What you won't find in a book

As a friend of mine pointed out in a comment to a recent post, there are a lot of things that don't get taught in any book. The feeling of looking at someone and knowing how little chance they have. The desperation in your heart and hands as family members look on to you pumping oxygen into their loved ones lungs because they stopped breathing on their own. The look of children on their grandmothers face as her 'chest pain' gets worse, isn't responding to the 'nice mans' medication and the ambulance is yet to arrive.

There are a lot of things that can't be taught through any book, partly because they're experiences you simply wouldn't want to share with others, partly because they can't be described in words. These are the quiet moments where you look into your soul and see yourself as a mortal being, rife with fissures and cracks - ready to break at any moment.

These are the moments when people look at you - the medical professional - and expect you to have some miraculous therapy or treatment to help the person they love keep living, and as much as I would love it we usually don't have the answer they would like.

As my friend rightly puts it, "this is definitely going to be one of the hardest things to do..."

Unfortunately it's something we'll have to get used to doing, after all, we all have to die of something - and with modern medicine people are living longer but dying in hospitals as we try to squeeze every last drop of life from their body.

The hospital giveth, the hospital taketh away.

Earth Hour 2008

I am pleased to say that I participated but a few hours ago in Earth Hour 2008!

Basically it just meant turning off lights and what not - anything that used electricity. While I know the impact was only for an hour, if you multiply this out by the number of people all across the world who participated, I'm sure you'll start to see just what this is really about.

Saving coal and other sources of energy for a bit is not the point - it's about raising awareness. What started in one city (an Aussie one at that!) has spread around the world to increase awareness of the state of the environment and our impact on what is left.

If anyone hasn't done so already, check out http://www.earthhour.org/ for more details, and make sure you take part in 2009!

Thoughts so far

Well, almost at the end of another week of training and I have a few thoughts about it so far...

It's intense - the sheer volume of information, whilst not overly complicated material, is overwhelming. Despite this - I love it. Even though I'm yet to go on road, the nature of the training we are receiving and the skills we're expanding on every day makes me wake up each morning (still sleepy and irritable, but also) excited and ready for another day.

But it isn't all perks. When we first got here we started a line of questioning for some of the senior paramedics, a way of getting to know the things about the job that the public don't hear. Best job, worst job, goriest job and saddest job - the story that's stayed with me the longest comes from one mans saddest story...

He was called to a possibly deceased and when he arrived, sure enough there was a deceased man laying there. He had been dead for possibly several hours, and no attempt at bringing him back was going to be necessary. He was an elderly man, the person who made the call was his wife who had found him 'sleeping' in their bed. After telling her the bad news, she sat there silent for a moment.
"But... what do I do now?" was all she asked. They had been married for over 60 years - every day together, every moment shared. She had spent vastly more of her life with this man than without, and just like that - he was gone.

These are the situations we don't have protocols for, that we can't train for no matter how hard we try. These are the hardest parts of the job and the real test of strength.

I like to think that one day I can stand in front of a class of new recruits and tell them my stories - the best, the worst, the goriest and the saddest. I just hope mine isn't so sad - but I know it will be, and that it's a part of what the role entails. I want to be good at this, and then I want to be better - I'm not doubting myself, but I hope I have the strength.

That's something you won't know until you're standing in front of that frail old lady, alone for the first time in decades and scared, tears welling in her eyes as you desperately try to stop the ones welling in yours.

Feeling faint

There's something that happens on a regular basis at major music events that would be quite amusing if it wasn't so damn annoying for us - people (predominantly young girls) 'fainting'.

Now if someone has genuinely fainted, I'm all for heading over and helping them out - it's just that this is usually not the case. We have a term for this; 'playing possum', as possums are known to 'play dead' when confronted by a big scary animal to detract attention. These people do the same but to achieve the opposite - the 'patient' doesn't really need medical attention (of the non-psychiatric kind perhaps) but pretends to so that the big scary animal (me, naturally, and their friends) give them the attention they so crave. Some of you might remember I've blogged on this before.

The case that makes me bring this up again occured at (surprise) a concert where we got a call from security to attend a faint at the rear of the arena. My partner and I were the closest responding crew being at the front of the stage (naturally ;P) with the fastest route being through the crowd to the back of the arena. While it didn't take us long to get through, it's never a nice thing to have to shoulder yourself and your partner, each laden with big heavy gear through a crowd surging in the opposite direction to an aging man singing about teenage angst. Kids these days...

We arrive at our destination to find a security guard with a grin on their face - the patient 'didn't want to wait, so she decided to walk to a designated first aid post to faint'.


But as I said at the start, sometimes these faints are serious in nature. My sympathies go out to MAS who recently had an influx of such patients - although I can't vouch for all of their validity - a fair proportion have been reported to me by a worker as legitimate faints. With the warmer weather here I'm sure not looking forward to next summer!

One final thing - this article was released a few days back almost implicating the police of killing a man with capsicum spray... sneaky reporters twisting the scenario! Murderous cops sells papers, the heartfelt efforts of overworked, under appreciated and often abused (verbally/ physically/ mentally) police doesn't.

