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.

What does it mean to be a Paramedic?

WOW – just read this article from The Legal Guardian and it warmed my heart and scared the crap out of at the same time.  It got me thinking… what kind of EMT will I be and what it REALLY means to hold that license in your hands.

I knew going in to this profession that I would have good days and bad days, but never really thought about the fact that I will be the one there on people’s worse days…  Will I want me to arrive to a 911 call if the emergency was for my family? Would I trust me as a Paramedic to do their best for my loved one? Do I fully understand that holding my EMT license means that I will be on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year? And my answer is YES!

I have never felt more at home and knew I belonged in a profession like I do when I put on my uniform and jump in the back of that ambulance. I cannot wait to start being able to make a change in people’s lives and be the one they depend on at their worst. Volunteering cannot get here soon enough…

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?