Relgion

I have always struggled with faith. I remember as a child I was told of a God that was everywhere and could see and knew everything. As a child it had to be true, a grownup said it, but even then I remembered having doubts.

I guess I would call my self agnostic, but atheist seems a little more fun.
I have found comfort in the lack of a God. It has me focused on NOW! To make the best of NOW. Doing the right thing now, being the best I can be now. Because when it’s over, it’s over. This is all that counts.
Maybe if these religious nuts thought this way. Maybe if the money hungry politicians thought this way. Maybe they would be a little more concerned on doing what’s right, and protecting the things that are important, the environment, the poor, the sick. Instead of having “faith,” that just because they believe what a book says they will get to spend eternity in paradise. Maybe then they would be focused on making the here and now more like paradise.

Putting life in to perspective

We hear it all the time. “The miracle of life.” Let’s first review the definition of the word mirical.
1 : an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs 2 : an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment

I know this is probably a poor view to have of life for a paramedic, but this, I guess is what allows me to function day to day, so it works for me.
Without even going in to “divine intervention” which is in it’s self a whole other subject, let us explore this definition. A live birth happens about 353,000 times a day. This is not unusual, extraordinary or even much of an accomplishment. 353,000 times a day, I would suggest this is in fact very ordinary. In contrast about 155,000 people die each day. Death is actually more unusual or extraordinary when you consider the math of it.

Racism is alive and well in the fire service.

One of my biggest disappointments in my new profession is the amount of racism still present. I work for a paid department that has a handful of volunteers at 3 of the 9 stations. It was clear by the end of my first week in the academy that this was very much a good ole boy system. But nonetheless I was thrilled to finally be in my profession of choice, and still am. 

While a probationary firefighter I was on the back of an engine at a different station than I normally am. This station happens to have not a single minority on this shift. (Unlike my assigned station.) While en route; to what sounds like a total BS EMS call in the project, the operator and acting officer begin to use the “N” word several times. Initially talking about the likely race of our patient, people walking on the side walk, and how many points one would receive if one of them would happen to be run over by the engine. 

After our return to the station I happened across one of my class mates from the academy. I, in a light hearted way (not to rock the boat too much as I was still a probie) mentioned how racist some of these people are. I made mention that they must not know I am married to a black woman. He agreed and we kind of chuckled at their ignorance. 
Cut to a week or two later the two bigots find them selfs on the medic for a shift and we run in to each other at the ED. They had obviously been informed of my interracial household (not to mention my army of black, hispanic, jewish, asian, and indian close friends.) They began tripping over them selfs apologizing for their use of racial slurs. I brushed it off and moved on. 

 In my time on the job, I have heard a captain use the “N” word, a senior firefighter, a firemedic, an engineer, countless firemen and a recruit. I have spoken with other people from other departments and unfortunately this isn’t very uncommon. This broke my heart. 

I am in no way justifying this racism. But after years of working at a firehouse in the middle of a project, with rampant system abuse, drug use, violence and everything else we are witnessed to, it isn’t hard to imagine someone generating a negative opinion of an entire people. You constantly see the worst of people. Day in and day out, it’s like Groundhog Day. I have come to the conclusion I am pretty well immune to this folly as I am married to a black woman, my best friend is jewish, my other best friends are black, asian, indian and everything else. I live in an almost all black neighborhood. I see my friends, some of the best, hardest working, honest people I have ever met live the opposite of these negative stereotypes. I see my neighbors walking to their cars, leaving their low to middle class homes to go to work. At work I see the minority, the ignorant, the entitled, the junkies, the criminals. At home, I see the side of the majority. The law abiding, the hardworking. Many of my co-workers live in rural areas and have limited encounters with people outside of their race. They are the truly ignorant. 

Despite part of my youth spent in a very southern, rural and racist part of the country, I was able to see past the hate. I could see that these people were just like me. They had 10 fingers and 10 toes, they had red blood, they were like me in every way except the most superficial of ways. 

I love how the fire service has a long history and holds to it’s traditions. I hope this is one tradition we can finally put to death. 

A bit of a generation gap

The call 83 YOM chest pain.
PT awake and alert. Get to the medic and start placing the electrodes on. The monitor isn’t showing anything so I adjust one of the leads. In doing so a little chest hair was pulled and he shouted.
Me- “Sorry a little man-scaping.”
PT- “Who’s escaping???!!!”
PT- “I hope he got away!”
The rest of the crew had a good laugh.

