That Bloody Girl

I play this game when I get into my car that I like to call: "where the fuck is everything in this vehicle?! I don't know how to drive this." It's a game I invented in September of last year, just about when I started driving an ambulance multiple days a week. Driving an ambulance, it turns out, seriously changes your life. And, I don't mean the patients and the calls and the cases change your life. I mean I truly no longer know where the gear shift, the overhead light, the windshield wipers, the emergency break, or the headlights are in my personal vehicle. You know, the one without the lights, sirens, or giant box on the backside for patients and paras. When I get into my car and drive away, I really don't know where I am. I play the game the most after I've been running emergent on a rainy day. I go to shut off windshield wipers and lose my headlights. This is probably the most common mistake I make. Another popular favorite, though, is trying to shi...

There is something about partners. We are there for each other's best and worst times, we hold the other's life in our hands. We are on a level beyond friendship, but we are casual and rarely completely forward about thoughts and feelings. We have to communicate well, know when and how to speak up and know when to be silent. We have to work as a team. To make jokes; to have fun; maybe even be a little silly. We have to be able to sit in silence and be comfortable. To not ask for anything more or anything less than what is expected and to understand when we've crossed the line. Or, we have to be very good at hiding our feelings, ignoring our surroundings, and dealing with the constant misery of being thrown into the fire--four days a week, twelve hours a day--with a bad partner.  We have to live with the consequences of choosing a shift, no real control over with whom we spend the next six months. Sometimes, there are just people you can't work with. But, what if they ar...

I can't think of one good reason I want to be a surgeon. I have thought of hundreds of excuses--something other than the old "I want to help people" line. I've said how much I like to work with my hands, that I want to do something important, that I am a workaholic who never wants to quit...I have even said I really just want to cut up people and see how they work--and that wouldn't be any fun on dead people (so forensic pathology is out). The truth is, I don't know. I just don't know. All of those answers are probably true, but a straight, honest answer that encompasses all my true feelings--I don't have one. I just don't know. But, the urge  to do it, the desire...it's like the desire to fly. It's overwhelming and a little insane. It makes you giddy all-the-while making you nauseous. It's something that, once you start thinking on it--working out the logistics, believing that maybe it's possible--if you don't try, you'll ...

I've been an EMT now for six months. I earned my license a little over a year ago and in May of last year interviewed for my first ever EMS job. I got it and, needless to say, I was thanking my lucky stars. I have wanted to practice medicine for a while now and this was my first step. It felt like my life, stagnant for twenty-two years, was finally in motion. I was thrilled, terrified, and could hardly sit still. Would I succeed, would I fail, would I realize medicine wasn't the right path for me? Or would I be affirmed? Would I realize there was only on place I truly belonged, one thing I was meant to do? I don't know if I have answered those questions yet. But I am still here, still working. I am learning something new every day--about the world, about the job, about myself. And I am here to hate it. I don't know if people will read or care, I doubt my words will be helpful for anyone but me. But, I know I need to put my thoughts out there. An I know I want to make s...