No Progress...

Our closing date for the new house is October 18th...which is just 10 days away.

Holy crap.

I have ten days to pack up an ENTIRE house, one that's been collecting junk for almost 20 years. Not even ten days, because I will be on duty for 3 of them. So that leaves me a week to clean out and pack up. That's three bedrooms, a living room (with overstuffed coat closet), an attic that I suspect has every toy and Christmas tree ever owned by my family, and kitchen that's busting at the seams, because I'm such a kitchen-gadget slut and I buy everything I see on infomercials that promises healthy, quick meals on the table in ONE MINUTE OR LESS!

I haven't started cleaning out yet, and I haven't even gotten any boxes. I'm on duty at the fire station until tomorrow morning, so hopefully I can hit it wide open when I get home and get some stuff cleaned out. Less junk equals less to move, right?

Thought about having a yard sale...rejected that idea. I have enough on my plate right now, and the thought of trying to host a sale is just too much for me to handle. Looks like the local charity thrift store is going to get a huge donation.

Here's my plan for the upcoming couple of days:

1. Clean out closets and trash at least 1/3 of everything in there
2. Clean out dressers - same thing, using the 1/3 rule.
3. Pull down pictures and decor on the walls.
4. Start wrapping and packing kitchen stuff that's not "everyday".
5. Call utility companies and arrange to have accounts moved over.
6. Get prices for moving van - I would so much rather make one big trip than lots of little ones!

On a totally different note, The Girl is going to her first Homecoming dance tonight. We went shopping a couple of weeks ago (yay for not procrastinating!) and got her a fantastic dress that looks so great on her. Her new favorite aunt is going to do her hair tonight, since I can't be there to help.

Which sucks. Big time.

That's one of the downsides of my job - missing out on the big stuff, because I have to be on duty. Unfortunately, the EMS Gods do not recognize weekends and holidays - people still get sick and hurt, and invariably will do something stupid.

Ah, the buzzer is going off. Time to run a call...be safe out there!

First Comes Love...Second Comes Marriage

The wedding was amazing. Absolutely awesome.

My husband and I got married on the beach just outside of Myrtle Beach, SC, with just a few family and close friends present. We didn't want big, we didn't want splashy - just something fun. I think we accomplished that when my dear friend, we'll call him The Canadian Beer Guy, became an ordained minister just so he could dress up and fulfill my wish to be married on the beach...by a pirate.

Yep, he performed the whole ceremony in full pirate regalia, complete with feathered hat and silk drawers. He wrote our vows, which were so hilarious that we couldn't get through them with a straight face. I did make the promise to protect my love from my wrath, and from giraffes (which are tall and are known to step on people because they don't look where they're going).

The kids had a blast. The girls were absolutely beautiful in their dresses.

Such seriousness and dignity!

 And our handsome little guys managed to stay practically dry and sand-free until the ceremony was over.

Aren't they sweet...and standing still!

My partner, Super Medic, made the five-hour drive to SC to be there for the wedding and festivities, which meant so much to me. It's a pretty close bond you develop with a partner, after spending 24 hours every third day together. He's a damn good medic, and a damn good guy.

Now we're back in town, and it's time to start gearing up for the big move across town to the new house (YAY!). I'm going to miss our little house, where both of my children have been raised, but as the family grows (there are SIX of us now...geez.) the living space must as well, to avoid bloodshed.

I'm going to chronicle our move, with (hopefully) helpful hints and tips and trial-and-error processes. If you have any ideas that would make moving a houseful of people and stuff while still working a 24/48 schedule, I would appreciate it!!

Expanding My Scope

When I first started this blog, it's main purpose was going to be discussing EMS. The weird calls I ran, the crappy and not-so-crappy shifts, and my dealings with the pranksters at the fire station. I wasn't going to really talk about my "real life," or what happened while not in uniform. Because really - who would want to read about that? I wanted every post to be extraordinary, one that would grab my erstwhile reader by the throat and not let go until I'd taken them on a fast-paced roller coaster ride of emotions, describing my adventures in the ambulance!!

