Maybe I will never finish that ride along entry...

Or I will at a later date.

This post isn't about that. Posting about not posting is lame anyway.

(Though I do need to be reminded to write about the Hazmat course, it was awesome. And awesome things take time to write about. I wish I had a fucking pensieve and I could just extract the memory or something. Ugh.)

I'm lazy, but also very busy.

I just wanted to say that some people in class have kind of shocked me. I didn't notice it at first, but there are two women who I think will make awesome EMTs/Paramedics. They're fast learners, quick thinkers, and they both give me the impression that they could handle combative patients if they had to.

I like the way they fearlessly participate in class, and their gregarious natures.

Ummm... I cannot remember my codenames for them.

Oh!
Yes.
Daphne the Forgettable Slytherin
and the Gretchen Weiners of Orangeburg.

I'm giving up completely on even feigning competitiveness. I just can't do it. I'm too lazy/less ambitious/busy/excuses excuses.

There is a module exam tomorrow and I'm actually going to study, maybe. We'll see how that goes.

Highly anticipated ride-along entry!

So, I'm finally sitting down and forcing myself to write about my ride-along before I start to forget some important details.

My night started at 7pm. I only slept about 2 hours out of the last 24 and hadn't eaten in 12 hours or so.


Anyway, the first hour or so of my ride-along exists in my memory as a blur of signing forms ( basically"if anything happens to me on this ride, it is not the fault of ______ County EMS, and I can't sue."), meeting the guys I'd be riding with, and being shown all the equipment on the inside of the ambulance.

There's more to it than it seems. 

It's a lot more spacious than I expected. 

Anyway, after checking all the equipment in the ambulance, we left the main station and arrived at our first scene.

A gas station.

To get energy drinks!

Actually, I have no idea what those guys purchased.

The crew I was with (Let's call them Ewan and Neil, because they looked like Ewan McGregor and Neil Patrick Harris.) probably forgot I was in the back of the ambulance, because they just jumped out and left me back there, with no idea how to open the doors and get out. 

I fought with the side door for about 2 minutes before I realized it was locked, opened it, and basically fell out into the parking lot. 

Luckily there were no witnesses.

I bought Skittles and a Red Bull and hoped they'd be enough to keep me up for a few more hours, but then I started to fall asleep as soon as I got back in the ambulance. 

As I was drifting, I had the following thoughts:

"No one warned me that it would be dark in here and that a speeding ambulance feels more like a gentle swaying when you're actually in a seat and not on a stretcher."

"Even these blinking lights are kind of soothing, like lights on a Christmas tree."

"Wait a second, why are we speeding?"

"...And what is that noise?"

It was a siren, you guys. I did not even notice the siren until we were actually on scene. :|

Btw, eating half a bag of Skittles in under 20 seconds won't do anything to wake you up. I was still pretty much a zombie during this call.

First Patient

We arrived on scene at what I assumed to be a pretty extravagant retirement facility, where an old man was waiting for us in the driveway. Why did I assume it was a retirement facility? I don't know. Maybe I sort of forget that people that the elderly are capable of living alone. But apparently they are, because that old guy lived there. (Not alone though, with his wife, who happened to be the patient.)

The first patient was a 77 year old woman, with tingling in her left arm. She said that it started last night, but then it went away and came back. She didn't have any pain, but she was nauseated, but she said it was probably because she was very nervous. 

Neil and Ewan are really good when it comes to getting the SAMPLE history without making it obvious that they're doing it. It was just like a normal conversation, they even told a few jokes while attaching her to the heart monitor and fiddling with it. (I don't know how that thing works or how to read the results, so I didn't pay much attention.)

I wish I could apologize to these people for coming into their home and standing around awkwardly while real paramedics did everything. I mean, I could have attempted a blood pressure or something... :/

The patient didn't seem to mind my awkwardness, and she said my hair made her feel happy. I suppose she likes pink. 

Her vitals and everything seemed pretty normal, but we transported her anyway. 

____

I fell asleep after admitting the woman to the hospital, and woke up in an eerily lit garage.

Um, I still have no idea exactly where that was, but apparently it was a substation. 

In the garage, I shivered and drank my Red Bull while the paramedics showed me and talked about the equipments on the outside of the ambulance, and cracked jokes about obese southerners. 

