My 15 minutes of fame

So, in EMS, we rarely see the press during any of our calls. Why? Well, usually whatever has happened is something bad that requires us to get the patient(s) out and to the hospital as quickly as possible. They have never beat us (or at least me) to a scene...except once about a year and a half ago...

As the story goes, there was a shooting in a rather rough neighborhood where I work. I show up with two ambulances, a chase car, a supervisor the medical director and clinical affairs chief in tow. Of course, we had the fire department there and the police department (they were marching around with fire arms strapped around their body...very intimidating (I'm glad I'm on their) side. There were the usual bystanders there trying to figure out what was going on. But there was someone else there...the press. Not just one news crew...but 2. And some people taking still photographs. It was a party and I felt like I was running late.

My grandfather

It has been 2 years since my grandfather passed away. Of my grandfathers (three in total), I would definitely have to say that I was closest with him. He had two sons and only one had any children. I was the only girl that he really ever had.

He was a brilliant man. He was a pharmacist who owned his own pharmacy. I heard stories of Dad and his brother running through the store and being quite mischievous. Grandpa made a huge impact on the community. During the visitation for him following his death, there were so many people who knew him through the pharmacy and told me stories about him (he was a very humble man and never "tooted his own horn") and about his two boys. It was neat to see...years after he had retired and sold his pharmacy...the lasting impact he had on people.

As his health was declining over the last few years, as it would for anyone as they age, his memory declined even faster. We don't really know exactly how long it went on before my parents and I realized what was going on. My grandmother, bless her heart, did her best to ensure that he knew who was coming over before we got there. She tried to make everything seem like it was "normal". I understand why. Mostly, it's a two-fold reason: she wants to protect them in being able to stay together and she had a hard time admitting that something was wrong.

Which way would you want to die?

I think of lots of things like this...which can feel very morbid and creep out other people, specifically my friends, if I were to talk about it. Fortunately, they have learned about this morbid sense of humor I have developed and tolerate it...to a point. Anyway...

I have witnessed a few different ways to die. What crosses my mind is, if I had a choice, how would I choose to die? Not so much the cause of my death (cardiac arrest, cancer, etc..) but the pace at which death happens. I'm going to discuss what I feel are "pros" and "cons" to dying each of these ways.

1. Instant death (seconds) -- the positive behind this is little no suffering. I'm not a big fan of pain so this aspect of it is rather appealing. However, there is no chance to tell those you love "good bye." Although I am a huge proponent of not leaving things unsaid that you will regret not having said if you don't have the chance, I am not sure I would be too pleased if I didn't get that final chance to say "I love you." (Of course, if this is my death, I won't live to regret or be upset over either of these.)

Fall break fun

Tomorrow is the last day of my fall break from school. I have enjoyed being back home and getting back to work for a few days. But now, I'm ready to go back to school. Work is my break from school...and school is my break from work.

This week, I worked 12 hours on the south side of the county, with which I am very familiar since I grew up there. I enjoy working down here for a few reasons, first of which is that my commute to work is very short. I can get to 4 different rigs in under 15 minutes. We did not do much patient care that day -- only two calls. However, we toured the entire east and south side of the county. And, we got a new rig. It rode so much better than the one we were on for the first half of the day. (And when I say "new"...I mean brand-spankin'-new. Just inspected by OEMS and put into service for the first time by myself and partner.)

Yesterday, I played in "the city," or center of the county. I like these trucks (city rigs) because they provide a variety of calls to keep me "entertained" and steady throughout the day (and sometimes throughout the night, unfortunately). I would rather be busy than not (nothing to do leads to being bored). The reason I don't like these trucks is because of the long haul into work -- and the busyness of the shift (yes, I like it busy...but I want time to breathe). I think we ran 15 calls that shift...I stopped counting after 10 (and I got too tired to even remember). We were short a rig during the day...and had several down during the night (4, I think). It made for a long shift (we put enough miles on the truck that I could have gone to Boone and back...400+ miles) -- but a good one. We helped some people and made their days just a little better.

