How will you change the world?

It was a huge package that I received in the mail today. With trepidation and excitement, I opened the end of the shipping envelope and took the contents out.

FedEx Express Shipping Envelopes and a FedEx Air Bill, 2 small boxes with vials nestled in protective styro-foam homes, and a thick packet with questionnaires and informational brochures.

Gulp! Am I really ready for this?

Let me rewind a little bit. My friend that passed away in August from Melanoma blogged about her experiences using a site called caring bridge. This site is available to patients and faimly members who are undergoing significant medical concerns. The idea is that a serious injury or illness is draining emotionally, physically, financially, and mentally on the patient and their caregivers. This site is supported by medical facilities and private donations and allows the user to have a site where they can post updates and friends and families can post messages of support.

My friend lost her battle with malignant melanoma but her children (14 months, 4, and 5 at the time of her death) will be able to see the testament of their mother's spirit and will be able to see how hard she fought to live and to be around for them. Even though the youngest will likely not remember his mother, Nathan will be able to see just how much his mother was loved and supported and how many lives she changed during her short 31 years on this earth.

You can read about Amber's journey here.

But I digress. In the 16 months of Amber's fight, people from all over the USA and internationally signed Amber's guest book. Many were family and friends or friends of friends. There was a small percentage of folks who were directed to her site by the owner or visitor of another caring bridge site. These people would link their sites in their guest book post so that others could visit that page and offer support. You could literally spend hours surfing through the caring bridge site, hopping from one to another.

It was through Amber's site and another site that I frequent that I found Dominik.

Dominik is 2 1/2 and was born 12 weeks early due to kidney failure. He received a kidney from his mother on April 24th, 2007 and rejected the organ a month later. Obviously she can't give her other kidney and no one else in the family was an appropriate match.

They've made their plea very public. Dom has type A blood (which is good--it's a common blood type) but the difficulties lay in the high levels of antibodies from his rejection earlier this year. Currently, he is staying at the Ronald McDonald house with his mother where he is close to his medical team and receiving hemodialysis several times a week.

Enter Fairview Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN. The transplant center has been overwhelmed with inquiries regarding living kidney donation, including mine. But it isn't enough yet because a match hasn't been found for little Dominik yet.

I don't kid myself. I know that the chances that I'll match him are so slim that I'm really not even worried about "what if". I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. If I come to it...

I've already discussed organ donation with my family and I've been registered through the Motor Vehicle Department since I've had a driver's license. You can't take anything with you when you die, and your organs can help so many people have healthier and happier lives, free from the daily worry about the hourglass running out of time.

The beautiful thing is that you no longer have to wait until death to make a difference in someone's life. You can donate blood, plasma, platelets, bone marrow, kidneys, part of your liver, lungs, etc all before you die. All it takes is knowing a little information and knowing who to contact.

So, I will go to the lab on Monday morning and have my blood drawn to be sent back to Minneapolis for testing. And then I'll wait for the results.

Please consider being a living donor. Your gift of life will change the life of someone in this world.

Organ Transplantation by the Number:
-data taken from the UNOS website-

		Waiting list candidates	98,080	as of today 4:16pm
		Transplants January - September 2007	21,401	as of 11/30/2007
		Donors January - September 2007	10,847	as of 11/30/2007

Take 5....Tag you're it!

5 things found in my purse
Stethoscope, calendar-planner, industrial sized bottle of Ibuprofen, glasses, ink pen

5 things found in my wallet
Driver's License, state Paramedic License and all the ABC certs (CPR, PALS, NRP, ACLS, etc), health insurance card, medic alert card, money (credit card/cash)

5 things found in my room
In my living room currently:
Laptop, cats, cell phone, piles of mail and other paperwork I desperately need to go through, coffee cup with the liquid of life in it

5 things I've always wanted to do
Learn photography, have enough time to organize my house, volunteer more, learn about our county and state politics, begin an intensive paramedic review--for personal reasons

5 things I'm currently into
Trying to stay warm during the winter, learning about blogging and trying to grasp HTML, serving my coworkers as our Local's Union President, attempting to get motivated, looking hard at my life to see where I royally f$#%ed up.


