Adios

So it's time to say goodbye to this adventure, my friends.

Emergency medicine is awesome, but practicing it is absolutely not. This whole thing has been Hell on Earth, but I tried something I've always wanted to do. And I know important stuff I didn't know before. Most laypeople can do the really important things. Always know where the AED is. Know CPR for adults, children, and babies. Learn how to use a head-tilt chin-lift maneuver and a jaw thrust. Keep pressure on bleeding wounds. Most of this stuff is first aid plus airway devices, some medicine administration, splinting, vitals, glucometer, and oxygen. That's it! Paramedic is another story, but anyone can do EMT skills.

I'm incredibly sad, not gonna lie. But it was best that I withdrew. I'm really not suited for this, or any job working with (living) human beings. The road to medicolegal death investigation is still ahead, just a little less direct.

Day 8

The words: "complete disaster" don't even cover it, bro.

Sexism is not cool, we can agree. And I don't use the term lightly, but there was definitely sexism experienced today. We were doing skills, switching around every 15 minutes to different stations. Oh help me. I first noticed it during the third rotation. The guys (who I thought were chill) would start manswering. Manswering, to me, is when you ask a question to a teacher/instructor and a male student decides to answer for the teacher/instructor. Trust me, it only happens with male students.

Anyway, they'd ask questions, and none of the other male students in the group would answer for them. Yet, when I asked questions, they'd all chime in. Okay...that's really, REALLY, annoying, but I can deal with a little inconsideration. In fact, I gave them the benefit of the doubt, hoping they are just men and don't realize what they're doing. But it got worse.

We went to the ambulance in the back to load the gurney. There are four of us, and one person has to be the patient. As you may know, the gurney is shaped like a rectangle. So there are 4 points on which a person could grip the gurney and distribute weight/help. One guy lays down. Immediately another guy takes the all-important red lever and the other handle on the same side. "Oh, you got those?" I say while I grab a handle on the other side next to the big guy in the group. We strap the patient in, but then the big guy on my side takes both ends to lift it into the ambulance. Still, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.

The rotation goes on, and we get another guy on the gurney. Same deal. Then it's my turn! It was so freaky. I'm not claustrophobic at all, but getting put in that tiny ambulance was terrifying. It was great to get out of there, and then we were ready for the final rotation - the big guy on the gurney and me at the helm, with the all-important red lever. Well, he refused to get on "because [I'm] a girl". What? The other boys seemed to nod and understand but luckily, the paramedic seemed to have the same reaction. "Sexism in the workplace!" I semi-joke. "Maybe you could take this other handle?" I ask the paramedic, and he jumps on it. Now the big guy agrees. We strap the patient in, and all goes well!

Then, we get to the gym and we're supposed to take vitals in less than 2 minutes. Easy. We decide to race, basically. Except I hear nothing on the big guy. I think I put my stethoscope facing backwards in my ears. Then I try taking a pulse. This guy has an irregular one, and it's hard to count. When the paramedic trainer asks what I've got, he decides to answer for me and says I did it wrong. I am able and willing to say I messed up, dude. I'm already a bit frustrated at this point, but then I don't know why, I just felt disproportionately awful. It was hard getting myself to that class in the first place, because I'm already fed up with this fruitless persuit. NOW I'm dealing with this treatment? Really?

The rational consolations to my conscious went unheard, and I could no longer keep the tears back. Here we go. I rushed out of there, keeping it together, and then had an acute suicidal episode in the car. I screamed at the top of my lungs (exacerbating the sore throat), cried, tried to pick a car to crash into and die. It was hard. This whole year, this chapter in my life, this failure added to a gigantic pile of other failures, is just becoming too much. This program is difficult enough, and then the people problems I have added onto it and the fact that I know it won't lead to anything...it's just heartbreaking. I can't afford to drop out again right now.

And apparently there was a test after the skills. Ugh. I'm markedly too unstable for this career.

Day 7

Assessment Day!

It was like scraping my own face with a sharp rock over and over. 

It's the part where we start touching eachother, and the boys get all blushy and the girls avoid the boys. It's typical. We do everything we can to *look* busy. Another girl and I did trauma assessments on eachother, and then I make the mistake of hanging with the annoying re-cert firefighter. He's harmless, but reaaaally lazy when it comes to assessments. He also made a huge deal out of assessing (joining his hands palms-together and sliding them down) my sternum. I didn't feel awkward before (it's much harder for me to talk to people than to be touched by them), but he was just hesitant and apologetic. It's my sternum! I'm not buxom by any stretch, so no worries about groping anything. I kept trying to make him feel comfortable. He barely touched my scalp, spine, ribs, stomach, or limbs, and then he announced he was going to do the part he was most afraid of. Oh my gosh, dude... Dude. Please don't make this weird. 

