First EMT ride along experience.

As part of our requirements to graduate as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician- aka The person in the ambulance with the not so stylish navy uniform that saves your ass when we arrive) we have to do do a certain number of clinical hours either with the SJFD or AMR. We need at least 10 hrs in the field AND 5 patient contacts. So on Sunday 2/21 I rode along with SJFD Station #4 for 13 hours. Little did I know that 2/21/10 was going to be documented as the "slowest lamest call day of the year". I didnt get the memo. Oh well. 4 calls, no trauma but some goooooood learning experiences. And might I add, an awesome bunch of firemen ! Thanks Kim the medic and station #4 for your time and generosity.
Lesson number 1 which I Iearned the hard way (is there another way to learn??). Question: " How do you take an auscultative blood pressure reading with a standard cuff on a ginormous, huge woman with arms the size of Tom Boonens quads?" Answer- you cant- without embarrassing yourself to the point of sweating in your freshly pressed Foothill EMT student polo shirt, turning red and looking imploringly at your mentor medic to help you out of this hole. The sound of the ripping velcro, the cuff flying off and my mortified expression as I looked up at the bank of firemen standing there watching must have been priceless. Im sure Im not the first ride along to screw up a BP but really, this was funny. I commend them for keeping it together. So I try to whisper to the medic who is like 4 feet away without Ms Large-A-Lot hearing that I need the super-mondo thigh cuff. Its not like you want to belt out "hey we got a huge one here, bust out that thigh cuff for me would ya?" The medic was already like 14 steps ahead of me (go figure) and he hands me the thigh cuff. So that day I learned how to use the "thigh cuff"...a totally legitimate piece of EMT equipment made for taking BP on the thigh, say, if your patient has no arms or has injuries too severe on the arm to get a reading. So this thigh cuff as you can imagine is like 27 feet long !! So Im sitting on this floral couch (that smells oh my god it smells and I wish I had plastic pants on because god knows what was festering in this couch) next to this very nice, kind, laaaarge woman in a mu-mu who is having bad abdominal pains (hence the code 3 call), trying to wrap this 400 foot long cuff around her arm, and make sure its snug AND make sure the damn BP gauge is not covered up by they aforementioned yards and yards of freaking cuff which has velcro so its sticking together and I have to RIP if apart and start over and her freakin tricep flab is unreal, its waving around and it wont sit still and Im sweating like some sort of farm animal and trying to maintain my professional composure ( I know how to take a BP goddammit) and screwing with my stethescope earpeices..., you get the picture? Taking a BP quickly, smoothly and looking good while doing it is an ART man, its an art and it takes some serious practice to look like a pro. So, its on, I feel slightly relieved that the process is at least in motion now. I start pumping the little bulb like mad. ANd Im pumping.... and pumping. And the cuff is making a crinkling noise as it inflates. And Im pumping. And the freakin needle is only at 60 mmHg and you need to get it to at least 200 and low and behold, like this moment couldnt get any worse.... my hand cramps from all the pumping at a high rate. SInce the cuff wasnt snug enough to begin with it was like I was inflating a small rescue raft. My hand !! No !!!! I could tell I wasnt going to last. It was like starting your sprint way too early in a crit. This was NOT happening !! Oh yes, yes it was. My hand siezed and I gazed up at Kim and he just stepped forward to take over. Holy shit I was mortified!!! I just then stood there and smiled at the patient while they got the BP while I massaged my spent hand behind my back. We all packed up and left when AMR got there to transport her to the hospital. I hung my head. I loaded up in the firetruck and apologized profusely. They told me not to worry, no big deal. I got over it after the next call when I was able to get a BP on a woman who had arms like a pretzel stick.