We have liftoff

Well, here I am. It's now the second day of commencing my new role as a Trainee Paramedic and I'm loving it so far. The people are fantastic - the training staff are friendly and eager to teach you (although frequently reminding you that there is a LOT of content to cover in very little time), the higher level trainees and other staff keep reminding you to hold on while sharing their stories and the people in my class are awesome. They come from all walks of life, from a gym trainer to a carpenter to a physiotherapist - even a fellow biochemist!

I have to admit, so far I am thanking my lucky stars for my medical background, which has made the content so far fairly simple to learn. A lot of others without the background are starting to worry, but we're going to run some study groups lead by those who have the background (I'll be helping with chemistry, metabolism, anatomy and physiology) so that we'll all feed off each others strengths.

This class comradery was fairly apparent from word go (although most of us are still trying to figure out who everyone is!), and I'm truly inspired by the general atmosphere of the 'family' of the ambulance service.

I'm getting my uniform fitted tomorrow which should be fun - but till then back to study!

T-Minus (again!)

Quick shout out that tomorrow I leave for Sydney.

Hopefully internet on Sunday, means actual post.

Till then,

Of Mice and Men

I decided to get into healthcare because I felt like I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to reach out to those in need and make them better, happier or just plain alive.

It was a very short time in my life where I held those convictions, because very quickly I realised how little difference you can make, how a lot of the time reaching out to those in need can earn you a punch, that gentle words and proper treatment doesn't always help the pain, and some people you just can't keep alive, no matter how hard you try.

Despite this, I still found the work rewarding - the small victories keep you going. I loved the hands on nature of the work, chatting with different people and hearing their stories. I loved the random 'How the hell did you manage that?' casualties and the ones that make you think on your feet - sometimes literally, as you wheel a patient across to the acute casualty post.

Some patients stay with you long after you've handed them over, be it by their past, their present and why you're seeing them now or because you know what the future holds for them. A while ago I had a patient that stayed with me for all three reasons.

He was in his early thirties and had been walking home from a night out with friends. He had severe skeletal deformities of congenital origins, the details of which I'll go into in another post. I only mention this here so you'll appreciate further the next sentence. He was beaten - bloodied and bruised - by a mob of bypassers for no reason other than he looked different and was unable to defend himself. They had thrown him down and kicked him repeatedly until he had stopped crying - his arms, legs, chest and even his head.

A civilian happened to drive by approximately ten minutes after the attack and noticed him lying in the bushes, almost invisible in the night and had pulled over to see if he was ok, had noticed me driving by in a marked vehicle and flagged me down.

He was taken to the ED, examined and was found to have 'minor injuries', but was in quite a deal of pain. Combined with his history was going to spend a night or two in ward for observation.

This job stayed with me for quite some time after the attack, the sheer stupidity of it and the damage ignorance had caused. I have no doubts that alcohol was a contributing factor in this attack, and that this is becoming a larger problem each week. Still, this wasn't the first beating I'd had to treat and I wish (oh how I wish) it would be the last - but I know the world doesn't work like that. People are always going to do stupid things for no reason, sometimes damaging the life of another. 'Tough' guys with something to prove beating up an innocent, crippled man.

Despite helping clean him up, treat his injuries, I felt powerless to do anything significant at all. But he thanked me for my help, and despite my feelings of ineffectiveness I felt maybe I had achieved something - even if it was just to reassure him that he was still alive.

Some patients stay with you longer than others, but in some way every patient's story changes you forever. You're never quite the same person after a big job, be it for good or ill, but I like to think of it as I'm always growing. Each day, each job makes me a better person, maybe not from gaining hands on experience but by hearing someone's stories, watching their plight and coming through it. Through their strength I gain my own strength, through their struggles I can overcome my own.

For that I am always thankful, and ever wanting to be better at what I do.

Getting ready for the move

Well it's now only a week before I start driving from Melbourne to Sydney - my brother has kindly volunteered to come with me for the drive to keep me company and he'll fly down later.

But the process of getting ready for the move has proved to be a lot more difficult than I had first imagined... I'm no stranger to moving around, having lived in four different houses over the past three years - but for some reason this move is different. It's as if by moving interstate a certain part of my life is being left behind, although I hope I can pick it back up again when I return, and that until then I pick up something of a life in my new job.

One thing that I wanted to do - and luckily was able to - before I moved was to travel around the city of Melbourne and take a few happy snaps to remember the place by. I'll upload them into here so you can all get an idea of what I'm talking about.

I'll miss mornings like this, coming into work with the sun rising beautifully on the horizon. After watching this I was always happy - I knew my morning coffee was only minutes away...

I'll miss the 'cafe culture' of Melbourne - I've already discovered finding a good coffee is nigh impossible after 5pm in Sydney...

I'll miss my family, including my puppy (even if he may be 12 years old...) who is staying with Mum at her place.

I'll miss my friends, those who I went to uni with, those I've worked with, those I've met and trained in St John with - I'll miss them all.

I know I'm still going to be around, coming back down every three or four weeks, but the fact that these things won't be right there in front of me while I'm in Sydney is something I'll miss. I know life is about change and progressing forward, but it never hurts to be able to look back and smile over the past.

On a side note, my recent acquisition of a Nikon D40X means I'll now be sharing some of my posts with accompanying photos. As the above attest, I'm still very amateur - but stick around and we'll see if I can't improve.