So that happened. 

And I'm never going to listen to another noob again. I was checking this guy's pulse, like I've done a million times before, and I just couldn't find it. He told me to find it "up here", a few inches up his arm. I KNEW that wasn't right. I thought maybe it was a different pulse, but certainly not the one we're supposed to be looking for. "Oh, really?" I say, trying it out. Still nothing. He mansplains: "See, you need to do it here because there's a bone and you put the vein against it and that's how you get a pulse." Not quite, but whatever. Then a guest teacher (flight paramedic) comes out of nowhere and places a single finger where I was searching before. He looks at me. In huge annoyance and disbelief, I manage a sheepish "It's there?" He winks and walks away. Sure enough, a nice, gushy pulse was waiting.

Then I take the guy's blood pressure. It's high. 150/90 or 150/100. I ask if that's typical, and he says "No, but I just drank a Rockstar and I'm nervous." His blushing corroborated. That'll do. But then, when two guest teachers walk by, he feels the need to mention it to them. Dude! He tells them his blood pressure is what it is. The flight paramedic from before just says: "That's not right." Are you serious?! "He is nervous and he just had a Rockstar!" I protest. "Still not right." He shakes his head. Just check it? Please? I'm not a liar.

I'm fading fast. I've already taken something for the headache. I start thinking of bargains to make with God to make it be over sooner. Everyone is taken, so I use the teacher. At least I can get some good advice. We get through the medical assessment with him chiming in every few steps. Lots of pointers. And honestly, I was soaking it all in. We get done, and I just feel worn. "Can I give you some advice though?" He asks. "Anything!" I beg, trying to let some eagerness spill through my glazed eyes. "You need to be a little more confident." My heart sinks to the bottom of the universe. He explains that scared patients need someone to make them comfortable, and you do that through confidence. "I was kicked out of my last program for not being able to work well with others." I confess. 

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. You have great bedside manner! And it'll come with time, I'm sure." He looks around, patting his pockets. "Oh you know what? I need to go <blah blah blah>." He's out the door. Later, as we were finally heading home, he said: "Good job today, girl." 

Was it?

Day 6

This day was so forgettable that I forgot it.

Newb EMTs, the general public, and students all tend to think that EMS is all excitement and life-saving. It's not. It's disappointingly mostly sick people you can't do much for (under the paramedic level), and idiotic people who aren't actually experiencing an emergency. I think it was my new teacher who said you'd go on one cardiac arrest a week working full-time. I don't know if he meant actual full-time (40 hours/week), or EMS full-time (60+hours/week). Still, that's 4 people a month!

Worth it? I'm talking drunks, violent people off their psych meds, buckets of throwup, hysterical people, angry people, bossy people, and lots and LOTS of feces.

Question of the century.

Doubts?

This week was rough. I actually didn't make it to my Thursday class. Bawling, breaking down, couldn't leave bed, nightmares. It's been bad. So, I took a long weekend, but I'll be ready to go (eagerly counting down the days to see my psychiatric NP) come Tuesday!

So, naturally, there have been some doubts about getting into the field. Everytime someone says "assessments" or "vitals", for instance, I die inside. I get flashbacks to CNA clinicals, and old people staring...judging with their beady, wrinkled eyes. The anger that should be directed at their families for leaving them in such hell-holes is instead spat at the poor CNAs, who only want to help. I remember finding my pre-med chaperone hunched over some squaking, aged harpy as she calmly helped her to the bathroom. Don't assume I blame the old people for their attitudes. Old people homes are miserable junkyards where we dump those who have lost all value to society. I feel horrible for them. They have stories, feelings, the want for privacy...but grandma has to suck it up and allow perfect strangers to wipe her, front to back, every time she leaves her perch to pee. Everytime I saw grandma, and I was there for 8 hours, she was sitting in that rocking chair, surrounded by photos of her in the carefree days of her youth.

And then there's maggots.

Not sure how else to segway.

They're so vile and disgusting. They're bad enough on dead people - where they belong - but living people? It happens. And I don't think I'd be able to handle it (ie: barf and run away at the same time) if I saw it. Just AASDFFFHSADFHAKASF NOONONOONONONOONONOO!

Also, facial trauma. There is just something about teeth, eyes, or lips, not being where they're supposed to be that bothers me. On a living person? Nightmare fuel.

So, I'm not sure if this is the best job for me, but I still love emergency medicine.

Day 5

Today was all lecture.