There is this awesome device called The Thumper, which looks like a medieval torture device but is actually a CPR machine powered by compressed air that if used incorrectly could kill a person instead of saving them. 

But that could be said about a lot of things.

I found out that they wouldn't be keeping me, because apparently they'd be at that substation all night and not much goes on around there, so a supervisor would pick me up and take me along with him to get all my calls as quickly as possible. And by the time they finished telling me that, so the supervisor showed up and I grabbed my charts and jumped in his humongous truck. Not an ambulance, an actual truck. First response vehicles can be whatever you want them to be, I suppose.

I'm probably wrong about that though.

Wow. I am suddenly too tired to finish this now, but I will later.

I've been procrastinating, because this blog is going to be a long one.
Oh gosh, it's going to take forever just to type it, I wish I could just have it transcribed.

Maybe I'll do a video blog.

Tomorrow's class is going to be on Weapons of Mass Destruction.
It probably sounds more interesting than it actually is. I guess I'll see.

My ride-along was great. It was mostly just drunk people and attention seekers, but I had a lot of fun and had a lot of my EMS operations related questions answered by one of the supervisors. I was with him from like 9pm-3am and I talk a lot, so yeah. I'll cover those questions when I blog next.

I've actually been asleep on and off since 7am, Sunday. I feel like I've only been awake for a total of 8 hours since then.
Ah, sleep debt.

So tired. I nodded off and dreamt I was making a pot of coffee.

Too sleepy for this. Going to review chapters 34-37 while watching Family Guy and go back to sleep.


Edited to add: I fully intended to write about my ride-along this morning. >.>

Ride-aloooooong in about 4 hours.
And I am just going to bed.

GOODNIGHT.

Should probably invest in a coffee maker.
Or some cocaine.

Does anyone actually study for this class?

I'm thinking of my classmates and none of them seem to have the Studier Mentality (okay, there is no such phrase, WHATEVER.) and also I think they probably have lives and jobs and such that would get in the way of intensive study.

However, looks can be deceiving.

But then, they must be studying, because supposedly we're all going to pass.

Or our instructor, whom I have yet to nickname, is just trying to give us false confidence.
But why would he do that?

Most of this information is pretty easy to remember, though for me certain things are hard to remember in order. (Patient assessment - trauma. Incredibly hard for me and I don't know why...)

As a person who has never really studied in my life, this is kind of hard for me.
:(
I want a study group.

I'm going to call our instructor The Knee, and I'm not going to explain why.

Some interesting things learned in class today:

• Always appear as though you are able to choke someone. 
• Our instructor has a scary side that only comes out if he thinks he's going to get spit on. 

Role Call

Alright, my classmates, because I'm sure you're (my 4 followers... -.-) all tired of hearing about Hermione. 

They were unaware that this picture was being taken. Yes, I know I'm a creeper.

It isn't my fault that she's the only one worth noting due to the fact that she ALWAYS gets good grades. Ugh. 

Anyway.

I'll start with Pansy Parkinson. Aside from her paleness and dark hair, she shares no traits with Movie/Canon Pansy, but she does own a Slytherin hoodie, which I quite like. She's kind of boisterous, but our instructor can never remember her name (He always calls her by Hermione's name...) In fact, scratch that. I'm going to call her Daphne Greengrass. Why? Because she was a Slytherin no one remembers, and no one deserves to be called Pansy Parkinson. Especially not her, because she's actually nice.

Next up is the Gretchen Weiners of Orangeburg. She's totally rich because her dad invented Toaster Strudel 

She knows everything about everyone (in Orangeburg).

(Seriously. You know about the Orangeburg Ihop brawl? She knows those people. Everything about them.)

And of course, her hair is big because it's full of secrets.

She tied with Hermione on the last test. She's on my radar now.

Then there's Cameron Tucker, so called because he's hilarious and incredibly likable. He also has a lot of Cam-y (from Modern Family) qualities. I think he's taken this class before, or something like it, he always talks like he knows what he's doing. He's really into Zumba.

Omg, this nicknaming crap is hard. 

