Category: Life

Rode Along

~ riggledo ~ 5 Comments

Read part one here.

On November 10th, I did my ride-along with the Oakland Fire Department.  My ride-along was with Station 13 in Oakland’s Fruitvale district.  For those of you who are current with your national (or international) news stories, Fruitvale is where Oscar Grant was unfortunately shot and killed on New Year’s day, 2009.  It is a low-income area with a lot of un or under-employed individuals for whom 911 is the only source of health care readily available to them.

Interestingly, the big fear that I had going into it was that there would be some major trauma and I’d be unable to handle seeing it.  I viewed the ride-along as my opportunity to prove to myself once and for all whether or not it would be an issue.  So as you might imagine, I didn’t see a single trauma all day.  We had nothing but medical emergencies, which, in most cases, weren’t really even emergencies (if you define an emergency as a life-threatening event.)

The first call of the day was a possible seizure which, as it turned out, the Fire Lieutenant said, was probably not a seizure but something drug related.

There was another call for a woman who was in severe abdominal pain and was histerical when we arrived begging us not to let her die.  She had been eating regularly, but hadn’t had a bowel movement in several days.  Abdominal pain doesn’t seem surprising.  I found out later in the day that this patient was a “frequent flyer” who the fire crew knew.  They also knew her to be a chronic crack abuser and apparently, crack stops up the works, if you know what I mean.  Being incredibly uninformed about (and disinterested in) drugs, I did not know that.  I suppose I’m going to have to learn about such things, but to be honest, I’m not at all sure how to do that.

The most memorable patient of the day was complaining of “difficulty breathing”.  The patient wasn’t actually showing signs of having difficulty breathing but it’s not really surprising if he was, given that he weighed in excess of 600 pounds.  Treating and transporting him to the hospital was a bit of a fiasco, but mostly on the part of the ambulance company who didn’t have a bariatric ambulance readily available and when it did arrive the operators on it didn’t know how to work the equipment.  Fortunately, it wasn’t a true emergency because we would have been screwed.

One of my classmates did his ride along with Station 13.  It happened to be the day after the Mehsserle sentencing was handed down and there was some speculation about whether there would be more protesting that day which could have taken place in the area Station 13 serves.  No protesting took place but it seems likely that people were reluctant to go out, just in case.  Whether it was because of that or random chance, my classmate got one call the entire day.  It’s hard for me not to see this as a good thing as calls to 911 mean bad things are occuring, and while we were there to get the experience, someone has to be in distress in order for that to happen.

At any rate, when the first call came in about 90 minutes after I joined the Fire Fighters, the Paramedic on the crew told me in route, “So I’m just going to let you take it and we’ll follow your lead.”

I was stunned.  “On the first call?” I asked.  I had hoped to get to watch them do a couple calls before I jumped in, get a little bit acclamated first.

“This could be the only call you get.  You just never know,” he replied.  I couldn’t really argue with that logic.

Nothing we did in class could prepare me for the experience of working with the fire department on medical emergencies.  We had practiced Medical Assessment a few times in class, but it’s always done by yourself or with one other student.  It’s always done in a calm, safe environment, with a “patient” who isn’t really sick and who isn’t in distress.

With the fire department I was working with four experienced EMTs (one a Paramedic) who all knew what they were doing and were accustomed to getting right to work.    I found that I was not prepared for the situation.  Still being new to the whole thing, I had to think about what was happening, what I needed to be doing and what questions to ask.  The experienced Fire Fighters on the other hand would dive right in and knew just what to do and just what to say and just what to ask, as you would expect them to.  I found that more often than not, they had already done or said or asked everything that I could think of to do or say or ask.  So it would seem I knew the steps, I just didn’t have the confidence or the certainty of what to do.  When I wasn’t right on top of everything they stepped in to pick up the slack and when it was all said and done, it felt, however inaccurately, like I didn’t know what I was doing.

By the end of the day, I was pretty frustrated with myself for not performing better than I did.  Of course I wanted to be a natural and to wow the fire fighters with my impressive ability.  Instead I fell back on old patterns and shied away from the forefront due to my insecurity and lack of confidence in my knowledge and ability.

I asked the Fire Fighters for their honest opinion and by and large they were positive, but they agreed that I needed to assert myself more and be more confident.  Unfortunately, only so much of that can be put on.  The rest comes with time and practice.

I left the fire station about 5:45 in order to get to my class at six and I basically walked into the class just as we were starting.  Little did I know that Mr. Williams, my teacher planned on skills testing that night.  Dispite my fatigue and frustration with my performance and experience that day, I did all of my skills tests except for Medical Assessment and passed every one on the first try.  I was, in fact, the only person to pass every skill I attempted.

I guess that’s enough for today.  Tomorrow-ish I’ll tell you about my day in the county trauma center.

