I am, as we speak, filling out an application to deploy to the Alabama Gulf Coast to help respond to the oil spill. Apparently they need a bunch of EMT's. Its a 30 day deployment at the least. Pay's good. We'll see what happens... i could be sent out in less than 24 hours apparently..

Snake Bite

Today i was walking through the park and i noticed some middleschool aged guys disturbing a somewhat irate member of the carnivorous reptile species. Specifically.. a grass snake. My first thought?

"Why dont you, oh my tiny middleschool friend, have the common courtesy to just get bitten already?"

I mean really.. the snake was there just minding its own business not hurting anyone. (probably) When all of a sudden some dumb kid starts poking it with a stick. dunno about you.. but when dumb kids poke me with a stick.. i tend to get upset.

But on top of that.. i'm a healthcare professional.. one with no experience. it'd be a chance to put into practice what i've learned about emergency snake bite management!

Also.. i just don't like most middleschoolers...

About Me

Ok, so the little "About Me" section off to your right.. yeah.. that one. its way too tiny. at least i think so.. so this post will be a little bit of an introduction to me... some stuff you need to know about me.. yup.

the first thing you need to know is possibly something you've already noticed. i write run on sentences. feel free to complain.

secondly, i'm a premed student. kind off. I love medicine, i find almost every aspect of the world of medicine fascinating. except for cancer. i will never, ever become an oncologist.

thirdly, i'm a little bit crazy. :-) for instance.. not to long ago, i dissected a wild rabbit i'd found in the woods while hiking. yes yes, i realize i could've gotten some terrible disease from inhaling the aerosolized blood or some such thing. but i didnt (we did take all proper BSI precautions) and i learned a lot about rabbit anatomy and Bot Flies!

Possibly another example of my intermittent bouts of insanity.. i have a strange fascination with arterial blood spray. the morbidity of this fascination is not lost to me, however.. and i do try to to keep my thoughts on the matter to myself. for the most part. We'll see if my fascination continues after i've had patients spurt blood at me..

Fourthly.. and most importantly, i'm a Christian. this blog is going to be about my life as an EMT, but since its my life, i'm going to talk about my faith on occasion. Its my wish that this blog (as with everything in my life) would glorify my heavenly Father.. so yeah. Who knows, i might even write a post about being a christian scientist sometime in the future.. maybe. we'll see..

So yup. I think thats all for now. I'll post up the old blog posts.. i think they'll appear before the last two posts i just made. so i hope you find them interesting...

First Post

Hello. Welcome to my new blog.

First off, let me say that it's a bit of a work-in-progress. So please excuse its current ugly state. Hopefully it'll improve with time, and a bit of tender loving care...

Secondly. The point of this blog is to document my life as i work as a Emergency Medical Technician. Now... here in lies an issue. A small, yet critical issue. Actually, thats a lie, its a pretty figgin huge issue. i'm currently unemployed. so the first couple of posts will be imported from a previous blog i wrote (which i failed to update regularly) about my EMS training.

Thirdly! hopefully, i'll be employed soon, and i can begin to write posts about my profession!

YAY!

Good evening my faithful readers! EMT training class is almost up. I've just got to take the final, finish up clinicals and then I'm cleared to take the National Registry exam. So cheers to that! It's been a pretty tough class, and I am NOT looking forward to the final, but I've been studying hard, so hopefully I'll be ready.

Heres a "stuff learned" list!

1. Death is hard to treat. So we (as EMS professionals) try to avoid that particular symptom.

2. The most common complication of a laceration to the jugular vein is an air embolism.

3. Always check for hypoglycemia if your patient appears drunk.

4. Always check for an exit wound if your treating a GSW.

5. If the steering wheel is deformed.. the patient probably hit it with his head.. which is bad.

6. Delivering a baby is messy.

7. Vomit comes in all the colors of the rainbow.

8. Try not to give a kid the adult does of epinephrine.

9. ALWAYS make sure the KED is propperly attached. It can, and will, lacerate off(thats O. F. F.) a nipple. Patients tend to get pissed and write up complaints when you lacerate off their nipples...

And thats it for now. I could continue on and on, and maybe I will later. For now, heres a picture of me and my stethoscope staying up late to study! ALSO! clinicals are soon, so hopefully I'll have some awesome stories to tell (I'll have to be slightly vauge for HIPAA 's sake, but I'll make it work) .

Well, EMT training is almost over with... i have a couple more classes, one more test, and then the final. Oh yeah, also the clinical rotations.

The clinical rotations consist of two shifts in the ER and two shifts on an ambulance. The shifts in the ER will probably be pretty annoying... hectic... and hopefully educational, but i'm really looking forward to the ambulance shifts.

My instructor told us all to bring food to the fire station for our first shift. apparently if the new guys don't bring food everyone will hate them forever. haha...

So, i'm gunna get back to studying. I've got to make a really good grade on this last test to try and bring up my average so i have some wiggle room on the final...

Gotta memorize the glasgow coma scale, the cincinatti stroke scale and the apgar scale... along with a bunch of other stuff.

Maybe i'll make another post soon about random stuff i've learned...

More EMT stuff plus Glee PLUS some spanish

Well hello my faithfull follower(s... hopefully).

Recently i decided that, as i will probably be working as an EMT in texas, i will need to learn some basic spanish. Now, Barns and Noble has an extensive collection (2) of spanish resources for healthcare personl. However... i am broke. Therefore. I have begun to compile my own list from a variety of resources found upon the internet.

some key phrases i will need to know include...

Me duele el codo. Tengo dolor del codo.

¿Qué tal te encuentras? ¿Le/Te duele mucho? ¿Cuánto tiempo estuvo inconsciente?

¿Cuántas veces le apuñalaron?

I'll let you figure out what they mean... although i know you won't. Cause you're lazy.

In other news... i'm a pro at auscultating blood pressures now... and now knows how to perform an full patient assessment.

And, well, i was going to talk about Glee... this new TV show... but i don't want to anymore, so i'll talk about It instead. I'm reading it. The movie that has instilled an irational fear of clowns in so many children across america was actually a book first. By Steven King. I'm sure everyone knows this cause they say "Steven King's "IT" everytime they talk about the movie... SO yeah, i'm reading it. and its much more graphic than the film. We'll see how it ends...

Thats all for now...

Bye.