There is only one other guy in the class and his name is going to be John Smith, for reasons that have nothing to do with Pocahontas. It is just a really average name, and this is a really average guy. In fact, whenever our instructor wants to demonstrate something, he pulls this guy up to the front because he's "a pretty average [sized] guy."

He's almost as quiet as I am, and he spends most of his time talking to Lexi Belle. 

Lexi works in the ER of some hospital and I honestly have no idea what she does there. I'm naming her after a porn star simply because her name makes me think of porn stars. She gets pretty flustered when put in front of a group. She always gets called first, due to her name. 

Last but not least, is the Nancy Archer, named after the 50 ft Woman because this chick is seriously tall. It gets mentioned in pretty much every class. 

(Other things that get mentioned nearly every class:

Hermione's small

Nancy's tall

John's ordinary

I'm thin

And Daphne's forgettable  apparently Hermione, sometimes.)

Nancy has a no-nonsense kind of demeanor. She reminds me of a cop. Also, she is like, deathly afraid of roaches.

I'm going to abruptly end this entry now.

Bega Basic

It's 5:32am and I thought, it's about time to write about myself.

Me!

If you know me and you're reading this, you can just skip it.

I don't really want to do this. I don't know where to start or how much information to reveal. How much of my backstory is relevant to my current story.

Maybe I'll start by listing things.

• My name is Bianca. I named myself Bega (Bee-guh) when I was learning how to talk. I could actually say my name at the time, I just preferred not to.
• I'm 21, almost 22, and I have a son (he just turned two a few days ago and already he is THREE FEET TALL), a house that I'd like to sell (but I can't unless my brothers agree to it. :/) and two cars that are legally mine but I can't drive them because
• I don't know how to drive. Yep. I am planning on becoming an EMT in a few weeks and I've got almost no clue how to operate a vehicle. Driving at speeds higher than 30 freak me out, and having other cars on the road causes me to turn to stone. I feel like I'm in Medusa's cross-hairs everytime I get on the highway behind the wheel. 
• I like things that are small and pink and cute. For normal people, this means newborn humans, kittens and puppies. For me, this means other people's organs. 

Say hello to this adoooorable uterus.

You're going to tell me that isn't cute?

A cuterus.

How about now?

I like organs when they're cute and pink, and I'd like to keep them that way.

• The uterus is my favorite organ, btw, and I really like vaginas. I've been interested in women's health, well, sexual and reproductive health, since I was about 7 years old. Blame my mother for leaving her textbooks around and letting me get at them. But then, she wasn't aware that I was reading on 'the college level' at that age.  
• You can also blame my mother for my 'raging feminism'. 
• I love emergency medicine, I think. I haven't had much  any experience with it yet, I just think that it would suit me, based on the fact that a.) I love medicine, and b.) I love banquet serving. 

But what does banquet serving have to do with emergency medicine? Well, not much. But they are both fast paced, and you will almost always have something to do. I cannot stand being bored. I like to have multiple jobs to do at once. I like getting things done quickly. It's a rush. 

Maybe I'm addicted to the rush. It's a good thing I care too much about my health to do amphetamines. 

(I find myself saying similar things a lot. I seem to have a lot of weird interests that could lead to me being involved in some unsavory activities. For example, my love of organs = "It's a great thing I'm so into medicine or I'd have to become a serial killer! :D")

• If not emergency medicine, I would go into sports medicine. It's another adrenaline thing. It's totally not an I-love-athletes thing. The best thing I ever did in high school was student athletic training/sports medicine with 4 other girls. We had a real athletic trainer, of course, so we were pretty much water girls during football season. I enjoyed being on the sidelines at every game, every practice, and running out onto the field to squeeze into a huddle of muscular, testosterhotties. Okay. Maybe my love of sports medicine comes from a different place. Maybe that place is my vagina.

Kidding!

It really is just an adrenaline thing.

You might be wondering "Why not OB/GYN if you are so into women's health?" 

Well, my dears, because even though I love them, I do not want to stare into vaginas all day long, it just seems boring. I would rather teach Sex Ed/Health. In fact, I would love to teach that subject. Most of my peers know almost NOTHING about their sexual/reproductive health, and we are in our early 20's. It's disheartening. 

