Right Place, Right Time

“Do you want to eat here or head back to the station?”

I ponder him for a brief moment. He’s already holding our neatly packed Chinese food in a to-go bag. I glance between him and our ambulance parked neatly out front. “Let’s eat here,” I finally say after some deliberation. It’s well after 4 in the afternoon and I haven’t eaten since breakfast before I came on shift. The 10-minute drive back to the station seems like a relentless eternity for my growling stomach. We plop down at a sunny table near the door and descend upon our food like vultures who have found their first meal in days.

“I took us out of service since you need to leave at 5,” my partner tells me in between bites of his chow mein.

Perfect. Eat. Finish my report quick. And be home in time for our family’s plans for the evening. It almost seemed too easy…and it was.

Algorithms

His shoulders are slouched and his eyes are heavy with sleep….and something more. The moment I catch sight of him, I realize something is terribly amiss. There’s only one reason that my normally bright-eyed co-worker is in plain clothes in the ER at midnight on Christmas. I catch his eye and his determined march down the hallway slows and eventually stops.

“You know her?” I ask gesturing to my left with my head, indicating the patient I just brought in lying no more than 10 feet away in the hospital bed, an array of medical professionals hurriedly working to stabilize her. He nods in response, more of a quick jerk downward with his head verses a full nod but he seems unable to form words as he looks past me to the lifeless woman nearby. He’s avoiding eye contact. My heart is sinking and the knot in my throat is growing exponentially.

“What happened?” he finally asks, barely above a whisper.

“She told her husband she wasn’t feeling good. Then she collapsed.” I spare him the details for the moment but I know there will be more questions and explanations to come. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. The room is suddenly suffocatingly hot.

“The family is here,” he says, still avoiding eye contact.

“I already let the doctor know,” I reply. “He said he’d be out as soon as he can.”

“I need to go see them,” he tells me, and wanders off in the direction of the waiting room.

In his absence, I realize that I haven’t taken a full breath since I first saw him and I attempt to fill my lungs but the air gags me and I can’t shake the sharp pain that sears through my chest as I watch him amble away.

All the Things I Cannot Say

I haven't posted on here lately because I'm starting to second-guess if blogging is really my thing. I originally started this more as an avenue to try to put into words my thoughts & feelings and convey some of the interesting things that I encounter in my EMS ventures. I never intended that I would have a multitude of readers & I certainly didn't anticipate any feedback from my ramblings.

I have been a lot overwhelmed lately. Most of it is in a good way but I think I've become somewhat jaded as to what an interesting day for me and an interesting day for the rest of the world is. Overall, the things that make my life beautiful and wonderful aren't grand adventures but rather the small things that I find hard to put into words. And, it seems that the small things aren't really what draws people's attention.

End of the Road

Some days, when I least expect it, certain calls mow me down in ways I never thought possible. People ask me sometimes what the worst call I have been on is. I don't usually entertain their morbid curiosity.They are usually looking for grotesque stories that exceed imagination. But most of the time, the gory, blood-filled calls or the cardiac arrests really aren't my worst calls. They are perfunctory and by-the-book. I usually have little, if any. time to interact with my patients on truly critical calls. My worst calls usually are borne from the depths of despair of humanity. The patients who know and are conscious of how awful and hopeless their situation is and yet are unable to do anything about it. Those are the ones that pain me long after I have walked away.
We had one such call the other day. And I want to share it with you, not to wow you with some tale of heroism or adrenalin-fueled lifesaving. I share it with you because I want you to understand the truly tragic calls that never cross anyone's mind when they ask what the worst call ever was.

Tiny Cut

It’s so tiny. You can barely see it there on the side of my finger. Yet it’s implications are huge and the very sight of it terrifies me. The barely visible cut hurts but it’s a psychologically based hurt…not a valid physical pain. I try to tell myself it is just part of the job and that all the tests will come back negative. In the meantime, I am left with a million scenarios and scary possibilities.

Free as a Bird

He's my dad. No one else knows I think of him that way. The same blood runs through us...Type A EMS blood. He has helped me grow to where I am today. He guided me as I took my first faltering steps and watched painfully as I fell down on more occasions than I care to admit. But every time he helped me back up and encouraged me to keep going. In more ways than I can count, he is my hero and I will always look up to him. But today, he is letting me go. He is sending me into the world of paramedicine on my own.

Only 17

She is shaking uncontrollably. Her knees are pulled to her chest and when I address her, she briefly unburies her face from her hands. The face that greets me is far too young to be in her predicament. I know that she doesn't need medical help but the officers onscene aren't going to deal with her so I am left with no choice.
I ask her name and she replies in a small terrified voice. She tells me she is only 17.