Quick update

A lot has happened since I was regularly writing on here. I got married, I became a firefighter, I bought a house and now the wife is talking kids. I have been pretty busy with work. I’m still volunteering, and I quit my transport job. I hope I can get back to writing on here again. Well see. I’ve got an idea for a post but I have a hard time getting my ideas from my brain to the screen without sounding stupid. So lets see how it goes.

BOYS! BOYS! YOU’RE SCARING THE STRAIGHTS!

So it’s been awhile and I am still very busy with the fire academy, but a post over at Happymedic.com got me inspired so here we go. 

A few years ago I was at my transport job. We had just arrived at a doctors office with a patient needing a vascular scan for his dialysis site. Another transport crew from another company was lounging on the other side of the waiting room. Two young EMT’s (early 20’s or so.) where laying across the chairs, with muddy boots resting comfortably on the cushions. Their patient on the stretcher half reading and half paying attention to the conversations in the room. We are informed our dispatch had the wrong time by an hour and we would have to wait. So we grab some seat.

I begin paying attention to the room, a handfull of patients sit reading, waiting for their turn. I notice the two EMTs. A young man with a patchy beard, untucked shirt and muddy untied boots. The other an overweight girl with stains on her pants. I tune in to their conversation and notice the young man telling war stories, looking across the room at my self and my partner. I notice some of the patients becoming a little uncomfortable. The was stories are graphic. A woman who’s face was smashed in by a deer during a car vs deer MVC. The girl seems more than happy to interact with the stories, but has none her self to offer. The crew keeps looking over at us. It seems they are making it a point to be loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, especially us. As he tells his story, he keeps his eyes mostly on his partner, but quickly looks around the room and at us to make sure his audience can hear his stories. I meet his eyes with looks of disapproval, but these do nothing to discourage story time. As the stories continue and become more and more graphic and far fetched it is clear this young man has not been in EMS long enough to attain this number of calls, let alone the severity of them, he also has a poor understanding of physics and human systems. My partner and I sit waiting for our patients turn and try to maintain our professions dignity and professionalism. 

 

Well hello again…

We met almost two years ago in your room. Your sister found you hanging from the pull up bar in your closet. Your face would enter my mind from time to time, but it’s been awhile. Ironically enough, today as I sat in class my blue water bottle kindled my memory, it’s dark blue almost a perfect match of your skin. Moments later Captain started talking to us about the horrible things we would see in our career. Some of my classmates have no prior EMS/Fire experience, they have yet to experience this feeling, the memories that randomly come from deep within your brain to the forefront. As I think this, Captain, almost as if he is inside my head echoes my thoughts. He tells the story of a hostage situation from his PD days. He, unlike me was able to keep his composure retelling the story of one of his ghosts. Then again it’s been almost 2 years for me, and over 13 for him.

  As I pushed on your chest, knowing we are fighting a losing fight, I noticed the cluster of small cuts on your arm. I am sure no one really knew how bad you where hurting. I hope you are in a better place young man, but you put your family through hell. I am sure we will be seeing each other again. I am still new to this profession, and I have lost other patients, but something about you won’t leave me. So here is to a long healthy career, I am sure soon you will have some friends. 

When probie bashing goes too far

So this did NOT happen to me. This happened to a friend, who works for an agency that I am in no way associated with. His name will be “Cliff” for this story.

Cliff, an EMT-Intermediate arrived for one of his first probie shifts. He was on as a third with a full time paramedic and a firefighter EMT-Basic. The medic, Steve was welcoming and had a great attiutide. The firefighter EMT-B, Brad asked Cliff what his last job was. When he replied, Brad asked if his old job would have him back after he failed this job and got fired. I think we can all agree this was a shitty thing to say to a new employee. The morning carries on as such and the medic finally gets a call.

Medic 5 is dispatched for a chest pain. The crew arrived and Cliff starts his assessment. It is obvious the patient is having a cardiac event. ST elevation in lead V2-4. The patient is taken to the medic and Cliff starts to set up for an IV. Brad, right as Cliff brings the needle to the patient’s arm shouts, “Hey, have you ever even done an IV before?!” Cliff ignores the comment and sinks the IV. He then hands the patient ASA and instructs the patient to chew. Brad asks if Cliff has ever given ASA before.” Cliff gives the patient nitro, again Brad asks aloud if Cliff has ever given nitro before. Cliff draws up morphine, again, Brad asks aloud if Cliff has ever given morphine before. This is all done in front of a patient who is having an active heart attack.

