Wednesday, August 30, 2006

if it makes you happy

I wrote this post actually on the Flickr group, Utata's, threads but I feel that since not everybody can read them I would post it here too.

Im going to preface this post with why I wanted to start this thread. I have come to see alot of you guy's, my Utatians, as close friends. This is not a Poor Little Girl, whoa as me thread. It is something else...read on, my friends and fellow Utata companions...

For the past few months I have been going through alot of things in my head. I haven't been in the best of spirits. I have had to back down from a job I enjoy with every ounce of my being (Paramedic) and into a new enviroment in which I don't quite get and feel like I don't quite belong (the ER) I am going back to school and as I sit in my math class I watch all of the people around me actaully get what all thouse x's and y's and inequality signs mean and feel really stupid because I just don't understand. I am having money issues for the first time since I moved out of my parents house 6 years ago and I have no idea how to reslove them. I haven't been sleeping well ( hence the 2am disscusion thread) and have been downright nasty to my friends and family. I have hidden myself from everyone who cares about me because Im afraid I will taint them with my misfortunes. My sister sent me this long email asking me "where her strong big sister has gone? And when is she coming back? I miss her."

Well, my sweet sister, she is slowly coming back. I started making a list. A list of the things that make me the happiest in the world. These are the top ten. (Oh, how I love top ten lists) in the end I whould like to hear about some of your greatest things that make your world keep spinning. It doesn't have to be 10 it can just be one. But As I work through my depression, I would like to hear how you work through yours.

*these are in no particular order*

10. Sitting under the boardwalk at Folly Beach, SC at sunrise listening to my iPod. The sea calms me and reminds me that out these in this huge world there is still a place for me to just sit and take it all in

9.The christmas card and emails from The Cyclist whos life I was a part of in saving. I don't think he knows it but he was a part in saving mine.

8.Talking to my mother in the middle of the night when I start feeling hopeless. She can always bring me back to the point where I do feel like I belong.

7. My best friend LB, she can have me laughing and crying all at the same time. She knows me better than most people ever will. She saved me in HS when I needed so much at that time to be saved. And I try now to repay that favor.

6. My sister, I may not show it very often, but love her with all my heart. And her way of storytelling is like no other.

5. My father, who despite his reservations about me becoming a paramedic, let me. And now is so proud of me that he tells everyone he meets how his daughter is a "ditch doctor in the painted band aid box"

4. Standing on front of a blank canvas, as if it is just wating on me to add the swirls of paint and bits of paper that with eventually become my art.

3. My camera and Flickr. Its in my way of showing the world what I see though my own eyes. I am able to release myself with the release of the shutter. I am able to lose myself in the moment that I am trying to capture.

2. Poker Night with my EMS family. These are the people that mean so much to me. We just sit around drinking beer and reliving the stories that make up our small little lives.

1. Going to my cousins home in Roswell, GA. We may not do much of anything while Im there, but that is the beauty of it. I go there to escape. They accept me with outstreatched arms when I feel like runnin away for a while ( even if it's just a few days)

Well this was a longer poat that I planned on it being, but now that I have shown you my happiness...whats yours?

Thursday, August 24, 2006

All in a days work

I worked last night, not inside, but back on the streets. I am beginning to re-think the whole ER thing. This has been a harder transition than I thought it would be. I really do love the streets, I went from being a totally green EMT to a pretty good Paramedic. (Im not the best, but by no means the worst, I've been told that I could be trusted with a dying family member) I know what I'm doing and feel pretty confident in the practice of my medicine. But it will come...It will come (repeat as needed)

My shift last night was pretty much uneventful. No life saving, just a bunch of stupid ass people calling EMS for really stupid reasons. One, I think, made up a reason right on the spot. And one called for get this... He got shot at while driving down the interstate. He then dove into the overpass (not quite sure if he left his car running or if the car went with him or if a car was involed at all) and hit his fistula in his arm, breaking it and thus called us. Now the fistula was fine and the guy had been seen several hours ago at the same ER for "Glass running through his veins" Oh...wait...no the police called us because he got his house broken into and summonded the police first. The cop called us because he had never seen a fistula, didn't know it was supposed to buldge from the under the skin and it freaked him out. I took the time to explain what it was and "Yes, it is normal for it to look like that. and "feel this, its called a Thrill" the cop was nice enough apologized for waking us up and calling us out there for "this moron" But the "thing in his arm...I have never seen anything like it. Is it supposed to look like that?" He even offered to drop the guy off at the hospital once he found out that Yes, dear...it is supposed to look like that.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

WTF?