Feel free to steal this and add it to your own blog with your top 5.

The nightmares have returned

I've passed the spot where you died 7 times today. I can't avoid it when I'm up at this station. I try not to think about it but seeing the places in the asphalt where parts of your vehicle violently gouged lines in the ground as they twisted and flew through the air. I try not to remember the bruising left on the roadway from all the fluids brings back that day fresh in my mind. I pretend that I don't see the permanently-burned-into-the-asphalt rubber marks from where your tires were drug across the roadway. Unsuccessfully, I try to block out the sounds, sights, and the smells from that day that seem so fresh in my mind.

I wonder what would have happened if I could have saved you. Could we have gotten you extricated from the tangled metal fast enough to make a difference? What kind of quality of life would you have? And the simple fact that it took the Fire Department over 2 hours to extricate your body after the investigation was complete doesn't lessen the guilty feeling that I have. We SHOULD have been able to do something.

I see your face--what was left of it--twisted in agony and I know in my heart that you did not go peacefully. I know that you suffered and only hope that you were already unconscious when the dump truck barrelled down on you at 65 miles per hours. Every time I've closed my eyes today, I see the scene from on onlookers point of view. It's like hitting the replay button on the DVD and watching it from a disembodied distance. Almost as if I was a spectator and not the one to pronounce your lifeless body, broken and bloodied, dead.

I anxiously wait for the dreams to come tonight, knowing that by the time I am fully awake they will have turned into nightmares.

Your blank stare, the stare of death and agony, will haunt my days and interrupt my nights for the rest of my life.

Rest in peace.

"I don't have any insurance"

The man was sitting in his car after just having falling in a public parking lot. The bones in his arm were obviously shattered and it was clear that he was in a severe amount of pain.

"Let us take you to the hospital", I pleaded.

"No I can't", said the man.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because I don't have any insurance" he said.

The sad fact of life is that millions of Americans are uninsured and don't have any health insurance. Even worse is that they let that fact dictate whether or not the seek medical care and/or treatment.

In my career, I've run into multitudes of people who have no insurance and clearly are in need of medical care. Their problems run the gamut from injuries they've sustained in motor vehicle accidents, broken bones, heart attacks, diabetic problems, chronic pain, and various other ailments.

These folks my heart goes out to because I've walked miles in their shoes. And I beg them not to allow their financial situations dictate if they get care or not, especially if they truly need it. I tell them that we take payments and will work things out with them. I tell them that the hospitals will accept as little a $5 a month as long as they pay something. I appeal to their sense of gloom and doom and will just about do anything to encourage them to go.

Sometimes it works....Sometimes it doesn't.

Then there are the folks who are on state medical aid and think that their state medical card is like a taxi voucher. They think that every time they need to go to the doctor, it necessitates a trip via an ambulance to the local ED. I still work in a system that practices "you call, we haul". Whether or not the person truly needs ambulance transportation, we can not refuse to take them.

Stubbed toe? Hop in!

Nasty pimple on your face? Hop in!

Cut on your finger? Hop in!

Before I get more nasty emails, let me first say that we shouldn't be denying people medical care at all. However, there is a better way for utilizing emergency services so that a Paramedic staffed ambulance is available to the people that truly need it. I can't tell you how many times I've been on a call with someone who didn't need transport by ambulance and had alternate means to get a doctor's office or the ED and the standby unit has been called to an active MI or cardiac arrest, or a major traumatic incident and we couldn't leave the patient with a stubbed toe.

That is so frustrating to me. Knowing that we could potentially save someone's life, someone who truly needs medical care and we are tied up with someone who is too lazy to get their spouse to drive them to the hospital.

And to have someone refuse medical care or transportation simply because they don't have insurance is ludicris. If I'm having a heart attack, I'm getting care regardless of my insurance status. I'll worry about the bill later, when I'm healthy and back on my feet. I've walked down that path before. I was hospitalized a number of years ago for almost 9 days and I didn't have insurance. I wound up without a diagnosis AND nearly $75,000 in medical bills. Thank GOD for medi-cal. They paid retroactive for the month and my portion was $400. But you see, my health is more important. I'll get the care that I need and I'll worry about the finances later.

