"Hey...hey Man...yeah you" The man smelled as if he had used beer for bodywash and sauntered up to me as I was gathering my patients belongings.
"You got an ambulance out there?"
"I sure as hell hope so" was my reply.
"Cmon. Let me drive it"
"Nah......My partner would get upset. Its the highlight of his night to drive and I couldn't take that away from him"
"You guys suck"

And to think. This wasn't even the dude I was picking up. Turns out the guy I was picking up was built like a linebacker, clutching an apple juice in one hand and a bible in the other. Apparently He had been hearing demons tonight that had been telling him to kill himself. My only question to the man was this "What are they telling you to do to me?"

Most of us have the common sense to ignore those inner voices rather than try and start meaningful dialogues with them. Either that or we assign the inner voices to our housepets. Cats apparently lead the way in this due to the increasing frequency of crazy cat ladies.

"Nope. They aren't talking about you. They don't even know you" Boy was I relieved..

We all have inner voices. The ones that have separate conversations in our head while we are having another. The shoulder devil and angel that we all have but can never see unless we are in the middle of a bugs bunny cartoon. How many of us listen to them? We all have had moments where we have said "Was that my out loud voice?" Thats the demons getting out. Maybe its the ones of us who hold them inside and never give them voice eventually go mad.

So guess what I am saying is that we shouldn't fight these inner voices, rather we should embrace them and listen to them. but give them the same consideration we do that that crazy friend we all have, or that uncle that you just knew somehow that you didn't want to be in a room alone with. I've seen what happens when you don't accept your entire personality. Both sides, good and bad, right and wrong. To deny our feelings and innermost thoughts will only lead to madness and a trip to the zoo

Sick?

So I thought we would have a little discussion of the term "Sick"

For starters, sick can mean any number of things.

According to Merriam Webster

SICK
Adjective
affected by physical or mental illness : nursing very sick children | we weresick with bronchitis [as plural n. ] ( the sick): visiting the sick and the elderly.
• of or relating to those who are ill : the company organized a sick fund for its workers.
• figurative (of an organization, system, or society) suffering from serious problems, esp. of a financial nature : their economy remains sick.
• archaic pining or longing for someone or something : he was sick fora sight of her.
2 [ predic. ] feeling nauseous and wanting to vomit : he was starting to feel sick | Mark felt sick with fear.
• [ attrib. ] (of an emotion) so intense as to cause one to feel unwell or nauseous : he had a sick fear of returning.
• informal disappointed, mortified, or miserable : he looked pretty sick at that, but he eventually agreed.
3 [ predic. ] ( sick of) intensely annoyed with or bored by (someone or something) as a result of having had too much of them : I'm absolutely sick of your moods.
4 informal (esp. of humor) having something unpleasant such as death, illness, or misfortune as its subject and dealing with it in an offensive way : this was someone's idea of a sick joke.
• (of a person) having abnormal or unnatural tendencies; perverted :he is a deeply sick man from whom society needs to be protected.

So for the purposes of this discussion I am going to use a typical call in order to try and illustrate this point.

We are called by the local police for a sick person. Yeah. Thats all we get over the radio for dispatch. So for as far as we know this could be just about anything.
Our guy turns out to be a young male in the company of the local authorities walking around and spitting on the sidewalk......Joy......So after the police motion to us proceed in we finally get the skinny on what I would personally consider a bad night. Lets see what you think.

"So what happened?"

"Well I was passed out on a bench when I woke up somebody stuck me with a needle. Then I got up and started throwing up all over the place and felt all weak and dizzy. Then I started to feel better. I just want to go and lay down somewhere."

"Well I don't really handle the hotel reservations around here but if you want to go to the hospital to get checked out then I'll be more than happy to take you there and get you checked. Could have been kool aid or drain cleaner in that needle. Only way to find out is to take you in"

(A pretty convincing argument I thought. I mean the man did wake up and begin projectile vomiting.)

"No dude. I'm fine. I feel better now. I just want to go lay down"

"Well heres the thing. You could go to sleep and not be able to wake up again. I mean I dunno about you but I don't get stuck by random psychos wielding needles while passed out on the bus stop bench. Might have been something bad in that needle."

(Again I think I was making my persuasive face and the persuading words come out)

"Nope. I just want to lay down"


So lets examine this with Mr Webster.

So the guy was sick.

Figuratively, because the man was carrying his worldy possessions in a backpack and sleeping on the bus stop bench.

In the Archaic sense he was pining away for a horizontal surface where he would not be disturbed by the constant annoyance of diesel fumes, stray dogs and cats, or those annoying bastards who have nothing to do but run around town sticking needles into people (Which ironically sounds like what we do but we use clean needles and neither kool aid or drain cleaner.)

He was also feeling nauseous and said he had vomited

He did look pretty sick and miserable

And of course off the cop looked pretty sick that he had to deal with this.

All in all you can use any one of the definitions for sick for this guy. Did he go to the hospital? No. Should he have gone? Probably :)