Dangling and Hanging

Last shift was very slow. I spent the AM dangling from a 6 story building trying to finish my Technical Rescue compentancies. I learned how to pass a knot in the rope while rappelling. Very scary stuff, at least for me being somewhat afraid of heights. And I am one of two girls on the team. The boys make it look so easy. I think sometimes they forget I don;t have the body strenth they do, but the boys on the team are very patient with me, so when I start freaking out they can quickly calm me down by telling me that I am attached to the wall by not one but two ropes and that I will not fall. Still I am nervous while hanging 50 feet off the ground. Then it started raining so we had to pack up early and I had to return to my truck for my normal shift.

So I spent my afternoon and nighttime doing not much of anything. It was a slow night. I have a new partner, well several new partner's while my normal partner is out on a injury. Just my luck I finally get a partner I like and enjoy being around and he goes and gets his ass hit by a car while riding his bicycle. He's fine, but he will be out for at least three weeks. So my partner last night was actually a street supervisor. A white shirt was my partner. This could be very nerve racking for a crew member, if he wasn't so damn laid-back. He not one to judge you or your medicine, was unless your medicine is completely screwed up. He misses the streets, so he sometimes picks up OT on an ambulance. Which I think is very cool, that he will sometimes hangs up his captain bars for a shift with the rest of the street medics. He has not forgotten when he came from, has not forgotten the way it sometimes is on the streets. That sometimes we have to push the envelope right to the edge, think outside the band-aid box. But there was no pushing of the envelope last night, no lives to be saved. We had two calls, both uneventful, run of the mill calls.

This AM was our inservice, long drawn-out boring. But a necessary evil I guess, as long as it keeps me from having to take Nat'l Registry exams over again, I will gladly go. When I took my paramedic practicals, I broke out in hives so bad my intructors thought I was going to need a dose of Epi. I do that during ACLS practicals. In fact practicals in general make me break out like a hormonal teenager. Embarrassing as hell. Thank god today was PEPP, or prehospital pediatrics. Like PALS, but aimed more toward Prehospital than in hospital treatment. No practicals, just a written test, which I can pass with my eyes closed, being that my mother was a Pediatric ER nurse and has passed on her knowledge of treating sick kids on to her own kid. I like dealing more with Peds anyways. With a sick kid, manage the Airway and it will most likely manage the problem. Unlike sick adults, which can be any number of things Cardiac, neurological, respiratory. So you must manage ALL of the problems before they get better. Kids are more honest anyways.