When I retire, I'm going to teach. But... it may be too late for America by then... :/ 

• I've known since I was 3 that medicine was my calling, although originally I wanted to be a vet or a herpetologist, and then at 8 I decided I was going to become a geneticist. But that does not mean I haven't tried other things. 

I've been trained in carpentry/construction, culinary arts (and still my best friends treat me like anything I cook will result in their deaths. Gosh, mistake arsenic for powdered sugar ONE time, and they never let you forget it.), and some very basic veterinary stuff (certified veterinary assistant, right here.). But none of those things make my vagina as wet heart beat as fast as medicine. 

I had time to receive all that training because

• I dropped out of high school when I was 16. Okay, technically I was expelled, but I was going to drop out anyway. I just couldn't take it anymore, I don't like teenagers and I had a serious problem with having very little personal freedom. (Fun fact; I was suspended several times and then expelled every year from 5th -10th grade. It would probably not be wise to reveal why.) I received my GED like a week after dropping out. 

Supposedly the GED exam is very hard and made so that only 50%-70% of graduating seniors would be able to pass, but I had near perfect scores on everything but math, so that just can't be true. I'm pretty much retarded when it comes to math, btw. 

I should have just gone to college the following fall, but because I wasn't legally allowed on any of my district's campuses, I couldn't take the standardized tests required for admittance. So I went to JobCorps instead, and joined a cult. 

No, I'm not kidding. 

It was... interesting. But I was more of an observer than a participant.

Anyway, I was kicked out of JobCorps twice. So I came home, took the ACT (32!), applied to a few schools, got accepted and didn't go because of a stupid thing called 'love', got a job at a pizza place, moved to Charlotte, did a lot of fun growing up things, and applied to FMU about 2 weeks before the start of the fall semester with the rest of my class, which was '07, btw. 

So I should be graduating now, right? Right?! 

No. Wrong. I dicked around for the first half of my freshman year, and got knocked up at the end of it. Fail.

(If I hadn't assumed that Nicholas was an ovarian cyst and just sat around waiting for it to rupture, I would have aborted him. Why did I assume I had a cyst and wasn't pregnant after being sexually active? Because a.)  We were using condoms, and b.) I took 2 or 3 pregnancy tests that turned out negative. Ugh. Anyway, I love Nicholas, so it's alright.)

 Anyway, I'm going to graduate in 2013 or 2014. I really don't know. It depends on how hard it is to handle school, work and a toddler. I tried school + infant last year and it did not go so well... 

Well, whatever. I look 16 and I'm going to live forever, so if I have to take school a bit slowly because of my child, that's fine by me.

Some more interesting (maybe) facts about me 

• I have stalkerish tendencies. (Or maybe I'm just really curious.)
• I'm not an insomniac, but I am nocturnal, I have been this way for as long as I can remember (and I can remember being 20 months old...). I do sleep 6-8 hours a day, it's just that they are literally during the day.
• In 6th grade, I was expelled and sent to a private school. After a barrage of tests, I was skipped from 6th to 9th grade, but couldn't handle the math :( and the next year I was in 7th grade (the only year I wasn't expelled, come to think of it...), and back in public school. Imagine how much sooner I could have graduated if I didn't fucking suck at math! I get pissed off just thinking about it! >:(
• I'm pro-choice. Okay, that was a given.
• I have 2 older brothers, two younger stepsisters that I never see, a mother, and no father (my stepfather does not really count...). My biological father died in a motorcycle accident (that I scarily predicted) when I was 5. 

I can't think of anything else right now, because I am not very interesting, and because there are just some things I know I shouldn't reveal online.

So anyway, that's me.

Eventually I'm going to mention my other classmates, but I haven't thought up pseudonyms for them that aren't vaguely insulting. Not that I don't like them, but I was going to go with Harry Potter themed nicknames, and I can't imagine anyone would be thrilled to be called Millicent Bulstrode. 

Hermione's riding.

Right now.

I texted her to wish her luck, and she responded that she just finished her first call.

She's only been there for 17 minutes!

I honestly believe she wants this more than I do. She has an ems-related screenname on AIM, and she painted a piggy bank with the Star of Life. I would not be surprised if she had a tattoo of it somewhere on her pint-sized body.

Don't ask me why she's leaning. Maybe she's tired. Maybe she's intoxicated. Maybe I just drew this very quickly.