Dangers of detergent suicide

Detergent suicides are gaining popularity in the US after getting their start in Japan a few years ago (that's when we first started hearing about them). Unfortunately, as they gain popularity, emergency responders have a new level of danger that we need to be on the look out for. What's even more problematic is that we are not always aware of this danger until it is too late.

So, just how prevalent is this? Honestly, I do not have any figures or data to show how frequent these are becoming. With that said, this is something that as I searched Google for stories about detergent suicides. I turned up several articles very quickly about where and when this has occurred. I found a story of a man in Pennsylvania who used this method of suicide earlier this month and one that occurred in Florida in March earlier this year.

There are also articles about detergent suicides that are readily available that provide the "recipe" for creating this disaster. Ethically (and morally), I am unable to provide this "recipe" for you, nor will I provide a link to it. However, if you really want it, you can easily find it. When I did a search, the first few results were, on the whole, about how to commit suicide using this method, and not about the lives that have been lost as a result of people believing this is a way out.

There have been a few of these in my response area -- 2 that I can recall with the most recent that I am aware of being only 6 months ago. So, the question becomes "how can we protect ourselves?"

For starters, you need to be aware of the locations which this type of suicide usually occurs. Most often, it is done in some vehicle -- but it needs to be in a relatively small and enclosed space.

Email etiquette

Here's another pet peeve alert...

There are certain things that I think are more than fair to expect when you receive an email from a business...or from any one for that matter.

1. Use some kind of subject heading! I want it to be descriptive enough that I know what it's about before I read it (but don't put your whole message in the subject line either). For example (this is one for the academic world), when you, a student, send a message to another student in your class or to your professor, you need to start the subject line with what the course name and number are (and for your professor, use your section number) and then a general description of what the email is about. Something like this will suffice: "ENG 1000 - group project". I know what class it is for and what it's about.
2. USE CAPITAL LETTERS...when appropriate. don't just type like this without capitalizing the first letter in the sentence or proper names. ALSO, DON'T TYPE LIKE THIS. I FEEL LIKE YOU ARE YELLING AT ME. 
3. Use correct punctuation. Please remember to use commas, apostrophes and periods as appropriate. It makes it easier to read when the correct punctuation is in place.

My annual tradition

So, yesterday was my birthday. I don't like birthdays, specifically mine. I enjoy celebrating the birthdays of others...but not mine. I hate being the center of attention. I really don't like it. However, with every year comes another birthday. It has become this sort of annual tradition.

This year was a pretty good one. I made it clear I didn't want groups of people singing to me or putting me at the center of attention for every one around. And, I got exactly what I wanted: a nice and quiet birthday. Jon sang to me...but that was it. And I'm okay with that. No one made an excessively big deal over it. Just the way I like it.

Here's a look over the past year...

This last year has been absolutely wonderful! I finished my first term up at Appalachian just a few short weeks after my birthday. I enjoyed my time in Boone a lot (although one might not know that because I went home just about every weekend that first semester). I came back for Christmas break to my wonderful boyfriend (and that's why I came home most of those weekends...) and he got to meet my family. He accepted them for their craziness and strangeness (he may have a better understanding as to my quirkiness now).

CPR Standards

Over the past decade, CPR standards have drastically changed. We have seen a change from what health care workers have done and also what lay people are being instructed to do if someone happens to go into cardiac arrest (this is when someone stops breathing and their heart stops -- this is different from a heart attack, although one can precede the other).

What we were once told was, after we determined that the person is not breathing, to perform a series of rescue breaths and chest compressions. Compression and breathing ratios have changed over the years, as well. We have seen a 30:2 ratio and also a 15:2 ratio. I honestly don't know what the current standards are because, well, we don't follow them where I work. We do something a little different and it works.