So I my first and only pre-req for Respiratory Therapy school turns out to be a math class with things that look like something out of the show "Numbers" . Square Roots to the n-th power plus or minus x and, get this, and this is my personal favorite, IMAGINARY NUMBERS. WHAT!?! You do a whole page of writing x'es and a's and imaginary numbers and square roots and then after all this work x=another whole long equation that doesn't make any sense and you know what they call that? A "nonreal equation" Why is all this stuff not real. What on earth whould anyone need to know this? I may not be the sharpest tool in the drawer, brightest crayon in the box, but I do know that in paramedic school we, at least, dealt with real numbers that coresponds with a very real drug that you have to give to a very real patient. If this is what I need to get into Respiratory school, I am fucked. Like for real fucked. Not imaginary fucked

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

hospital work sucks

My first weekend at Miracle Hospital and I never have worked so hard. I have forgotton what it was like to be on my feet for a full 12 hours. In EMS, you have one patient at a time, not a whole ER. And it is work, hard work. You have to keep not only your 20 patients happy but your unit of nurses, attendings, residents, and students happy too. You are getting pulled from all diffrent directions by everybody. I'm beginning to hate the sound of my own name. It was a long hard two nights. Being the only Level One Trauma Center on the east coast of SC, we get the fucked-up of the Oh Fucks. The sickest of the sick. We had everything from GSWs to ABD pain times 1 year (Im not exaggerating, One year), I got home and literally crashed for 12 hours. I woke up at 9pm, ate a bowl of tomato soup and went back to bed for another 6 hours. My whole body hurt.

I'm having a hard time leaving Paramedic at the door. Being a EDT, you are the grunt. You do the scut work. You are in charge of nothing. And coming from the street, this is a hard thing to give up. On the street, you are the reason your patient is alive. You are making all the descions on treatment. Should I intubate, should I use a NRB or the BVM. Large bore or not to large bore that is the question. In the ER however, it's can I put this patient on oxygen Mr. Doctor Trauma Surgeon? Whould you like the Level One and Chestube? Can I do a 12 lead for you? I would be happy to serve you. I get pushed out of the way while Im trying to get vitals at the same time the same resident that had pushed me is screaming at me "Whats the patients BP!" Well Hun, if you quit pushing me back I could get it for you. Now move your ass and I will be happy to get everything you need. I even got my ankles run over by the XRay guy. I mean damn. I have never felt so disposable.

I also am having issues with the life restrictions the employee health people have put on me. I have been cleared by not one, but two doctors that actually examined me to go back to the streets. However a doctor that never laid eyes on me put a 25lbs lift restriction in the ER. Which translates to I can't push stretchers, transport pts upstairs or anything like that. Which is a big huge part of EDT. I hate having to tell my fellow EDTs to take a patient upstairs or tell a nurse that I can't. Because I can...just not according to a doctor that has never spoken to me all because of ONE line in my post op medical chart. Its like that one line totally overides the TWO notes of clearance from TWO diffrent doctors. It compleatly frustrating.

But I think I will get the hang of it. I will be able to switch back and forth from Paramedic to EDT. Its just gonna take a little bit. Ive done this before and I can do it again.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Cable


Cable
Originally uploaded by strange little girl 190.

Arthur's support system

I went for a walk today over the New Bridge. First time since it has been build that I got a wild hair up my ass to do it. These are some of the pics from my walk. for more check out my flickr stream. The link in on the right side of your screen.

Try not to hit the Pedestrians, please


I'm sorry officer, I got confused


Lights


Lights
Originally uploaded by strange little girl 190.

Dismount


Dismount
Originally uploaded by strange little girl 190.

Cables V


Cables V
Originally uploaded by strange little girl 190.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

they want me to work now damnit

Orientation Week at Miracle Hospital. I have started back in the ER. Im in the AC all day, out of the rain and the heat. I have not completly left the ambulance behind I had a shift last night after my first day at the hospital in the middle of Bumfrack SC . I signed up for this shift several weeks ago. I had been contemplating backing out of it, but then I got to thinking. I could sit on my sofa in my PJs and watch CSI all night...oooorrrr...I could sit on the sofa in my PJs and watch CSI all night AND get paid to do it. So I chose the latter. Money is a big motivater.