We were suposed to go over the entire body and it's systems, but we mostly focused on breathing. It was interesting to re-learn that what makes you breathe is not lack of oxygen, but hypercarbia - too much carbon dioxide. Really neat! He said that EMTs are "Breathing Gods and Goddesses". That's our main duty in life. Also driving and taking all the vitals *cringe*.

We went over a lot of pathophysiology. I'm pretty sure this is called inductive reasoning, but we start with the presentation, and work our way down to what causes it. Like today, I've never thought of this, but why is the skin cool and clammy sometimes? As soon as he asked, it was like: "DUH, sweat." But that just never occured before. It's clammy because it's damp and cool because that's what sweat does. Why does someone get in the tripod position? What might they be experiencing?

Later, we went over epinephrine, AKA: adrenaline. He asked us, what do you think would happen and why? Like, if we were going to a fight where we would die if we didn't win, what would happen? "Increased heart rate" was easy, but where does the blood go? Why is the heart rate increasing? Deep breathing. Why? Sweating. Why? Dilated pupils. Why?

Someone mistakenly said that the blood would go to the limbs. I guess I could see that, since you're using them to fight with, so they're important. But the teacher said: "No, you don't want them going there! Why is that?" Silence. So I stepped in: "Because you'd bleed to death if one of your limbs got chopped off."

That, and a detailed account of how exactly you breathe were the only major contributions I made today. Some of those kids knew how goosebumps and shivering actually warms you up. One kid knew some insane detail about the oxygen distribution of Mt. Everest and something relating to the sea level. Some chemistry nonsense. And even the annoying re-cert firefighter knew something interesting that the rest of us didn't actually know already!

It was awesome!

*Edit: The whole point of the day was that the body does what it needs to reach homeostasis.

Anyway, next time is MOVING AND LIFTING PATIENTS *dundunduuuun*. We'll see how that goes.

Day 4

This is kind of a personal post, but I'm so proud of myself!!!

It started out like a normal day. Arriving a little early, I sat down at my table in the back. A few students were scattered about, generally 2-3 at a table. Nobody was really saying anything. Everyone was on their phones. It's weird that we do that.

The annoying re-cert firefighter waltzes in and, luckily, has a lot to say about a couple of car accidents he came accross on the way down. He only talks to his table, barely scraping at the solid cement of awkward setting in the room. They don't really respond either, poor guy.

Finally, class starts, and we get to training again. Suddenly, everyone is alive and they have friends in class - they group up as we make our way to the "gym". Except me. We do more CPR. I have a string of good, natural interactions with a couple of the paramedics and my teacher. I'm happy, especially because there were a ton of instances that day of people just ignoring me. Tiny instances. My volume was fine and everything, they just ignored me. It was f***ing weird, and I was feeling really bad.

Anyway, then we did a TEAM BUILDING EXERCISE. And, if anyone remembers the last time I did one of those, it was at the domestic violence shelter training  - the one I left in hysterics. This time though, I wasn't even concerned. I was feeling empowered by the previous perfect social interactions. So, I got in a circle with the other students, shoulder-to-shoulder. Okay! Then, with our right hands, we grabbed the right hands of people accross from us. And then the same with our left. Before you knew it, we were all tangled up.

One of these numbers

"Now get yourselves out of it." Our instructor practically smirks as she folds her arms accross her round stomach. We all take a few moments to size up the situation. I suggest we all try to get closer to the floor to loosen up the circle (I don't know!). To my surprise, people actually tried it! It didn't work, but it was a precurser to the solution: two particular people at a time needed to get low so others could step over and loosen up the circle. I still don't understand how it worked, but it worked! And I was fine the entire time.

In fact, I felt really happy. I participated and helped come up with a solution. I spoke up when it was necessary. I wasn't consciously nervous (though I could feel some bodily reactions going on). The warm fuzzies surged as we patted ourselves on the back and ran to the bathrooms to wash our hands. Another female student and I ended up in the same bathroom. I was a bit nervous, but pretended we were just gal pals as she actually used the bathroom and I washed my hands. It was like we were real gal pals! We talked the whole time! As we made our way back to class, one of the paramedics from earlier said bye and good luck to us. I said: "Bye ____, thank you!" Perfectly friendly and cordial. Non-phobic people wouldn't understand, but I was on a ROLL!

I sat down and immediately wrote about my experience. I didn't want to forget this STRING of positive experiences working with others. I felt so accomplished and happy. I felt emotionally fed. Like I had been starving for...not necessarily interaction, but connection. No words required, I just wanted to feel close to other people. I usually feel like an absolute alien. Like, despite their efforts, no one really gets me. I can't even communicate on their level. It's my curse to be the gawking foreigner stumbling about the complex and beautiful world that is the human race. 

But today was good. I OWNED a battle in the war on social phobia.