Blogging...

I haven't been a very good blogger lately. Between medical complications in my life and prepping for and completing my 2010 Spring craft fair season I just haven't been in the mind set to write. I guess that's a big reason why my vague writing aspirations of high school never took off, lol! I love to write but I get so easily distracted from it. Not so with my other artist ventures. When I'm focused on an art or jewelry project then obsession is the name of the game.

Writing always seems so nebulous I guess, it's easier for me to compose an essay in my head and then I'm frustrated when it doesn't 'appear' on my computer. I have a lot of great essays and such that never get written. Or at least they seem great at the time. That's not to say I don't have self discipline. I can sit for hours working on minute details of a 11 x 14 colored pencil piece of work; each line individually sketched and smudged. I occasionally forgo lunch when I'm at my craft table working on new jewelry pieces; and I'm not the type that usually skips meals.

But writing...the drive sometimes just escapes me.

And it's not the lack of topics. Just about any day on the unit throws something strange, amusing or sick my way. Of course I'm very cautious about how I phrase such events due to privacy issues and such but still...you can say a lot without saying anything sometimes.

Like the time a guy tried to break into a convenience store after hours through the grill exhaust/heat pipe and got stuck so bad he ended up asphyxiating himself- complete with feet, legs and torso dangling over the grill and upper body and arms stuck inside the pipe.

Or the very large male who was suffering in pain from a kidney stone so badly that he continuously moaned my name over and over in the back of the unit while we drove him to the ER. Meanwhile my partner can barely keep from laughing his ass off in the front seat at the pseudo-sexual scene it created.

How about the patient that experienced such a bad Gastro intestinal bleed that the hotel room floor was LITERALLY covered in bloody feces which we had to cross to get to the patient in the bathroom. Our boots continued to smell of human waste for days even after several washes.

The fear and anxiety of pushing a large IV needle through a conscious patient's neck vein for the first time because it's the only good peripheral vein they have left and they really, really need an IV and meds now or they just might die. Said a little to prayer to God before that one...please, please, please, God don't let me screw this up...

The physical pain of being woken up repeatedly throughout the night. Yeah, sometimes it really does hurt, bad. And no you never, REALLY, get used to it as I've had patients tell me. "you look tired...but you're used to being woken up..." yeah you try it for 20 years and see how used to it you get. Some nights I can actually feel the years being knocked off my life.

The joy of getting everything right, especially when you meant to, and saving someone's life as a result. You learn to realize and accept at some point that as a human you have very little control over anything and at most you try to do your damnedest to be perfect and hope that God can work through you every day to get whatever he needs done. Unfortunately, most of the public and admin think you're supposed to BE perfect and easily forget that you're human and will shred you at the slightest provocation. And not bother to thank you at all.

Being a paramedic is basically the best job you'll ever love to hate.