Come to find out...I didn't have all that much exciting stuff to write about. Nothing's really happened lately noteworthy enough for me to even blog about, much less for a total stranger to read about! Most of our calls have been run-of-the-mill sick people, or folks who just needed a taxi ride to the hospital. We did have a standby for a commercial structure fire a few shifts ago - one of my firsts while being on the ambulance. We got to stand around in the pouring rain and pounding hail with lightning flashing overhead while the guys put the wet stuff on the hot stuff.

So I stopped blogging, before this fledgling blog even got off the ground. I just didn't have anything to talk about! What was the point? No one was reading it but me. I didn't tell anyone that I was blogging, and I still haven't. No one cares what I have to say.

But I'm going to do it anyway - nobody likes a quitter, right? I'm going to write about my family, the trials and tribulations of trying to plan a destination wedding on a shoestring budget, the growing pains my fiance and I are experiencing trying to merge two families into one. You'll get to hear some stories about my Labradork Retarded, who actually sent me to the ER the other night with a possible right arm fracture.

Now THAT was a funny story...

One of Those Shifts

So yesterday was just one of those shifts - you know the one I'm talking about. You're on duty for 24 hours, and you run two or three calls in the first 18 hours. The day drags on, you're bored out of your mind...you can't stay awake if you sit down in the day room, but you know that as soon as you make your bunk up and unzip your boots, tones are gonna drop.

You've got to admit that those of us in EMS are a superstitious lot...you don't say the "Q" word while you're on duty, you never say ANYTHING about how long it's been since your last cardiac arrest at the nursing home, and if you ever find a student third-rider that's a White Cloud, you make sure they do every clinical ride along in the back of your truck.

My truck is usually pretty darn busy - our company prints out stats for every truck each month, and last month, our truck outran every other one by 40 calls. We have by far the largest territory, and usually when a call comes out, it's going to be something good. We run our share of BS calls - we've got 5 nursing homes in our zone - but we also land the most helicopters for major trauma and CVAs. It's nothing for us to run 7-10 calls a shift...my personal best was 13.

Getting back to the whole superstition thing...it's rare for my truck to not run more than 4 calls before bedtime. We dread those days, because we KNOW we're going to be busting our butts all night. We've actually jumped another truck's calls around dinner time to up our numbers, just so we can get some sleep. Crazy? You betcha. :) But it always seems to work.

Not the case yesterday - everyone was slow. And don't you know it...right about time the bunk room chit-chat quieted down (think The Waltons, only with crude humor and ping pong balls being flung around the room) and we got all warm and comfy in our beds...dispatch with "Units, stand by for a call."

GRR!! Get up, get dressed, somebody hit the button so the friggin' encoder will stop beeping, grab your radio, get in the truck, grab some gum so you don't have Refusal Breath, and flip on the lights and sirens.

Run your call, clean the back of the ambulance, finish up your PCR. Chat with your favorite nurses, who tell you to go back to station and not to bring them any more patients.

Back in service, back into the bay, back in the bunk room. Boots off, uniform shirt hanging beside the bed. Slip under the covers, find that perfect spot...

"Units, stand by for a call."

5 Facts About Me

1. I am a mom of two great kids - The Girl is 14 (going on 20), and The Boy is almost 7. I spaced them out that way, thinking, "With seven years difference, they won't fight and argue, right?" WRONG!! They can actually coexist in the same room for short periods of time, but anything over an hour and someone's going to be bruised or bleeding...good thing I'm an EMT!

I also have two "almost" children - Cupcake, who is 11, and Little Man, who is 4. They might not be children of my body, but they are children of my heart. I've only had a relationship with them for a little over a year, but they are nonetheless mine. I wish I could spend more time with them...maybe, one day.

2.  I'm in a committed relationship with the man of my dreams. Hose Jockey (henceforth known as HJ) is a firefighter for a neighboring county, and we constantly tease each other about who's cooler - EMS or fire. I call him HJ (or Stretcher Fetcher - my personal favorite), and he calls me Scissor Packer. It's not derogatory - it's just our thing.

