The Rookie

This beautiful white and orange truck is now officially my new part-time office

I attended my orientation last Sunday and after signing pages and pages and pages of paperwork, I received my uniform and became an official Cary EMS Volunteer Rookie. Which basically means I will be a third rider on the ambulance until I am released as a second rider (where I officially get assigned a partner for a shift and carry full responsibility of everything that happens on the truck). It is expected that we will complete our rookie program in 9-12 months and we have a binder full of responsibilities we are expected to learn and have signed off by our training officers on a regular basis. I am responsible for completing (at a minimum) 5 twelve hour shifts a month and applying all my BLS skills during calls.  It all feels very surreal to me… like I am living someone else’s life and I might wake up one day and realize that it was all a dream – but it’s not and that just gets me ever more excited to start this part of my future.

Now that I was able to live and experience one of my biggest fears, I think I want to share it with the world.

Medicine has always been something I have loved. Helping people, the blood and gore, the lifestyle… everything about medicine has always been fascinating to me and for as long as I can remember I always wanted to do something in the medical field. When I decided to go the EMS route I was always very excited and for the most part knew I would LOVE it! I knew the blood and gore would not (for the most part) phase me and that I had the stomach for it. But one thing that terrified me was the emotional aspect of the job itself. How would I handle death? What if our patient dies in our hands (not because of anything we did), but be alive one second and died the next second.  So to try and experience all different types of calls I signed up to ride-a-long with EMS as an observer. To get a true feel for what they do, how they live and how to deal with day to day calls and trauma. In all my ride-a-longs I got a chance to experience what EMS deals with on about 95% of the calls. Minor allergic reaction, possible broken bone, nursing home transfer, shortness of breath…etc but what I really wanted to experience was trauma. Not because I am sick and twisted (well OK maybe a little), but because I wanted to KNOW that I could handle the stress and emotions that comes with that sort of call. I wanted to be 100% sure before deciding to dedicate the rest of my life to this career that I could handle it.

Well the day had arrived – I had decided to sign up for one last ride-a-long as an observer (pretty much hands off) before becoming a volunteer. I wanted to do it to help with my anxiety and just because I love spending the day with EMS. It was 7:30AM in the morning and we were only about 30 minutes in to our shift when a call came in. Motor Vehicle Accident is what the screen said. We jumped in the truck and made our way to the call. When we arrived I realized that the call was Motorcycle vs SUV and that the motorcycle patient was on the ground and Fire had already started CPR. This was going to be a scoop and run sort of call and that is exactly what we did. As soon as we were in the truck I took over breathing for the patient and we were on our way to the hospital. In the next 30+ minutes it took us to arrive at the hospital I switched between doing CPR and bagging the patient (we would switch duties about every 5-8 minutes) and when we arrived at the hospital, the Dr’s pronounced our patient and called the time of death.

We returned to our (now demolished) truck and started cleaning it out. That is when I noticed different coping mechanisms in effect. One of the EMT’s drenched her self in to cleaning and was ever so lightly humming a song under her breath. The other EMT went back in to the hospital and was talking to people and I, well I decided to do both. I did not have a trued and tried coping mechanism, so I decided to give both a try to see which (if any) would work for me. To no surprise to me, the quite route is what I preferred. I grabbed a bottle of cleaner and slapped on some gloves and got to cleaning. I had time to think about what happened, how I handled the call and also had time to grieve the loss of a life. But I also learned that I had passed my ultimate test.

I know that I will NEVER forget that call.  20 years from now I will remember the call down to every detail and will re-live the call over and over again, but I will also cherish it because it was THE call that helped me prove to myself that I could DO IT… and that through stress, grief, fear…etc I have what it takes to be there for my patients in the best and worst moments of their lives.

After having such a crappy start to my week, I decided yesterday day I am done… I am done being unhappy and depressed (of course I am not saying it wont ever happen again), but this time/today I WIN… I decided to think of things that make me happy and things that I should be grateful for and decided to make a list (if you have not figured it by now, I LOVE making lists)…

I am thankful for…

1- My amazing/funny/loving husband and bestfriend.

2- My four legged kids and their unconditional love.

3- My health.

4- My to do lists (yes, they drive me crazy at times but they also calm me down)

5- My cozy bed and the comfort it brings me.

6- My job and the security it offers me/us.

7- Education and the opportunity to learn.

8- to be given the opportunity to help others.

9- Being surrounded by caring and loving people.

10 – Air Conditioning.

11- Technology.

12…. and many many more!!!