I've got a magical girl wand tattooed on my forearm, so you can see where my interests lie.

Just wanna heal you all with my love...

Being a paramedic seems to be her dream job. Her plan is to finish 2 years of tech school, then go to paramedic school. Or something.

('How do you know you?' you wonder. Well, Facebook surveys. And I'm nosy.)

My plans are to get my BS in Biology (only halfway there. Why did I take so much time off? I should be graduating this year), and apply to PA school or med school.

I'm only doing this because 1.) I do need some kind of backup plan, and 2.) I'm going to need 3000 hours of healthcare experience to apply to most PA schools.

Working in emergency medicine is just a bonus. I could be a CNA and get the hours, but ...ew, and no. Yeah, I don't have any better reasons. CNA-ing is all bed pans and elderly diaper duty. No thank you.

So maybe I'm not working as hard as I should because I don't want to be a paramedic. :/

It would be nice to be a paramedic, but that's a year of my life that I could be working and finishing school. It's nearly impossible to do those things in paramedic school, because most are 8-5 M-F. It isn't feasible, for me.

Oh!
How could I forget to mention this?

Doug called like an hour after that last post!

I'm riding this weekend!
 7pm-7am.
I need to re-nocturnalize myself. I don't care that it isn't a word.

I haven't posted in a few days because I haven't been to class since Thursday.

I thought I had class today, but Hermione informed me that it was cancelled.
Maybe she thinks we're friends or something.

I like her, so I guess we are. But I would really enjoy beating her.
No, not physically.

Suppose that means I should crack open a book or something, but I've got better things to do. Like shop online.
Or...spend time on FB. Or repeatedly call the training guy until he answers and SCHEDULES MY FUCKING RIDE-ALONG, OMG.

I feel like a vengeful ex-girlfriend who just wants her stuff back.

Why aren't you answering my calls, Doug? You can talk to everyone but me, huh?
Was it the way I fell asleep when you spoke to the class?
Do you think I'm too young to ride-along? I'm older than Hermione! And you called her back after like 2 days!


Doug seems to think I'm 16 or something. He said something about me being young, and I just stared at him blankly.

Regarding typos

You're going to have to ignore those for now.
I often post while tired or multitasking, so DEAL WITH IT.

I'll edit later.

We practiced our skills a bit, yesterday. Immobilization on a long board.
Forgot to mention that, because it was over pretty much as soon as it started.

Mwuahahahaaaa

Oh, by the way.

Took the Trauma module exam today.
Didn't study. (I never study. Which is why I shouldn't be so pissed when Hermione beats me, because apparently she DOES study.)
Made an 80.
Most people made 80's.

Hermione (and another classmate) made 82's!

Argh!
And 3 of the questions I answers were RIGHT before I went back and scratched them out. Fuck! I need to stop second guessing myself.

The other answers I got wrong were mostly due to confusion but on 2 of them, I had right in my head and WROTE THE WRONG LETTER.

>:(
What is wrong with me?!
Am I dyslexic?!

Argh!

Faking it.

Finally called 'that Doug guy' (He's in charge of training. Or something. I'm not sure.) to schedule my ride-along. Maybe I'll have something interesting to write about soon.

We have to document 5 actual patient cases on these (usually 12 hour) ride-alongs. I'd like to go at night, because as they say, the freaks come out at night.

And freaks are usually pretty crazy and up to some dangerous stuff.

And that = accidents and injuries and EMS.

I'd like to get my hands dirty. But not literally, because that's gross.

Don't ever get your hands dirty.

Not even when taking your gloves off.

But I'd like to get a chance to do more than just stand around and watch. We practice skills in class, though not as often as I'd like, but I've never been very good at acting. I feel ridiculous tapping a mannequin on the shoulder and saying 'Sir, are you okay?' and going through the steps of patient assessment. 

I have to bite my tongue and try not to say the first thing that comes to mind while doing this, 

so a basic assessment goes pretty much like this

Bega: BSI. Scene safe?

Instructor: Yes. The scene is safe.

Bega (thinking): Of course the scene is safe. It's a classroom.

And since I'm thinking that, I blank on the next part for a second, until I remember to ask

Bega: Mechanism of injury?

Instructor: Your patient has been involved in a motor vehicle collision.