He's actually the one who came up with the name of this blog - even taught Little Man when he was a baby to call out, "Look! There's a bandaid wagon!" any time he saw an ambulance. Then came The Boy saying, "My mommy is a bandaid wagon driver!" It's our household running joke - they say it, I act all  mad and insulted. :)

He and I met years and years ago, and he became my best friend. We just clicked the first time we met, which was odd for him, because he's almost painfully shy. After years of friendship, we decided to try out a relationship - and we've never looked back. I believe it was Plato that said that at birth our souls are split in two, and we spend the rest of our lives looking for our other half. I have no doubt that I've met mine.

3. I've been an EMT since June of 2009. Immediately after graduating, I got a job for a BLS service that ran 911 calls for a large metro area. Our job was to run basic calls on our own, and respond to the local fire units onscene of a call to transport the patient to the hospital. Coming from a small town, this was a huge culture shock for me. I had no experience driving an ambulance (we actually had "vanbulances," but still!), especially not on 4-lane interstates with rude drivers. I had never dealt with people who lived in abject poverty such as this, with  boarded-up windows, garbage in the corner...and the ever-present smells. We really got no respect from the local firefighters (had one tell me, "You all look alike to me."), we posted in the vans for 12+ hours at a time, and management was unreasonable - it was tough. Not what I was expecting when I got that National Registry card!

4. I now work for a private company that provides 911 service for a smaller county, which has a more family feel. We have three dedicated ALS trucks, one BLS truck, and ALS and BLS non-emergency transport trucks. I am on an ALS truck that's based out of a fire station with 4 firefighters. My regular partner, Super Medic, is amazing - we've been together for 8 months. He's on the disabled list at the moment - blew his knee out, and won't be back on the truck for probably another month or so. I miss him terribly - he and I had developed a rhythm that worked for us, both on calls and off. Now I'm playing Potluck Partner, so I get to learn another medic's strengths and weaknesses and weirdness every shift.

It gets old.

5. Speaking of firefighters - my guys are amazing. I've never been in a situation where I spent long periods of time with men to whom I'm not related. And it was pretty obvious on my first few shifts that they'd never had a "hen in their rooster house" before, either!! We managed to work through the awkwardness - they now close the door to the bathroom, and I look the other way when they run around the bunkroom in their boxers. You're sure to hear stories about them here, because the pranks they pull are legendary. They like to have fun and goof off, but when it comes time, I couldn't ask for a better group of guys to have my back on calls.

Yet Another EMS Blog...

I've been reading EMS blogs since before I started EMT school, when the idea of zooming around in an ambulance and saving lives was just a tickle in my head. Someone sent me a link to Kelly Grayson's
A Day In The Life of an Ambulance Driver" site, which became a daily read for me (sometimes more often, when he's feeling prolific). It snagged me - hook, line, and cursor.

I started visiting folks on his blog roll, bookmarking sites while I laughed, cried, and even learned how to be a better medic. I read stories of crappy shifts, crappy patients (sometimes quite literally) , and crappy partners. I cheered Epijunky on while she bravely fought her way through Medic school, shed tears with Michael Morse as he rides the rescue...there are so many EMS blogs out here in cyberspace, each and every one valuable for the knowledge, camaraderie, and  enjoyment they impart!

I'm not really sure what's made me think I might write something that someone else wants to read, but I'm going to give it a shot. I'm still pretty new to this whole EMS thing, and sometimes stuff happens on the truck that I just want to talk about with people who might understand what I'm feeling, and what's running around in my head. There are those calls that make great stories - "You aren't gonna BELIEVE what this patient just asked me to do!!" and there are those that, no matter what you do, how you try to rationalize or compartmentalize, you can't get out of your head. That patient is going to be there when you finally make it back to the bunk room and hit the bed - you're going to run that call over and over, critiquing every move you made, every intervention, every decision...You can't forget the look on his wife's face when she looks through the pass-through and sees you doing compressions on her husband's chest, the medic getting his intubation kit out. I don't think we're supposed to forget, and I don't think we should be able to just...get over it.

I want to be the best EMT I can be, and I think that every one of these calls - what I take away from them - makes me stronger, smarter, and better.