What I have noticed if that I have forgotten what it was like to actually work for an entire 12 hours. With EMS it bordom with bouts of excitedness. We are able to sleep, watch TV, or play on the internet for hours at a time, sometimes. But in the ER, the ER never stops. Its like a 6 year old with a serious case of ADHD. It is 12 hours of work. True, run around, all the time work. I got home from my first day back. and I was fucking sore, every muscle in my body was screaming at me. My shoulders were so tight. I just layed in my bathtub, soaking in lavender and vanilla with a bottle of Yellow Tail until the water got cold. Then I iced my aching back. Followed by crashing hardcore without the pharmacutical help of Ambien I have been grown used to.

Friday, August 04, 2006

All these things that I've done

Yesterday was bittersweet. My last full time day as a Paramedic. Starting Monday I will be full time at the Trauma Center as an EDT. I will be controled and watched. I will have lost most of the autonomy I have become used to on the streets in exchange for the air conditioned controled choas of the ER. My official last day has come and went uneventful. We ran no calls, saved no lives. We only left the station one time to go cover another area while the whole system ran calls but us. The EMS gods, you could say, smiled down on us. However I did ask for one thing my last day and didn't get it. I wanted one last Kick Ass, Balls the the Walls trauma. I wanted blood. I wanted guts. I wanted to launch The Fucking Bird and land that bitch in the middle of Bohicket Road. But alas, disapointment again. How sick do I sound? But in the four years I worked for my system, I have never had to call for the heliocopter. I have RSIed, I have tubed a man with no face left but his eyes staring up at me, I have cardioverted . I have paced. I have given every drug we carry with the expection of Dopamine and Mag Sulfate, I have used all my training. But I have never been the one to call for the Bird. Thats all I asked for. But no, we did nothing. I watched CSI DVDs all day and read my Anderson Cooper memoir.

I remember my first day as a little green EMT. Coming from the same ER Im leaving the EMS world for. I was scared shitless. I hit a fence in the learning to drive the ambulance. I got cussed at and spit on. My first patient that I was alone with in the back of the box was a man with ABD discomfort secondary to drinking moonshine. Really, Moonshine. He made it himself. In downtown no less. I broke a Morphine vial my third day, resulting in hours of paperwork and drug testing. I got us lost on the way to the hospital with a full arrest my forth day. By the weeks end, I was ready to quit. But was convinced that everybody's first week is awful by my Senior Crew Cheif. My second week was better. I got my first tube. And I was able to ffind the hospitals without getting lost. I knew how to make people move to the right with the siren and airhorn. I was getting the hang of it.

Two years later, I graduated from Paramedic School. I had my card and my patch and I was ready. By then, I had already had my scary trauma, The Cyclist. I learned to deal with my new power. I was given a new partner who lacked all common sense. One that would leave me alone with patients that were literally dying. So It would just be me, a cop, and a couple of fire guys. My first patient as a Medic was a symtomatic bradycardic that was agonal and was going to die at any moment. But I saved her. I, Me. With a cop bagging her and me trying to figure out the pacer...and my partner no where to be found. But It was fine, I tubed her, paced her, and got her to the hospital alive, where she was cathed 15 minutes later. I shooked for hours after that. Then yelled at my partner to never under any circumsances leave me alone with a dying patient. I must have scared him because he didn't talk to me for at least a week. I can be very scary. Really, I can be.

Not long after that I birthed my first baby. It was gross and amazing at the same time. She had a very healthy set of lungs on her.

Then came the I can't get an IV or do anything right stage. I had a death. It wasn't my fault, the heart was just done. Broken beyond repair. I did everything I could, gave all the right drugs, did all the right things, but it was futile. He died anyways. Right in front of me. That took me a while to get over. But It was then I learned you can't save everybody.

I love this job. I love being a Paramedic. But, it come to an end, for now. Once I finish my fist couple of weeks at my new job, and start school, I will pick up a few shifts here and there with EMS. I will not forget this time in my life. I am 26 years old and have seen life and death. What more can I ask for...But LAUNCH THE FUCKING BIRD, DAMNIT.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Posts in a Row


Posts in a Row
Originally uploaded by strange little girl 190.
I went to shoot the new bridge and shot these posts and sunset instead. The hot and haze is not helping with the bridge shooting. It covers the city and blends the cables into the bright white sky. It starting to be really frustrating