A couple of nights ago I had another call that drives me up the wall - the lonely 65-80 y/o lady calling at 0130 that lives alone and has absolutely nothing wrong with her, just looking for attention. At this time of night I'm looking to turn the call over in the shortest time possible without being negligent. This patient tends to stall in the residence as long as possible - has to do fourteen laps around the place to gather everything, needs to use the bathroom, and as soon as you get her out of the front door, she sends you back in the house for a scavenger hunt for some more things that she needs, and to turn off more lights that she didn't care about ten minutes ago when we first tried to get her out of the house. Meanwhile, she talks constantly, and getting a Hx is damn near impossible.
Every question you try to ask is met with a two minute story about something 100% irrelevant to what you just asked. Example, do you have any Hx of heart issues - heart attack, irregular heartbeat, heart failure, surgeries, valve problems? Answer: I take a pill for something, and I see my doctor once a month, but I changed because they changed their hours, and I like to go to the senior center on Wednesday mornings, so it doesn't work. You can call my daughter and she can tell you more, but she lives in Pennsylvania and I'd like to go and see the kids but she says she's busy with their sports and the PTA. One's in Volleyball, the other one does track. Let me show you some pictures of them before we leave for the hospital.
We have a couple of frequent fliers that do this to us a few times a month each. I check with the ED, and they never find anything wrong. We try to get a game plan where one person tries to package real quick, and the other right away shuts everything off, gets their keys, and asks what they need before we leave, but these are no ordinary patients - they're professionals, and are expert at keeping us on-scene for 30-45 minutes at the minimum. When all else fails, this patient will play the I want to go/I don't want to go game to add another 20 minutes or more onto an already long call.