Bega (thinking): Wow. How'd a car fit in here?

Bega: Number of patients? 

Obviously one patient, as there is just one mannequin on the floor.

So, anyway, after that, I pretend to call for back-up and consider stabilizing the spine.

I don't spend too much time considering this, because mannequins are pretty rigid, I don't think the spine requires much stabilization. If it has a spine.

We segue into the initial assessment, and I ask my instructor to verbalize the general impression of the patient. 

He'll say something like "You have a 24 year old male patient who has been involved in a motor vehicle collision, blah blah blah" I can't really give you a good example, because I honestly haven't been paying much attention. 

To check for responsiveness, I should tap the dummy and ask if it's okay. But I usually just ask the instructor if my patient is responsive.

Most of the time, I get unresponsive 'patients', so we'll go with that.

I check for chief complaints or apparent life threats. Nothing is really threatening it's life, because it doesn't have one. But in this situation, just being unresponsive (especially after a MVC) is a life threat.

I assess the airway by looking for equal chest rise, listening for breath sounds, and feeling for breath when I bend down to listen. But, as you could probably guess, my mannequin doesn't breathe. 

I hate acting.

Since my patient is  a doll  unresponsive, I'm going to assume his airway isn't patent, and he needs to be put on oxygen. But before I secure the airway, I'd like to know about his breathing, to establish a baseline. 

I don't really know if that is exactly what I'm supposed to do. I get kind of flustered in front of the class.

Information about the patient's airway comes from the instructor.

Bega: What are the rate, rhythm and quality of the patient's respirations?

Instructor: 6 respirations per minute, even, and shallow. 

Or something like that.

So, I verbalize opening the airway via jaw thrust (because it's a trauma patient) and inserting an OPA, and then I listen for lung sounds. Or I verbalize listening to lung sounds. It goes something like this

Bega: What are the patient's lung sounds like? 

Instructor: They're clear.

Bega(thinking): Really? Because I don't hear anything at all. 

Anyway, now that the airway is clear and the patient is breathing adequately, I can pretend to move on to circulation.

The patient has no pulse.

But I pretend.

The patient's skin color is beige and green and brown from too much handling, but I pretend he's cyanotic.

The patient's skin is room temperature, but I'm told it's really cool and clammy.

And so on and so forth.

I suppose I don't have the imagination to practice skills this way, and yet I still feel I could do it properly in the field. I'd like some human experience, which is why I really need that Doug guy to call me back so we can set this ride-along up.

Hermione.

Being in class is almost like being in a competition.
The prize is a job.

The instructor could make it very easy for one of us to get hired. He pretty much admitted that these classes are for recruiting new EMTs.

We started out with 12, and now we're down to 8.

There is a girl in my class that I've been calling Hermione.

She isn't a witch, but her hair is sort of bushy and she is a bit of a know-it-all.

It isn't totally fair of me to call her Hermione, as she isn't obnoxious and doesn't frantically wave her hand in class when she knows the answer.

But that's probably because we don't raise our hands in class anyway, it's kind of a verbal free for all. We either shout the answers, or the instructor calls on someone specifically, and then that person freezes up, and everyone goes back to shouting.

Okay, maybe that's just when he calls on me.

:/ 

He calls on Hermione a lot, and she is always right.

Also, she gets the highest score on every test.

(Until the last test, I was getting second highest. >:( )

I might just be jealous.

I have the right answer only about 60% of the time when called on, because I freeze up and everything in my mind falls out of my head. It's only later, when I'm scooping my brains off the floor, that I realize how obvious the answer was and how much of an idiot I must appear to be. :/

Anyway, the main reason I call this girl Hermione is because she wears the Gryffindor colors over her uniform, almost every day. But I don't think she's aware the she is doing it.

Fun fact: Her apparent best friend wears a Slytherin hoodie most days.

This Font

This font looks eerily like my own handwriting.
I hope it's legible.

The First Post

It's 4:37am and sadly, I am just too tired to do much more than a test post.

I decided to created this blog a few days ago, to share my experiences with EMT-B training, and life as an EMT-B if I pass this class.

Currently my life is pretty boring.
But I get the feeling things will be livening up soon.

Real post coming eventually. I promise.