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.