I know I won’t always have AWESOME days and won’t always be HAPPY, but going forward I have decided that I will try and will try HARD. Depression sucks – it is such a lonely dark place to be in, I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. I also know that I do not have control over everything that happens in my life, but I want to make sure that for those things that I do have control over, keep me happy and healthy. I fought very hard to get out of my depression in the first place and having the feeling that things were going back to the dark hell they were was very scary. I don’t want to be that person, that wife, that friend, that co-worker, that daughter… I and my loved one’s deserve better, they deserve to have the bubbly, sometimes funny, loving, caring Poontater in their life.

So, I am going to make a promise to myself that I will try VERY VERY hard to push through feeling like I did earlier this week and try to keep my head up high above the dark sinking hole.

Side Effect

This is the end result of a grand mal seizure caused by the side effect of one of the anti-depressants I have been on. I smacked my head on the side of my desk before hitting the ground. I will write a more detailed post in the near future, but for now this is what I ended up with.

Ouuuuuccccchhhhh

There was no better title for this post.

I have been having major stomach problems for the past few years, it was so bad at one point that I had SRR take me to the ER. I was diagnosed with Gastroparesis and I never really thought about it again until about a month ago. So finally after suffering for 3 weeks SRR convinced me to make a GI Dr appointment and I got to meet her last week. She asked me a million questions and decided that she should do an Upper Endoscopy and also check out my intestines. Last Thursday was my upper Endoscopy and other then the horrible burning sensation when the sleep medication went in and the horrible sore throat I had after, it was a breeze.

The first 20

Monday would be the other procedure, so I was told to swallow 20 horse size pills  in 1 hour and 12 more the 30 minutes the next day. We show up at the Dr’s office, I get checked in and change in to my sexy blue gown and wait for the nurses to come in to start an IV. This lovely nurse comes in and pokes a hole in my arm and it fails. She calls in an another Nurse to give it a try and we think we might have success, until she decided to wiggle the damn needle around so much that it breaks the vein and the IV stops dripping. So now they call the Anesthesiologist in to give it a try. He tried once, twice, third time, fourth time, fifth time and yup sixth time and finally manages to start an IV. At this point I cannot stop the tears from rolling down my face and it takes everything in me to hold my self back from sucker punching him right on the nose. He does not apologize once! He just grabs all the crap off the bed and walks out. At this point their is blood everywhere, I have 3 nurses putting pressure on the other hole’s he opened up. I have one nurse rubbing my back telling me to take deep breaths and that it was over… all I wanted to do was hug SRR and ask him to take me home. I was hungry, tired, in pain and at this point very light headed.

They finally wheel me in to the OR and hook me up to different monitors and give me the happy drugs (but this time I was desperate for them), so I did not feel very happy getting it. Thirty to forty five minutes later I get woken up by the nurse and the worse is over. My Dr comes in and gives us an update and says everything is A OK! She is followed my the douche bag Dr. He asks me how I am doing and I am still wanting to jump at his throat, but tell him I am OK , he asks me a few more questions then walks away. Now I just need to wake up enough to have something to drink, get dressed and be sent on my marry way home.

That was the third IV I have ever had (I have had all three this year) and my GOD I hope I do not need one for a very very very very long time. That was a horrible experience and I will be writting a nice letter to the Dr’s office suggesting some lessons in bed side manner to that one Dr.

Number 1 & 2

Number 3

Number 4 & 5

Number 6

Number 7

Annnnd Number 8 - where the IV ended up

These are the 8 from yesterday. These do  not include the one spot I received the IV on Thursday and the spot where they drew blood from on Wednesday. Ohhh and to make things better, I have an OB appointment tomorrow and I know for sure they are going to want to draw blood for routine blood work. This just suckssss major dunky balllzzzz!

Sooo how has your week been going?

C-H-A-N-G-E

Change has always been something I have avoided. Most of the time I like things the way they are, or even if I don’t like things the way they are my fear of change would take over and cripple me to move forward. My fear kept me at a job I disliked and hated more and more everyday. It kept me from going to school to get my degree. It kept me from taking the leap to sell the house. It kept me from 100% agreeing to move to NC… you get the idea! This was nothing new to me. I have always been afraid of change, but as an adult I found it to be more and more crippling and it started to effect the way I felt about myself and life in general.

But the thing is that, every time I take a chance and take the leap I am always shocked at the end results and the AWESOME feelings that come with it. Like letting my old boss know that I was leaving… as scared as I was, man it felt so good. Of course I had to deal with the freak out moments of not having a job and the fact that after being somewhere for 7 years I was now in the looking for a job field and interviews scare the crap out of me (we will talk about my social issues at another time). But in the end I DID IT! I am now at a job like a like and could possibly see a future within the company if I wanted to.