Tough Times

“I’m scared,” he tells me. I stare at him slightly dumbfounded but try to continue my assessment. I’m scared too. Terrified in fact…and I’m doing everything in my power not to show it. His fear, on the other hand, is quite genuine and evident by the tears that are sliding down his cheeks and plopping silently onto his orange jump suit. I swallow hard and turn my attention to the deputy nearby, asking about any safety risks with my patient. She is rather unhelpful so I set about the task of getting my patient moved over to our gurney so we can transport him to the hospital. He has had a week of progressively worsening chest pain and he is legitimately scared that his heart is giving out on him. I try to reassure him but the irony is overwhelming. I never imagined at any point in the course of my life that I would be calming an anxious inmate. He obediently moves to my cot and lets the deputies shackle him. In the ambulance, he is somnolent as the tears continue to slide down his cheeks. He is just like any other patient now...vulnerable and terrified...with just me to try to buffer the angst. The trip to the hospital and the tranfer to the medical staff was uneventful, just like most other transports. The after-effect of this one, however, was quite different for me. The last several months have been an array of highs and lows for me. I have now been precepting for 13 months and have, quite frankly, hit the wall. My level of frustration is at an all-time high and I am more than ready to be done with the entire thing. I have had many days that I could care less if I ever get signed off to work independently in our county. It is not that I can't take care of people, it is the fact that I haven't had enough high acuity calls to be able to "prove myself" to my preceptor. And so, the days, weeks & months drag on. Don't get me wrong, I still love being a paramedic, but some days it doesn't seem like enough to cover the frustration that is my life currently. It doesn't help that lately, my personal life has been caving in as well. And so, there I was, staring at my terrified inmate patient, and realizing that, no matter how fed up I was with the world, he needed me to be at the top of my game more than he needed anything else at that moment in time. And it was at that moment in time when I knew that I needed far more of a pick-me-up than I could muster on my own. When I made the call, I'm sure my voice cracked at some point. Even as I drove across town and sat down at the table across from one of my 3 preceptors, I was shaking inside and holding back tears. I was burned out, emotionally drained, and ready to give up. "You know your medicine. I would trust you any day to take care of my family. You just need to get the calls, take charge and you WILL get through this," he told me. We talked for over an hour. I don't think he had any idea how much I needed to hear his words of encouragement. My other 2 preceptors had tried, without much success, to cheer me on. I know they meant well but something about my 3rd preceptor finally hit home. I nearly hugged him when I left that day. I wish you could understand all the terrible things that emergency responders deal with on a daily basis. And at the very same time, I'm glad that you don't have to cope with those types of things. In spite of our best efforts, at the end of the day, we are still only human and, as much as we hate to admit it, we too need help sometimes to get through the tough times. I still have a ways to go in my precepting. But I know now that I am further along than I originally thought I was. The end will come and, when it finally does, I know I have 3 amazing preceptors who will be there to celebrate with me.

Not Quite Like the Movies

We've all watched them...the so-called “medical dramas”...more drama than anything medically related. Accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of a good story line. I actually have a hard time watching most of these types of shows just because they are so off base from what actually happens. The majority of my days don't play out like TV shows but there are rare exceptions when things are so surreal, it feels like you are blasting through an unscripted movie scene. Here is my most recent one...

Paying Tribute

The paradox in my blogging continues...when I have time, I have nothing overly interesting to share...and when I have loads of things to share, I don't seem to have time to put them in writing. So, it's a few days late but I will relate to you the events from my September 11^th, 2013...

Precepting

Yet again, it has been far too long since the last time I posted here. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of varying degrees of craziness and I have finally found a few minutes to put it into words. Three weeks ago I sat in my car outside the main station of the ambulance service which serves as our primary transporting agency for our county. My hands were sweaty, my heart was racing and I truly believed that if I had tried to get out and walk the 100 feet to the front door that my knees may give way. I don't recall the last time I had been so nervous about embarking on a new adventure.

Grandpa

Today I am not sharing any adventurous tales of my recent ambulance escapades. Granted, I have had a few lately but I will share those in another post. Today, instead, I speak to why I haven't been my regular blogging self in the past couple months. Yesterday marked 9 weeks since I received that painful phone call. Nine weeks. In some ways it seems as if it was just yesterday. The pain is still so fresh...as if I am still shakily holding the phone and hearing the news that Grandpa was dead. In other ways, the searing pain which has tugged at my being for the last 9 weeks seems to be enough pain to fill an eternity.

I have spent the last 9 weeks trying to condense the 69 years of my grandfather’s life into just one concise blog post. But the following is my best attempt at such.

Happy 2013!

Here we are, a week into the new year and I haven't even had a chance to recount my New Year's Eve adventures. For whatever crazy reason, I voluntarily signed up to work New Year's Eve. For the last several years, I have worked it as a dispatcher but this year was the first time that I worked it on the ambulance.
My partner that night was a baby-faced rookie EMT. He impressed me early on by completing all the truck checks while I ate dinner with my family. When my family had left, Baby Face confided in me that he didn't feel 100% comfortable with the layout of our district and asked if we could go drive around for a while so he could familiarize himself with the some of the major areas.
Before we could vacate the station, a veteran firefighter called to cajole me about working that night. He told me he had worked the last 3 years. Two of those nothing happened and on the other they had a stabbing. "You probably won't have much going on tonight," he told me. Although I secretly hoped he was wrong, my rookie partner & I wandered into our district unabated by any calls.

Blast from the Past

Two blog posts in one day...albeit this is going to be a shorter one than most. I guess I am making up for lost time...and I feel it best to write while things are still fresh in my mind. Yesterday was a sort of surreal day for me. Not that the majority of my shifts aren't but some have greater moments than others.