Read part 3 here.

Oh Where, Oh Where Has That Riggledo Gone?

~ riggledo ~ 5 Comments

Remember when I used to write a blog?  Remember when I said I was going to make a habit of writing more regularly?  Yeah, me either… apparently.

I spent the last 17 weeks in a strange, other-worldly, vortex in the space-time continuum, in which time flew by while seeming to drag on FOR. EVER.

Gracious!  When you say it like that, 17 weeks, it hardly seems like any time at all, and yet, it feels like a lifetime ago that I started my EMT Class.  Maybe it’s just by comparison to the roughly equivalent time I spent anticipating the class, never really fully grasping the magnitude of what I was about to subject myself to.  I knew it was going to require a lot of work.  I knew it was a significant commitment on my part; returning to school at all, let alone for such a significant undertaking, after so many years.

I enrolled in this class in May, but then there was nothing to do until class started.  I sat around thinking about the class and wondering what I was getting myself into.  When my textbook came and it was more than two inches thick, with over 1500 pages, I thought surely it must be more than one class worth of material.

I knew I was going to have to work hard, but I never imagined how hard.  I had no idea how all-consuming this class would turn out to be.  The first half of the semester was, admittedly, more work than the second half.  Most of the reading, introduction of new information, intensive testing and general trials and tribulations took place before the mid-term with the second half focusing more on learning the skills and learning to put the information into practice.

But the second half of the class also, included the more anxiety inducing tasks of spending 10 hours on a ride-along with the Oakland Fire Department and an additional 12 hours in the County Trauma Center.

Amid all that work and stress, I also had a real, paying job to do and I found myself unable to live up to my usual level of slacking off and screwing around on the computer on company time.  (I won’t lie.  I found that part disappointing.)  As a result, my time to read and write blog posts was significantly diminished and as a result, I have published only 20 blog posts in the last seventeen weeks, which frankly, is more than I thought I had.

The class is over, it ended last Wednesday, and now, finally, I have a minute to breath and tell a little more about it.

~~~~~

Well, anyway, I thought I could.  I wrote several more paragraphs after this but wasn’t able to finish the story in the time I had available to me so I’ve copied them into a draft and I’ll attempt to finish the story tomorrow.  I’ve got a lot more to say.

Read part two here.

Freaking Out

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

Tomorrow morning at O:dark o’clock (to those of you who aren’t complete morning whimps, that would be 7:00) I have to be AT the County Trauma Center to start my twelve hour day, doing I don’t even know what.  It’s a required component of my curriculum for the EMT Class and so naturally we waited until the very last two weeks of the semester to do this.

I haven’t thought too terribly much about it until now, but now it is upon me and I have to admit, I’m terrified.  When I don’t think about it then, of course, everything is fine, but when I do think about it, I feel sick to my stomach and light headed.  Thank God, I saved some of the Ativan my Psychiatrist gave me a while back to use until the Buspar kicked in.  I’ll defintely need that tomorrow morning.

I’ve never been to this hospital before, and while I found an address on-line and found it in my GPS in my car, I don’t know where the hospital is.  Normally, I’d have done a dry run by now, but I just haven’t had time and I won’t have time tonight unless I do it after class (which I might – although with as much as it’s ranined today, I’m not so sure it can be called a dry run.)

I’m flat broke right now, and it suddenly dawned on me last night that I didn’t know what the parking situation was or if there was a charge.  I called the hospital today and found out that there is a charge, but I spoke with a woman in the facilities department who told me she would validate my parking, if I come see her during her office hours.  That shouldn’t be a problem but if I don’t catch up with her, I’m kind of screwed.

No one has been able to tell me what to do when I get there.  Where am I going?  Who am I supposed to report to?  What should I come prepared for?  Whatever I’m doing, I just pray that it goes better than my Fire Department Ride Along did.

And yes, of course, I know, “it’ll all work out” and I’ll “do just fine” and all that other crap stuff people tell me when I freak out like this, but yeah…  Right now?  I’m freaking out.

Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me

~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

I don’t really know where this is going to go.  I really shouldn’t even be writing right now, but I can’t seem to focus on anything else so maybe this will help clear my mind.

I’m feeling so lost right now.  So many things going through my mind and I don’t know how to sort it all out.  I genuinely hate feeling this way.

~~~~~

My class ends next week.  I have the final exam on Wednesday and I’m terribly afraid I’m going to fail.  I don’t really have a lot of time to study and I’m kind of all studied out.  Thursday I have a twelve-hour shift in the county trauma center as a part of the curriculum for my class and I have no idea what to expect from that.  I’m sure it’ll be fine, but I’m terribly anxious right now thinking about it.  I’m so ready for the whole thing to be over except I don’t really know what comes next and as long as I’m in class I don’t have to think about that.