I understand it’s kind of tradition to bust on the new guy. But to second guess a caregiver infront of any patient, especially a critical patient is unacceptable. Not only is this an unprofessional act, but it angers me that someone in my profession would dare to be so reckless. A patient who is having a heart attack has enough to worry about with out an unprofessional, moron EMT-Basic second guessing every move the ALS provider makes. Cliff did not go to the acting officer with this issue. This story angered me to no end. Had it been me, I am sure I would be out of a job, as I am sure I would have walked in to the chiefs office and gone on a screaming rant. It sickens me that a dip shit EMT can be allowed to act like this. Not only is this bad for the patient, who has enough to worry about, like will I live through this, will I ever see my family again and so on; this is horrible for our profession.

So if for a moment I can talk to this waste of space, and anyone else who would ever do something so reckless….. GET THE HELL OUT OF MY PROFESSION! If I ever see something like this happen infront of me, I will see to it you lose your certification, and will never be able to practice health care! What’s that? You want to be a firefighter and not an EMT? Well guess what Jack, EMS is 80% or more of your call volume, and it is what pays the bills. So go work in fast food with your shit attitude!

My Rock&Roll Day’s

So this is way off the topic of the blog.
I’m posting by our office in the middle of the night listening go music on my iPhone (RIP Steve Jobs) and this big chorus comes in and since my partner is inside, I can’t help but sing along. It flashed me back to my touring days.

A quick back story, I used to play drums in a metal type band. We never got famous but we made some great friends and had a ton of fun. I lived with my guitar player for a while, then because of a broken transmission on one tour, and far fewer paid gigs than we planned on I moved back in with my parents after our lease was up.

We just got home from a short tour. It’s 6 or 7 am and we drove overnight from Albany. We had a blast, it was only 6 or 7 shows but we got to see some old friends and we made a few new ones. This is actually just 3 or 4 days off before we go back on the road for 3 weeks. A bunch of shows fell through so we decided to just stay home rather than try to find shows last minute.
I’m exhausted so I take a couple hours of sleep, enjoy a nice shower and stuff my face with food I didn’t pay for. I hop in my 1988 Toyota Celica (It’s 2004 or 05) with the flip lights stuck half way open, and the string hanging out of the drivers side window that acts as my door handle and I’m driving to the show. We are playing in a small bar that we play at ALL THE TIME! Last December we played every show that came through. That means in 31 days we played something like 18 shows, it was some of the best days of my life.

We all meet up at the show, we are playing with these two Christian bands. Haste The Day, who we booked their first show in this area a couple of years ago, and have played with maybe 3 or 4 times before tonight. The other band is called Still Remains and they are really new, I haven’t really heard them before. Haste The Day has a new CD out and are starting to get a lot of attention. This bar is very small and the capacity is 80 people. Well once you count 5 bands with 5 people, 2 “sound guys” and the 5 or so staff members, and each bands 1-3 “merch guys/girls” you have almost 50 people, oh and then there is the promoter! That only leaves room for about 30 more people. Well tonight there are many more than that who want to see the bands. Luckily tonight the fire marshall doesn’t pay us a visit and the show doesn’t get shut down.
A brand new band opens the show and I don’t watch them because I’m chatting with a cool Christian cat covered in tattoos. His name is Jeremiah and we became friends because we met at a Sick of it All show and I had a No Innocent Victim shirt on. NIV is another Christian band, I’m not a christian, but they where the very first hardcore band I saw play live and they killed, so I became a fan.
We go on and we SUCK!! we always do when a band we like and respect is playing with us! Everyone says we did good, but by our standards, it was a bad show. But the sting of failure dissipates quickly as we are surrounded by friends, many of who feel more like family.
Still Remains comes on and kills it. So much energy. Places like this, small, cramped make for great shows. The bands play on the floor, you can look them right in the eye. While everyone was going nuts, my friend E knocked the keyboard players keyboard over! It was like a $2000 keyboard/sampler. The music stopped dead in it’s tracks like in a movie when someone walks in to the country/biker bar. Turns out it was ok, and the show continued.