We do continuous chest compressions. These chest compressions are not stopped except for two things: to check a rhythm and to defibrillate (shock the heart). Even though we stop for these times, our goal is to minimize the time that compressions are not being performed to next to zero. The more time that you are not performing these chest compressions, the patient has an exponentially higher chance of not surviving. We want to give them every chance we can and thus we do everything we can to bring them back. Sometimes this happens and sometimes it doesn't. That's just the nature of the problem.

When I have talked about this in the past, I have been asked why we don't breathe for patients anymore. Well, we do. When EMS gets to the patient, we breathe through the compressions. However, what is now being recommended to the lay population if they witness a cardiac arrest is to also do the continuous compressions and not breathe for the patient, either through mouth-to-mouth or with some kind of barrier device (which also is a good thing because it eliminates part of the "eww...gross" factor from helping someone in need). This article caught my attention from Fox News about this very thing. I have not seen the study but I can tell you that with what we have done where I work, we have increased survival rate just by changing the way we do CPR with continuous compressions rather than some ratio of compressions to breaths.

How to solve boredom

I'm sitting at home this morning bored.

Why?

Well, there are several potential reasons. First, I completed the film that I needed to watch for film class and it was rather boring. I have another one to watch and know that it will also be terrible so I'm not going to put myself through that right now. Second (I might should have stated this first), I'm home because I have no morning classes today. It's a nice change not to have to be up at the crack of dawn...but I am anyway. I think I'll be back to morning classes across the board next semester. These evening classes are annoying. Lastly, I might be procrastinating and thus am bored because I'm not being productive. (*Hint* All of the above are likely true.)

So, how to cure boredom. I often struggle with finding this cure. As a paramedic, I don't usually do well with down time. I find things to do. When I'm at work, I stir up trouble when I get too bored (or I take a nap -- either works). I like the busyness. I like to have things to do. So, here are things I do when I'm bored:

1. Write a blog post. Of course, something interesting must come to mind (or, I at least hope it is interesting).
2. Craft. This is one of my favorite things to do...of all time. In my past, I have made jewelry, cards, Christmas ornaments and done scrapbooking. About 6 months ago, I started knitting. I need to get back on the scarf that I started. It is only about 12 inches long and that will not do me much good as the weather is turning colder now.
3. Cook or bake. Also something I really enjoy (and Jon seems to enjoy me cooking -- seems to be one of my uses). I am slowly expanding my repertoire of foods and recipes. 
4. Write a letter. Someone would love to get one and it's fun to keep in touch with old friends.
5. Read a book. I'm not much of a reader but every now and again I get in the mood to read a book.
6. Do a puzzle. Do something that will challenge the brain. An example: Sudoku puzzles or word puzzles.

How to create a proper PowerPoint

***Pet peeve alert!!***

I am currently working on a group project entitled "Revisiting History" for my film class (much worse than it sounds, believe me). And, though I could make a post about how much I dislike the class and how boring it is, that is not the point of this post. This point of this particular post is that for this project, I am working with (for the most part) one other person (and I use the term "working with" loosely because she is not exactly working in a cooperative fashion -- another post in itself) to research historical films, both "period films" and documentary style films. As a part of this, we are to give a presentation and put together some form of visual aide to help while giving this presentation. Because our schedules are very opposite, we were working through email and I was the one who put the starting PowerPoint presentation together and sent it to her to see what she thought. She thought it "looked great!" My presentation made "points" and would allow us to expand upon them during the actual presentation. She took it and then added long phrases and sentences and compressed the words so tightly that all that you can see on the screen are words. Upon explaining to her the my concerns with the revisions she made to the PowerPoint, her response was "well, that's what all the other groups have done."

As my mother always told my brother (I was the good child): "just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't mean you should do it." (Or, her favorite: "just because someone jumps off a bridge doesn't mean you should.")

So, here are some of the key things to keep in mind when making a PowerPoint presentation (or any visual presentation):