I feel like everyone’s expectations, including my own, are too high and I’m not going to live up to them and that could be really embarrassing and hurtful, if I fall flat on my face.

~~~~~

Late one night last week, when no one was paying any attention (which is usually when I have – and post – my most pitiful, feeling-sorry-for-myself thoughts) I posted to Twitter, “I wish I could see what you see.”  I only got one response to that, which really was one more than I wanted, but that one response was about the inches of snow on the person’s back patio.  Definitely not what I meant.

I’ve made a lot of connections with people on the internet and those people all seem to like me.  The thing is, I genuinely do not understand why.  I just don’t see all the apparently good things they seem to see.  I certainly don’t see the “sexy” guy some of them talk about, when I look in the mirror.

But those people are all on the internet, they’re not physical beings in my life and with a couple of exceptions, they’re all far away.  Why is it that I can’t make connections with real people, one’s who don’t live in the box on my desk, or the slip of a screen in my hand?  Why is it that I can’t connect with people who live near me?

~~~~~

I had lunch with, Lori,  a friend from work, today and after the course of our conversation lead to how I spend holidays alone, she invited me to come to her family’s house in Modesto on Christmas Eve.  It was a very generous offer which I sincerely appreciated but which I also declined.  I told her that I feel like I’m intruding on other people’s family time that way and that Christmas is a particularly complicated day for me.  I don’t enjoy being alone, but I don’t enjoy feeling like I don’t belong either.

~~~~~

Being alone has sort of become a recurring issue for me lately.  I am really tired of being alone.  But there are so many reasons why I am and I couldn’t even begin to guess at how to change them.  It’s not just that I’m tired of being alone, but I’m tired of being… God, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I can’t think of another way to put it… I’m tired of being single.  I’m tired of not having anyone to share my day with and have conversation with and laugh with.  I’m tired of going to bed alone every single night and waking up alone every single morning.  I’m tired of coming home to an empty apartment and cooking dinner for one and cleaning up all by myself.  I’m tired of having no one else to clean up for and putting it off because of it.  I’m tired of feeling apathetic and lazy because I don’t have anyone to be accountable to or for.  I’m tired of feeling lonely and unworthy and unwanted…

And I’m tired of feeling sorry for myself.

Chompers

~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

Children are always curious about things they aren’t allowed to do.  If you warn them to stay away from something all they want is to go near it.  If you tell them something is dangerous, they want to investigate, to find out why.

Children also like to mimic the behaviors of the grown-ups they are around.  This is frequently proved when little children see grown-ups chewing gum.  As soon as they’re old enough to speak the words, kids will ask for gum if they see adults chewing it.  Of course you don’t give gum to little kids because they don’t know not to swallow it or they are more likely to choke on it.  Eventually, though, children are old enough, knowledgeable enough to be allowed to chew gum and they feel more special for their achievement.

And then kids go to school and once again, gum is not allowed.  Once again, all they want is what they can not have.  Who among us never snuck chewing gum in grade school, as if holding the softened, flavorless lump in your mouth is equally as satisfying as chewing the gum, because you can’t actually chew for fear of being caught?  Which of us did not chew a mere fraction of a piece of gum in the hope that we could chew subtly enough that our teachers would not notice.

Eventually, as we age and we can be trusted not to stick our gum to the bottom of any hard surface within reach, that restriction is removed and we’re free to chew all the gum we want.  For some people, the loss of that restriction removes the appeal and chewing gum becomes less important; something that’s saved for a quick breath freshener after a meal, or a means to moisten a dried mouth and sometimes to satisfy a craving without actually ingesting extra calories.

For me, gum became an almost constant pass-time.  I liked small pieces of gum, spearmint, whitening.  I loved to chew gum.  I was never tacky with my gum, believing fully that gum seen or heard by others was gum that should be in the trash.  Gum chewing was for my own personal pleasure and so three years ago when I embarked a journey to straighter teeth, by way of Invisalign invisible braces, I knew that the thing I would have the most difficult with, would be the inability to chew gum.

Invisalign aligners are supposed to be worn 22 hours a day.  You take them out to eat a meal.  As soon as the meal is finished you’re supposed to immediately floss and brush your teeth and then reinsert your aligners.  That doesn’t leave any time for chewing gum.  When I first started Invisalign I really missed chewing gum but of course I couldn’t do it while wearing my aligners and eventually I got used to it.

Three years later, I hardly think about gum at all.  In fact, on Tuesday, I finished my course of Invisalgn treatment.  The dentist removed the attachments that have been adhered to my teeth for three years and I walked out of his office a free, un-tooth-encumbered man… For now.

Tonight, as I was changing my clothes after work it suddenly dawned on me, out of the blue, I haven’t had a single piece of gum since. Haven’t even thought about it.  What on earth has happened to me???