The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Carrie:

In my EMT class, we were told that one sign of untreated diabetes was an ant problem in the bathroom. The ants are attracted to the glucose in the urine that splashes onto the rim of the toilet. I filed it away as a bit of trivia, because how often do you suppose that actually happens? It never did come up when I was working on the ambulance.

Flash forward to a few years later, in my present job managing apartments. I am in the bathroom of an apartment where two developmentally-disabled middle-aged guys live with their aides, looking at the toilet the aide says is wobbly. "It rocks, it leaks, and what with the ants all over the place in here lately, things are a real mess." "Ants?"

Yes, it turned out that one of the men had developed diabetes since his last check-up (the aide wasn't supposed to disclose this to me, but she wanted to thank me afterward for the weird tip). You never know when this kind of stuff will come in handy.

And Jim, we were allowed to give glucagon at an Basic level. Our county medical director was very aggressive about getting us as highly trained as possible, because the we volunteer EMT-Bs covered rural districts with long transport times. I am normally a lurker here, but I wanted to mention how much I enjoy your posts on these topics.

I lived near Weyauwega, WI when the chemical train derailed. People had to leave NOW and weren't allowed to bring their pets. They thought they'd be gone for a matter of hours; they ended up being gone three weeks. Some pets made it, some didn't. The difference was water access. The houses where the toilet seats were up had live cats and dogs. I leave mine up whenever I leave the house now, with four cats and a dog I'm responsible for, because I live near train tracks. I also leave the bag of dry food accessible with effort, though I can do it because my pets aren't the type to get at it on an average day.

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