The man I had the above conversation with? He finally agreed to go, fractured arm and all. I'd like to say that my sweet nature and caring attitude convinced him to go. I'd love to take the credit for it. But I can't. No, the credit rests solely in the hands of my dear friend, Morphine Sulfate. It's a beautiful thing, those pain meds.

"Come with me, sir. We have pain medicine. I'll make sure you are comfortable."

After all, isn't that our job? Relieving suffering and treating pain? Tending to the souls of our patients?

Be safe out there. And please, get medical insurance if it's available to you. I don't like to beg so please don't make me.

To the Anonymous Commenter....

How dare you question my writing and not have the guts to reveal who you are.

Since you feel like you need to nitpick and judge me and my personal thoughts, I'll respond to every single one of your "concerns" in public.....I don't need to hide behind "anonymous".

Anonymous said...

"I found this via a friend who frequents BBC and after reading these two lines I just had to say something.

"Thankfully, I didn't have to do anything really..."

"I don't really feel much like working today..."

I would hate to be the person who burdens you with my car accident when I have three kids and we all need calming down. And if you don't feel like working- you shouldn't! After all, when people need help but you just don't feel like it, why bother? And don't you worry- I'll drive safe because if I get into an accident I can not trust that you will want to save me (even though that is your job)!"
04 December, 2007 12:06


First of all, did you ever stop to consider that perhaps I was thankful that I didn't have to do anything at the wreck because NO ONE WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED?

Do you not think that I've seen enough children's brains splattered over the roadway, their lives cut way too short?

Or children who have lost an extremity?

Children who have suffered traumatic brain injuries because their parent chose to drive under the influence and didn't buckle them in properly?

Do you not think that I've seen one too many children whose parents have rolled over on them in the middle of the night while co-sleeping and suffocated them?

I've done CPR on far too many precious little children. I've pronounced too many babies dead.

So yes, I have earned the right to say that I am thankful I didn't need to do much more than try to calm down Mom and the children.

If further treatment had been needed, you bet your critically judgmental arse that I would have done everything in my power to have saved the lives of those children and/or their mother.

After triaging all the patients and determining what resources would be needed, I sat there with those children and held their hands, cuddled with the youngest, and helped to calm down Mom for nearly 10 minutes before EMS arrived.

I'd also like to point out the fact that I had no legal duty to act and was not required by current state legislation to stop and render aid. I did because I care AND because I have the training, the skills, the knowledge, the equipment, and the authority to provide emergency medical treatment to my fellow human beings.

As far as my other comment about hoping my shift is mellow....Have you ever worked in public safety? My guess is um, NO you haven't. If you have you'd understand that hoping we are busy is a double edged sword. If we hope to be busy, we are hoping tragedy upon our community. Because to get a "good" call (shooting, stabbing, bad wreck, heart attack, code, etc) that means something bad has happened to someone else.

What kind of fricking sadist would I be if I wished harm and tragedy on my community?

Now, with that said, just because I said that I didn't want to do anything doesn't mean that I wouldn't. Big difference, in my opinion. I ALWAYS do my job to the best of my ability, ALWAYS. And since you don't know me, you couldn't possibly have any idea how many times I've brought a patient "home" with me and cried over them. You don't have any idea how many times I see a patient's face as I close my eyes at night and attempt to sleep.

My partner and I assisted our local ER with the unexpected cardiac arrest of a school aged child earlier this year. We did chest compressions on this youngster for almost 2 hours, assisting while the doctors, nurses, and air medical crew valiantly tried to save this precious child's life. We did chest compressions even when it was clear that this child had already been cradled in the loving embrace of our Lord. We did chest compressions with tears running down our faces while Mom and Dad were brought back and realized the light of their lives was gone forever. After we returned the flight crew to their air craft, empty handed, our strong and stoic firefighters cried with me while our hearts broke for the loss of that child and for the parents who would go home mourning the death of their beloved child.

Until you have walked a 24 hour shift in my shoes, don't you dare tell me how I should think, feel, act, or write. Do you have a positive attitude towards your job 100% of the time? Are you always happy and upbeat when going to work? Do you never have second doubts about things that are happening at your place of employment?

