Thirteenth Day

Maybe 13 is an unlucky number for me too.

Today pretty much sucked. Our regular teacher was passing his paramedic psychomotor exam, so we had a different teacher. The new teacher was great and he has decades of experience, but what he was talking about was pretty boring.

Burns. We covered burns and orthopaedic trauma. Then we actually tried practicing with the stretcher. Good grief. I swear, I can't retain information to save my life.

So I stood there watching a few groups of people do the gourney. I wanted to try. So, the biggest guy in class gets on (great), I take the corner with the all-important red lever, and then...the SMALLEST girl in class came and took the other corner. Freakin great.

So, there are four weak girls trying to lift a hunk of muscle. I pull in the red lever to lift the gourney. I realize I'm lifting with my back. We reach maximum height, and, in a moment of the purest lack of good judgement, I say "we did it, yay!" and throw my hands in the air. In slow motion, the guy stalls and begins to tip over. Because he's strapped in, he can do nothing but what he did - look on in masked terror.

Luckily, the AEMT aide was there, and caught the side. Everyone laughs, and I realize my mistake - I didn't wait for the gourney to lock before letting go. So we locked it, and we brought it back down - again with my back. I'll probably be injured someday.

Then we worked on bandaging for forever, and apparently, there was a NREMT sheet to look at. I did fine despite not having the sheet, until the very end where I failed to verbalize priority transport; a critical fail. So I couldn't pass those off. We had to move on to some straight up midieval contraption (hare traction splint) that you use to straighten broken legs. You seriously crank it, and it pulls your leg straight, until the bone re-sets. As you can imagine, it hurts.

Then I started feeling overwhelmingly depressed. Just suddenly. I started questioning what I was doing, why I was doing it, and if I'd ever amount to anything. I was terrified, and overcome with grief. I would lose it if someone asked to partner with me. My head hurt, and I then realized I'd been grinding my teeth. I loathed myself for "failing" again. I was mad because I was alive. It was weird. I was doing everything I could to avoid a mental breakdown in front of everyone. With only 15 minutes of class left, I bailed and sobbed all the way home. I feel fine now. I don't know what happened.

 I just hope I can explain it next time. Though maybe I just shouldn't. And I hope it doesn't happen again.