I am a paramedic, and unfortunately, the holidays don't mean time off, especially if you happen to be "on call". I have worked oodles of hours lately, and it is everything I can do to keep from falling over from pure exhaustion!

My name is Hector Esquivar. I have been a paramedic/EMT for only six months, but I have seen more and experienced more these past six months than in my entire life. I am working for the Nashville (TN) Rescue Unit; I work with George "Goose" Guzman, Kendall Smith, Pat Moss, Dwayne Jackson, and others. They are much more experienced than I am, and they are very good at showing me the ropes.

I worked this Christmas; we had a call for a woman down. She collapsed at her house; her brother called for us; when we got to the scene, we knew it was bad, just by the way she looked. She was very pale, almost as pale as death, and she was covered in sweat. She had a very high fever, and she appeared to be in very severe pain.

It turned out that the woman had peritonitis. Her appendix had been inflamed, but by the time they got her into surgery, the appendix had already ruptured, making a serious situation all the more so. It ended up that she had to have a drainage tube put into her side to drain the poisons from her stomach, and now she is in ICU, fighting for her very life, tubes going in and out of her fever-ridden body. Her name is Jazzmyn Marie Roger, and she is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana.

She and her brother (Maurice) are evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. They lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, all their lives until last year, when the hurricane hit; they were then relocated, Maurice to Nashville, and his sister to Fairbanks, Alaska. They didn't know if they'd hear from each other again, but then Maurice did a "people search" on the Internet, and this was how he'd found out that his sister was still alive, but she was now in Alaska.

They saw each other for the very first time only a few short months ago. Now they are together again, but now, Jazzmyn lies in a hospital bed in the Med/Surg ICU, fighting to stay alive.

(For the record, in case you are wondering, Jazzmyn was in town to visit her brother during the holidays. She was to go back the day before New Year's; now it seems that her "vacation" has been extended, through no fault of her own.)

I don't know much more than this about the woman, I only got the information from the nurses and doctors at the hospital. I have been wondering about her, and from what I have heard, it sounds like she may not make it. She is in a very bad way, and I am surprised that she has managed to survive this long.

Maybe later when I am off or there is a lapse between calls I will stop by the hospital to see Jazzmyn. Yeah, I think that is what I will do.

Besides this case, we had calls for a shooting (the guy who was shot died; Merry f***ing Christmas to this family!), a heart attack (the guy made it to the hospital, but ended up coding in the ER; they couldn't save him/ that's two families whose Christmas celebrations went down the tubes), a kid who got sick drinking wine, and a guy who was burned while trying to cook a Cajun turkey. He will be okay, but he will be hurting for a while; he got some pretty bad burns. Seems that Christmas doesn't treat us kindly; even on a day like Christmas we are needed, and it makes us wonder if doing this for a living is really worth it.

In the meantime, I will have to go now; the emergency tones are going off again. Who knows what the call is for; being a paramedic is full of surprises; you never know what to expect, especially during the holidays...

~As reported by Hector X. Esquivar, Paramedic/EMT, Nashville, Tennessee.