And if you wreck your car with your three children, I will do everything I can to save your life and your children's lives because it is my PASSION and not just my job. I will do it because I care about serving my community and the people who live in it. I will do it because I provide medical care to my community without regard to your ability to pay, skin color, religion, infectious disease status, etc.

Please do not EVER question my dedication to my job again. It's insulting and demeaning. I would give my life for yours or your children's lives if it came down to it.

Car Wreck

On duty today.....I hope that things are mellow today. I truly don't feel much like working today.

I was driving to an appointment yesterday, going a route that I don't usually travel and came upon a car wreck involving an 18 wheeler and an older model station wagon full of people. Looks like the 18 wheeler lost control on the wet roads and t boned the other vehicle, causing it to roll over several times. Thank God everyone in that vehicle was buckled in or they all probably would have been ejected--especially the 3 little ones in the back seat.

It's strange to be the first one on the scene when I'm off duty. I don't usually stop because by the time I pass the accidents, there is usually law enforcement, EMS, and the FD already there. Thankfully, I didn't have to do anything really, other than help calm down the kids and Mom. Once EMS got there, I gave report to the crews and helped them get everyone loaded up and then I went on my merry way.

It poured here yesterday, we really needed the rain but I hate driving in it. It was so bad at one point that I about needed to pull over because the visibility was so low.

If there is anything that you my readers would like me to blog about, send me a message and let me know!

Have a safe day and be careful.

Please keep "Alex" and his family, especially his uncle in your prayers today.

Why can't I fix everything?

Is it an innate desire to help my friend or is it my co-dependent nature?

I have a friend, we'll call him "Alex". I've known Alex for about 5 years through work. Alex is married and has children. Several months ago, I discovered they were having marital issues. He was having a tough time and confided in me because he needed someone to talk to. I couldn't do much except listen and that felt totally inadequate.

Those of you who know me and know where I work know about some of the troubles going on at my place of employment. Due to privacy reasons, I am choosing not to disclose the difficulties. Simply because I want the freedom to share my thoughts in this blog without worrying about patient confidentiality issues or other disclosures. Suffice to say, there are major problems. And as they drag on and on without resolution, we wait for the other shoe to drop. This has stressed us all to the breaking point and Alex is no different. As one who has a supervisory position, Alex is exposed on a daily basis to the stressors in our management and he is burned out. Although I love my friend and he makes a valiant effort to continue to do his job, he is burned out from work and home life.

He went to the doctor the other day with chest pain and difficulty breathing. His blood pressure was through the roof. His doctor told him he was at a very high risk of having a stress related heart attack. He's barely 30 years old, he's way too young to have stress related illnesses.

Last night, another one of our units picked up Alex's uncle and had him airlifted to a larger hospital. He had a BP of 250/160 and was having a massive stroke. He is on a ventilator and is extremely critical. The doctors do not expect him to make it.

I think Alex is depressed. And really, who the hell wouldn't be? Just one thing is more than enough, add them all together and you really have a recipe for disaster. I worry about his mental and physical health. I want to wave my magic wand and fix everything. I want my happy, care- and worry-free, and fun loving friend back. I want my friend back who delights in beating my ass at ping pong (and then rubs my face in it). I want my friend back who always has my back. I want my friend back who I can laugh with, who I can spend hours sitting at the picnic table outside our station talking for hours about anything and everything.

I asked Alex this morning if he planned on doing anything "stupid". His incredibly non-reassuring response was, "Define stupid". Of course I'm concerned that he might try to hurt himself, to check out of life, and to leave behind all that is so painful. I worry about intentional bodily harm. I've already lost one person I love this year to suicide, I refuse to lose another.

I wish I could be a better friend and take away all of Alex's pain. I know however, that Alex working through all his pain and fears and frustrations will make him a better person and will make him stronger. And as painful as it is, I realize that I am being a better friend to him by supporting him and listening to him. I know that right now he needs someone who won't judge him, someone who will listen to him vent, and someone who will put their arms around him and hold him while he cries.

Please say a prayer for my friend tonight. He needs all the strength and wisdom that he can get.