The desire to share stories about calls is deeply rooted in most medics that I come across. I, evidently, am no different.

Dispatched pri 1 for the "machete fight" (at 9am on a Sunday), coming from across the city, no other trucks available. Ops supervisor on scene prior to our arrival. I pulled on the street and passed the victim, lying prone with the supervisor holding a trauma dressing on his back. My partner, with the door open before I put it in park says, "oh Ang, he's in a bad way."

Her first clue was the ever expanding pool of blood.....

We walk up and the supervisor-never the calmest tech in the world-rips off the trauma dressing to reveal a foot long laceration almost down to the bone. Patient transported, chatting with my partner during the clean up, when all of a sudden, it hits me,
"I know we're medics and all, but I feel we should have some more warning when someone is about to show us that kind of gore...."

Dispatched some priority for a rehab patient with headaches and general get-me-outta-here-itis.
Giving the cmed report to a secretary (isn't that a great idea?) and said the patient was in rehab status post fall and deteriorating. Three times this ever-increasingly angry secretary asked me if the patient sustained any injury from the fall. Three times I explained that the fall was not recent, I finally just hung up the mic. On arrival at the hospital the secretary pulls me aside to tell me that she was trying to get to the root of the problem, and that when the chief complaint is a fall, they expect a report of injuries. I did not explain to her the meaning of 'status post'. It bothers me to this day that I didn't.

The stories that I generally share always end with me feeling pretty uncomfortable actually; getting 'spoken to' by a secretary who doesn't understand the idea of being in rehab status post fall? Really?

I can do better.

The desire to share stories about a child is deeply rooted in most moms I come across. I, evidently, am no different.

My son is 21 months old. There is only one story that I can tell you that captures his personality perfectly.
At our local YMCA there is a program called Tumble and Play for toddlers. They open the gym up, set up all kinds of mats and big ramps, put out balls and hula-hoops and play music. It gives parents a little while to exhaust the children, while simultaneously feel like they are out of the house and with other adults. One day my little guy saw another child trip and fall and immediately begin crying. The mom knelt down and comforted the hysterical toddler. I turned my head for one second, and when I turned back, my son, this little boy with my knees, my round face, was attempting to become part of the embrace with this mother and her child. He had this look of concern on his face that I will never forget, as if he were saying to me, "Mom. Something here isn't right, I'm gonna see if I can do anything to help, ok?" My son, my whole world, my very reason for putting one foot in front of the other, HE is a true care provider.

Do you hope your children follow in your footsteps?

...anxiety...

I think its fitting that my first real blog entry is being composed on a day when I needed to use my hard earned pto to just not be in the ambulance.

Ive had a heavy feeling of dread heading into work lately, and it seems to be more than the 8 month old medic jitters. I'm sure that more than one person in my inner circle will tell you that I would benefit from some type of anti-anxiety medication, but I cant wrap my mind around needing drugs to do my job. After all, its just a job. Of course, tell that to the sheer terror that seizes my diaphragm when my truck number booms out of the dispatch speaker while I'm riding in the passenger seat. I have come to look forward to sitting in the truck after my tech and opening up the computer to write my pcr. This glorious time of day is the best for one simple reason; in this moment, I am the furthest away from my next tech.

The strange thing is, everyone in my ems support group keeps telling me how good I am, and how I know my stuff, and 'when you need it, it comes back to you'. The people in my non-ems support group tell me that I do important work, and they would never be able to do this job-as if its easy for me. At the end of all that supporting, I usually am left wondering how I fooled everyone without even trying, and also, why no one is listening to what I'm really saying, and what I feel. The truth is, I'm not ready for this responsibility. I'm not trained enough, and I'm not good at a lot of key things (ie, ekg interpretation, med doses, anything involving breathing). I've intubated twice in the field, both times successful flukes, and I can't push a med without double checking the dose and indications in my protocol book, and not because I'm a 'better safe than sorry' girl, but because I don't know them. I'm sure I used to, in fact I had to in order to pass my medic program and to pass the state test, but it doesn't 'come back to me' when I need it most.

I keep waiting for someone to notice my lack of proficiency, but no one does, quite the opposite in fact, I keep getting the accolades of a seasoned medic, all the while watching myself be mowed over by my equally new, but infinitely more assured partner. I have become a medic who is constantly looking for a second opinion...

My medic instructor always said that we have to be like ducks; cool, calm, and collected above the water, but paddling our asses off under the surface. Its about presenting a good show, because, in my system at least, most people that call 911 aren't all that sick. I reassure myself while being driven to a call lights and sirens: 'this is nothing' or, 'it was just a seizure' or, 'she "can't breathe" because she's vomiting'. Whatever the call is, I downgrade it to its lowest possible acuity and then subtract 10 more points for EMD errors. I don't do this to be a better medic, I do it so that I can get out of the truck on scene. So that I can physically unclip my seatbelt, open my door, grab my gear, and make patient contact. I boil it all down to that one, very simple step:

Get. Out. Of. The. Ambulance.

There have been mornings where it takes every fiber of my being to convince myself to get out of my car in the parking lot. Twice now I have been unsuccessful in that task, twice I have been so overwhelmed with the endless patients, sad stories, ill-cared for children, and sometimes even my rotten coworkers, that I have been unable to pull myself together for a shift. I call them mental health days, and today was one of them, but they're not really mental health days, because I don't recover. I don't FEEL mentally rested at the end of that time off. I feel drained, I carry the weight of the current 'tough call' with me to all of the next ones, until I find a new tough call to outweigh the previous one. I'm not tough, I'm fundamentally not like the women that I know and admire. I have dozens of calls hanging off me at any given time, almost tangible in the way they drag me down, and break my stride.

Sometimes I think that my career as a road medic was meant to be short lived. I am interested in the business side of things, and I'm not averse to putting on a white shirt. I want to be in EMS, I just haven't figured out a way that my anxiety will allow me to be in this field.

Before you start sending me links for office jobs, let me assure you that the possibility that this horrendous feeling will fade has not been lost on me. I understand that there is a period of time (I've been quoted 2 years by several different people) during a new medic's career where the light at the end of the tunnel IS actually the train barreling down on her. I know that one day I could get into the truck with all the lightheartedness and confidence in the world. I just cant picture that day right now.

My Intro......

Recently, my world has come down to just three sure things:
1.I love being a mom.
2.I'm committed to making a career for myself as a medic (and not a firefighter).
3.And I'm never going to stop writing.

So, since I've created this space with lofty goals, I'm going to use it. The following will be a simple tour of my life as a new medic working 911s for a private company in a medium sized urban setting; trying to go to work and do my job, come home and do my job and not get dragged down by toxic people.

A small note here before we begin. Rereading my words, 'not a firefighter' sounds rude, as if there is something wrong with firefighters, let me assure you, I have as much respect for our fds as a wide eyed first grader on a field trip. BUT, and since I'm married to a firefighter, I feel that I'm a good non-biased judge of this, I don't believe that fire run ems systems are the best way to manage a community's needs. Not only because I would never want to be inside a burning building, but because I would never as my lawyer to wire my electrical what-nots in my house. Two highly skilled BUT COMPLETELY DIFFERENT jobs. Imagine all the potential firefighters, or potential medics that are turned off from the job totally because of the dual fire extinguishing and iv starting requirements. Like me. A medic. Interested in the benefits, respect and schedule offered by fire departments. Terrified of fire. I hope you enjoy my antics and rantings, and as always, feel free to comment, or to tell me when I'm out of line. ;-)