than the clock and the “I Love NY” t-shirt, which was 2 sizes too small for any of them. An argument ensued regarding the t-shirt with the recipient implying it was meant for one of the others as a hint that she was getting too large. It seemed lost on her that all three of them would have been considered too large by that reasoning. It was the same woman who had been confused about whether 9 or 11 was a longer duration of time.

Despite some scratches and disheveled hair none of the women wanted to go the hospital. Miguel did though. He practically ran to the ambulance. We suggested that his toxic home life may be to blame for his numerous hospitalizations and he acknowledged that it did. But he simply said “There’s nothing I can do about it. I am a lover. I cannot choose who I am.”

© 2025 streetstoriesems

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