Our friends in Haste the Day went on and we went off! Everyone was having a blast, dancing, just going ape shit. It was one of those nights when the band was on fire, playing as tight as they ever did, the crowd was having a blast, full of positive energy, the room almost glowed with the energy and the excitement of the assembled. The band played song after song and didn’t seem to tire. The band played one of their newer songs that had a very melodic bridge, and did a round. One of the guitar player starts singing and we all rush the singer and start singing along. “I never should have let you go, I never should have let you slip through my arms” we sing our lungs out. After a few bars the other guitar player starts his part, singing in harmony, but different words, and the crowd, my friends and I on cue split almost as if we had rehearsed in to one of the two lyrics. “As the sun sets tonight, I’ll hold you with all that I have!” Half of us now sing with every breath we can draw in. Then after a few bars the lyrics become a combination. “I never should have let you go. Promise me, you’d stay with me forever!” We all sing, then the big sing along ends and the band explodes in to a breakdown and we all go ape shit! They continue with a few more songs and they thank us for coming out and say how much they enjoyed the show, but we keep shouting “One more!!” They decide to play one of their older songs called “Substance” and the room explodes with energy. Another big sing along approaches and we surround the band, arms over each others shoulders as we all sing with what’s left of our voices “I want you to know what I’m going through!!!!” The hair on the back of my neck is on end, goose bumps rising like mountains and a feeling of embrace by the whole room wraps around me. The song ends and we go out side to get some fresh air. It’s after 1am and the show ran long and no one wants to leave. We have all shared a wonderful moment and no one can bare the thought of it coming to an end. My band, Haste the Day & Still Remains stand around talking while the crowd slowly filters out. Still Remains has made arrangements to stay with a friend they know, while Haste the Day still hasn’t found a place to crash. Since I am staying at home I debate with my self if I should offer them a place to stay. I decide these guys are all cool, we have played a handful of shows together and I can’t pass up a chance to help a touring band, because it sucks sleeping in the van, without showering for several days in a row. I offer to let them crash at my house and they gladly accept. We drive to my parents house, along with one of my other band mates. I show them to the den where there is a couch, recliner and plenty of floor space. I snaked down the hall and opened the door to my parents room, I whisper-shouted “Don’t be alarmed, there is a rock & roll band sleeping in the den. They’ll be on the road by 9.
I offer them use of the shower, towels and any of the food I didn’t pay for they’d like to eat. They say they’ll just have some cereal and are very grateful. They make good on their promise and they eat every last crum of the cereal. Before going to sleep we talk a little bit, they say they heard I had quite the collection of body piercings, we discussed tattoos and piercings and they headed to bed shortly after each doing a bunch of sit ups and push ups. It was kind of funny to watch, but what ever helps you stay healthy on the road. We all retired to our places of sleep, putting the amazing show behind us, in the past but forever in our hearts.

What is considered a victory

We in EMS arrive on scene to a patient and we have to figure out what is making them ill. Sometimes it’s plain for all to see. A knife sticking out of a chest, a body hanging out of a mangled car. But sometimes it’s not so simple. A sharp abdominal pain can be anything from gastritis, to a perforated bowel or ulcer, or even a tripple A. Sometimes feeling lethargic with nausea and vomiting is the flu, sometimes it’s an A typical presentation of a heart attack. We don’t have access to MRI and X-rays, blood work, or any of the things a doctor has in an ER. We have to use our knowledge, the tools at hand, our instinct, and our assessments to crate a working diagnosis so we can begin treatment.

This brings me to the subject, what do we consider a victory? A cardiac arrest save, a healthy baby delivered in the back of the medic, an OD reversal, sure these are all vitories, and they all leave you with that great, “This is why I do this!” feeling. Well sometimes, like in the case of one of my twitter friends a victory might be buried under the disappointment of a patient who didn’t make it out of the hospital alive. Did this mean EMS failed? No, no it doesn’t. Sometimes, sadly we are called to late. But we still arrive quickly, we bring all of our knowledge and experience to the patient’s side, and we use all the tools we have to give them a fighting chance. We all know somethings we are helpless to fix. A patient with a bad internal bleed, we can identify it, and do our best to get the patient to the hospital alive, but sometimes we are to far behind the 8 ball. We can’t view this as a failure. We identified the problem, and we did everything in our power, but somethings we just can’t fix in the back of an ambulance. I know it dosen’t feel like a win, but I sure as hell won’t call this a loss. Here is to a job well done.