Now let’s talk about selling the house and moving to NC. That was about 4+ years in the making. I had many many deep issues related to selling the house and moving somewhere where I felt I would be very vulnerable because I did not know anyone. But after a lot work with therapy and support from SRR I was ready to take the jump and move. Once I felt comfortable in my own skin and I felt strong as a person the whole process came very easy. I mean leaving my friends and what I have known as life for 10+ years was very hard, but I was now looking forward to our new life and was truly excited (without the fear taking over) for the first time since the NC conversation first came up. I know that my SRR will always be there for me and he knows that I will always be there for him no matter what. And as scary and lonely the process could have been, we had each other (and of course Ollie & Sugar). Once we were ready things just fell in the place like it was all meant to be… and one thing after another, things worked them self’s out and September 2008 we hit the road. And to this day I am so happy that we made the change in our lives and moved. I love being closer to extended family and everything else about NC (the cost of living kind of sucks), but everything else makes up for it.

I am a much different person then I was just 2 years ago and it’s OK. Change is not always going to come easy and I know that, but the more I trust my self the easier each step will be.

Now for another huge change in my life – I need to submit my application for Nursing School.  

Come out – Come out where ever you are…

Hmmmm let’s see… Poontater has not been up to much lately, just sort of slacking on the blogging side of things. Nothing too exciting, but here is a little summary for ya:

• The foot is still healing. As of two days ago I started wearing shoes (well more like my Croc’s and slippers). Yup… you read that right. I have been wearing slippers to work and it’s awesome.
• We had snow and 86 degree’s in the same week and it was GREAT.
• I saw Watchmen and thought it completely SUCKED (in my opinion) and it was about 2.5 hours too long.
• SRR and I are going out for our first Meet-Up tomorrow night and I am very excited. We are meeting the Cary/Raleigh area 20’s/30’s couple for dinner and some drinks.
• I was in the slumps after being off my medication for almost 3 weeks and the world completely sucked. But I am back on it now and things are only half sucking.
• SRR and I are going to Jacksonville in 3 weeks to watch Supercross live and I cannot wait. I love having something so awesome to look forward to.
• I went in for my physical yesterday and apparently I am SUPER DUPER healthy. I have no early signs of diabetes, high blood pressure or heart problems (other then that my heart beats much slower then an average person, which I already knew). My cholesterol was perfect. This made me super happy; because diabetes and high blood pressure runs in my family history and being overweight I was a little concern. But this is GREAT news.  

I guess that’s pretty much it. See, told you it was nothing too exciting. Now that I am out of the slump’s I will be more active on poontater.com – stay tuned! 

Sugar says Hi

Hockey in NC

SRR and I went to a Hurricane game on Valentines day and even though they got their butt whooped big time, it was a lot of fun and we got to enjoy $1 hot dogs (of course the $4 bottle of NASTY Pepsi made up for it).

The Stadium

Fight Fight Fight...

Check out the score!

and we (especially me) were very glad that they were nice enough to escort us back to our car after the game. It was cold and it would have taken me FOREVER to walk back to the car.

Ohhh Happy Day… Ohhh Happy Day…

Sugar LOVED the snow!

And here are my two favorite creatures!

This makes me giddy…

I am definitely one of the odd one’s out there – see I LOVE cold weather. The colder the better and if it snows, well that is just a HUGE bonus. This is what we are looking at in the next few days and tee hee… I am super excited.

That’s worth gaining 10 lbs

There have been many places (and trust me I have probably tried most if not all of them) that called them selves Mediterranean Restaurant’s, and honestly I cannot say that any one of them even came close to what I was used to. So I kind of gave up on my search and actually started my attempt at cooking (ohhh and by now SRR was already in love with Turkish Food). I made Lahmacun, Cacik, Borek, Kofte, Coban Salatasi, Baklava…etc but it was never the same. It just sort of took the edge off, but left me wanting just one more hit – I mean bite.

Then we made the brilliant decision to move to Cary, NC (where before we moved, we were warned that we should learn how to cook at home, because the food sucked – or something like that) and with the help of SRR’s AWESOME office mate found out about Bosphorus. Even when SRR mentioned the name to me I was still very skeptical, until I saw the menu and felt like crying from happiness (yes, I know… I have a weirdly wrong relationship with food). That night we went and tried the food and I think I had a smile on my face for the next week (yes – good food makes me happy). They were playing Turkish music, the waiter was Turkish and spoke Turkish to me (which at this point I realized – I need to work on speaking it more often), the food was to DIE for and we walked out of there probably 10lbs heavier then we walked out. But before we walked out, the waiter told us about a Turkish Market (I think at this point I was fighting back tears of joy) and pointed us in the direction. Of course we had to go check it out that night and the place is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It’s like a little Turkey. They have pretty much everything that I have my mom bring me back from Turkey (hmmm you did not hear that from me) and much much more. I think I was that much more in love with Cary after this. They have an American – Turkish Association which I need to join and I think along with meeting many new people, it will also help me complete Goal #43 off my list.