Elation and Tragedy

It seems like just yesterday the world held it's breath and wondered if we would reach a technological apocalypse at the turn of 2000. And now, here we sit at the dawn of 2013. The last month of 2012 was filled with tragedy both on a person level and a national level which accounts for my lack of posts. It doesn't seem like it was November the last time that I was able to muster the mental fortitude to spew out a blog post...let alone a quality one. So, here is my first attempt of 2013.

The "Ghosts"

I can't really explain what happened today. It was supposed to be a fun day for me to venture out at 4am to drive to an EMS conference 3 hours away to learn about the whiles of emergency medicine with like-minded service providers. I look forward to conferences and seminars and other various classes. So, why, today, did I find myself in my truck half-way through an afternoon session, shaking uncontrollably and fighting off tears?

Uneventful

I have not been nearly as regular with my posts lately as I would like to be. My lack thereof can generally be attributed to the fact that not much interesting has gone on recently. I have worked quite a few shifts this month and have had several in which I have not ran a single call. To some this could be viewed as a good thing. If I am snuggled up, sleeping soundly at quarters, it means my corner of the world is free from mayhem. However, as are most emergency responders, I am a Type A personality and do not do well with prolonged periods of inactivity.
My coworkers applaud my abilities to somehow bend the powers that be into letting us all have a full nights rest. I, on the other hand, am growing bored with it. Call me sadistic. (You certainly would not be the first.) As much as I DON'T wish evil things upon anyone (not even when it may seem well-deserved), my job also revolves around helping people in need and when no one needs help, my 12-hour shift seems like it lasts an eternity.

Paint

One of the things that I love about my job is that no 2 days are ever the same. Last night was an example of such. It was not actually my scheduled day to work but I went in for fire training. Although I do not fight fire first hand, as part of the department, I am still required to train a minimum of 30 hours per year with the fire fighters. So, I showed up to do my time, mostly expecting to stand back and watch. But not long after I arrived at our training center, we were paged out for a multi-vehicle accident at a busy, high-speed intersection.

Fire Prevention Week

Today marks the final day of Fire Prevention Week. Although fun, it is a busy & exhausting week at the fire station. And, in spite of the fact that I am not actually a fire fighter, I couldn't pass up on the opportunity to step out into the community and tout my profession to some degree.
Fire prevention week falls every October in the Sunday-Saturday time period which contains the 9th of October. The history behind Fire Prevention Week dates back to 1871. However, only in recent years has this week of public safety been so widely spread.
There are 2 sides to the Fire Prevention Week coin. It is a week in which we, as public safety professionals reach out to our community, especially the young ones and help them to recognize their role in fire safety and preventing fires. Smiling firefighters can be found throughout schools across the nation showing off their trucks and other cool gear to wide-eyed elementary students. And, in all honesty, we have a lot of fun doing it. But it is also a somber week in which flags fly at half-mast and we recognize those who have fallen in the line of duty.

Tough Questions

I've been staring at them for days. I have my name and address information filled in as well as my husband's and son's. The rest is much harder for me. It is my "notification" paperwork for the department. If I am injured or killed in the line of duty, in which order do I want my friends and family to be notified? How do I want to designate my beneficiaries of my benefits? What type of funeral do I want to have? Do I have any special requests upon my death? Once it is filled out, it gets locked in the department safe and only opened if something happens to me in the line of duty.
They won't sign off on my orientation paperwork until I have my forms filled out. I know this is to make sure that they are covering their liabilities but, more importantly, it is because their people and associated families are also important and so it makes sense to take care of them too. In some ways, a deadline on my paperwork stresses me more but on the other hand, it is a good thing. I think of myself as still quite young and immature. But the truth is that we never know what tomorrow will bring. And, in spite of how difficult it is to ask myself the tough "what if" questions, I can't put it off forever.
I have long known that my profession is one of the most dangerous there is. Quite honestly, when I started out, job safety wasn't a factor on my radar. I was young and single and had very little family responsibility. A lot has changed, though, in the last 8 years.
Some days the dangers of my job scare me. I deal with combative patients and those under the influence of various recreational drugs. I work on and along high speed roadways. I do a lot of driving. There have been a lot of advances in the name of EMS safety. But the sad truth still is that, since 2001, each year on average 56 EMS providers have lost their lives in the line of duty, nearly the average for line of duty deaths for law enforcement. Most of those providers lost their lives in auto accidents. Several died from heart attacks and other physical complications related to the stresses of the job. Some were electrocuted or poisoned from onscene dangers. Others were killed by violent individuals at or near the scenes to which they responded.
Every day I go to work, I do all that I can to make sure I don't become one of those statistics. Sadly, some things are out of our hands. I want to go home to my family at the end of every day. I want to see my son grow up and graduate. I want to grow old with my husband. And I will do all I can to make sure that happens. Thankfully I work for a service that wants the same and are extremely safety conscious.
In spite of the fact that I hope the "what if" questions never become a factor, I will fill out my paperwork...and hope that it sits safely tucked away in the department safe forever.