I show up for work Saturday morning bleary-eyed after a night of bad dreams. I sit in the passenger seat and rub my face. Bronson slides into the driver’s side.

“No problem,” he says, sarcastically. “I’ll drive.”

Each morning, I sign in and take my radio, but I never reach for the driver’s keys. “I hate driving,” I say.

“You mean you’re a lousy driver. There’s a difference.” I sigh.

“Strange things are working their way into my psyche, Bronson.” He gives me the fishy look that statement deserves.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

I take out a stick of gum and fold it into my mouth. “I had a dream I was butchering Kevin Kline.” Bronson stares at me. “The actor,” I say.

He turns the key in the ignition. “You mean figuratively?”

I ball up the foil wrapper. “I was cutting off his arms and legs.”

At a red light, Bronson regards me suspiciously. Then he whispers, as if it was taboo, “What was it like?”

I stare at a bag lady pulling a battered shopping cart across an intersection. “Weird.”

The health profession’s darker side emerges. “Difficult?” he asks.

I recall sawing through an armpit. “Like cutting up a chicken. Only a lot more blood.” I recall the visuals. “And it wasn’t a nightmare. I didn’t wake up screaming. It was … interesting.”

I toss the gum wrapper out the window. “I think it’s time to switch to part-time.”

I’m serious about this. Private hospitals’ ambulance fleets participate in the 911 system; all are dispatched through the FDNY. The benefit is that it’s possible to work part-time, and the hourly pay is better than with the FDNY. In my spare time I could go to nursing school.

I’m considering the implications of not wearing the FDNY uniform on my sense of identity when we get a call for an 80-year-old female who fell in the bathtub, in Brighton Beach, apartment 4F. The dispatcher tagged this call a simple “injury minor.”

When we get to the address, 10 minutes later, we find a 40-year old woman leaning against the front doorjamb. There’s a mezuzah fixed at an angle, just above her head. “Did you call us?” I ask.

“Da, da,” she says. Russian for “yes.”

Inside the lobby, I can’t help but notice a large room off to the side where a bunch of men in prayer shawls are clapping and dancing to klezmer music. One of the men dances over to me. “You might want to take the stairs. The elevator stops on every floor today.” He dances back and spins in circles.

Bronson and I hoist our equipment and hump it up three flights of stairs. The woman leads us to 3F.

“I thought the job was in 4F,” I say.

“Da,” she says, pointing to 3F. She opens the door.

Inside, an 80-year old woman is walking around.

“Did you call for an ambulance?” I ask.

She says, “No speak English.”

“Da. Yes,” the 40-year old says. “Is my mother.”

“I thought she fell in the bathtub.”

She looks confused. “No fall in bathtub.” She points to her belly. “Stomachache.”

Bronson says, “I’m gonna check apartment 4F.”

He leaves, and I take the woman’s blood pressure. It’s high, and apparently she’s been vomiting.

“She’s going to have to go to the hospital,” I tell the younger woman.

“No,” she says. “We only want doctor come.”

As I’m about to start explaining how the city of New York does not make house calls, I hear Bronson on the radio: “Flagged by apartment 3F for an abdominal pain, requesting another unit for 4F.” Apparently, the original 80-year-old bathtub victim is still in 4F.

I find out that the woman in 3F called for a doctor from a service that makes house calls to the elderly. As if on cue, the doorbell rings and a doctor steps in. “Dr. Hershkowitz,” he says. “What’s the problem?”

“She thought we were you,” I tell him. “She’s got a high BP and a stomach ache with vomiting. That’s all I know so far.”

Dr. Hershkowitz, who speaks Russian, does a thorough assessment and takes her medical history while I call a lieutenant to the scene to release this woman into the doctor’s care.

When the lieutenant arrives, I explain that it was a case of mistaken identity.

Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician who works on an FDNY ambulance in Brooklyn.This column details her observations and experiences.Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.