A Work in Progress

Today I went sledding with a couple of friends for the first time at UMBC. I can't remember the last time I (slid?) and I forgot how freaking fun it is! Not only did I go sledding, but I got to use a dining hall tray (obtained from sources unknown) which I think was pretty funny. It was the most use I ever got out of one of those. It's snowing pretty heavily here now, as it has been for most of the day. If they don't call school soon, I think the commuters in my class will self destruct! Since we Marylanders are quite frightened of the snow, it's likely school will be closed again tomorrow. (yay! more time to...uh...study, yeah, that's it.) So, my Mom said that my blog was "boring" so I decided to put in a couple amusing things from my first city shift. Call #1 was for a woman who had no real chief complaint but she was using her hair to store a big, red comb. (no, the call was not for a foreign object in the hair.) I guess you never know when you'll n...

I had my first Baltimore City clinical last night. I was full of anxiety all day before I got there, and I'm not even sure why. I hate being late, and I was afraid the ambo would leave without me, and I'd have to sit there like a goof waiting for them to come back (if they ever did). I was also worried that my preceptor would be, how can I put this? Unpleasant, that's a good word for it. But, as it turned out, my preceptor is awesome, and couldn't be nicer. In this blogs' future he will referred to as "my preceptor" (how original, I know. If you want, I'll come up with clever nicknames for your people too.) His partner is equally as awesome, and in this blogs' future she'll be referred to as "old gray mare" (which I didn't make up) and, as finger dexterity becomes limited after all those FISDAP forms, OGM for short. Even though I did no ALS skills and every call we had was, how can I put this? unnecessary, that's a good word f...

Today we officially learned surgical "crikes." Or cricothyrotomy, a fantastic procedure involving cutting a persons neck open, putting a tube in it and breathing for them...awesome! In fact, today I had my finger in someone's trachea! Slightly disturbing, but freakin' cool! Visiting the cadaver lab was an interesting adventure to say the least. Nothing promotes classmate bonding like being in a creepy basement with big jars of formaldehyde and two dead bodies. Regardless of the creepy factor I got to intubate my first real person, perform needle cricothyrotomy, and start some IOs. After this, Wes, Ewing, and I went and checked out my station for city clinicals. Lucky medic 13 is housed in probably the ugliest building on earth, but it seems like a pretty good end of town. Last week I participated in the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation conference. I had a good time and learned some cool stuff, but I could have done without the 5am wake ups. I won'...

I've made a blog. Check it out. Why have I made a blog? I don't know Every blog I've ever read has a healthy dose of hilarious, mostly because people write stuff in them that most people don't give a crap about. For that matter, people probably won't care to much to read mine, but whatever. If you're that interested in my "deep thoughts" you can rent my diary for $20 an hour, just let me know. I also love the extra stuff people put in blogs, but I assure you, this one won't be filled with quiz results like "You're Chlamydia!" (from the "Which STD are you?" quiz.) Really, I'd like to put my experiences as a Paramedic student at UMBC in this blog. Maybe my family can use it to keep up on my life. I'll probably end up putting completely superfluous and random thoughts in here for all to see. If you read it, great, hopefully I'll remember to update it every once in a while for you. Feel free to comment, although it...