As I get older, my job gets to me more. For the longest time I was able to separate work and life, it was easy. Someone died, I moved on. I scraped my first dead teenager off I-40 in OKC in 2001. In 2003 I transported my first dead child to an ER knowing nothing could be done. The next night, I transported my second dead child to the same ER, knowing again that there was little hope. But we worked as hard as we could. The next day, I had moved on, it's how I coped. It's how I've managed to make it this long.
The last 15 years of my life have spent perfecting my craft, so that when I have nights like tonight, I can go home and know that there was nothing else I could've done. From my perspective, everything went smooth, he had chest pain so I managed it, he couldn't breathe so I got respiratory therapy involved, when he quit breathing, he barely missed a breath before I was ventilating him, when he lost his heart beat, he barely missed a beat before I shocked him and started CPR. I was just talking to him 30 minutes before asking him what his kids names were. It was just 30 minutes ago I told his wife I would take care of him, that he was in the best hands. He was just 48 years old. Ten years ago, I'd be out right now with friends, already moved. Now I'm paralyzed thinking of how his wife broke down when I told her that he was dead, how she trusted us to make him better, how he had no choice but to go along with what we were doing because he was having a heart attack, how his kids weren't there to see there father once more.
For the fifth time this week, I've had to tell a family that their loved one died. That we did all we could, that the doctor involved is a world class physician that wrote the books, that is broadcast all over the world because he's so fukking good.
So here I sit, my pager next to me, staring at me. I know it will go off again soon, and I'll be called in for another heart attack, or heart failure so bad that we'll put in a special pump that only a handful of hospitals in the world can put in. I know the odds will be stacked against that patient as well, and I'll tell that family that they're in the best possible hands because I believe it with all my being, and that I'll take the best possible care of them.
And my wife wants to know whats for dinner
The last 15 years of my life have spent perfecting my craft, so that when I have nights like tonight, I can go home and know that there was nothing else I could've done. From my perspective, everything went smooth, he had chest pain so I managed it, he couldn't breathe so I got respiratory therapy involved, when he quit breathing, he barely missed a breath before I was ventilating him, when he lost his heart beat, he barely missed a beat before I shocked him and started CPR. I was just talking to him 30 minutes before asking him what his kids names were. It was just 30 minutes ago I told his wife I would take care of him, that he was in the best hands. He was just 48 years old. Ten years ago, I'd be out right now with friends, already moved. Now I'm paralyzed thinking of how his wife broke down when I told her that he was dead, how she trusted us to make him better, how he had no choice but to go along with what we were doing because he was having a heart attack, how his kids weren't there to see there father once more.
For the fifth time this week, I've had to tell a family that their loved one died. That we did all we could, that the doctor involved is a world class physician that wrote the books, that is broadcast all over the world because he's so fukking good.
So here I sit, my pager next to me, staring at me. I know it will go off again soon, and I'll be called in for another heart attack, or heart failure so bad that we'll put in a special pump that only a handful of hospitals in the world can put in. I know the odds will be stacked against that patient as well, and I'll tell that family that they're in the best possible hands because I believe it with all my being, and that I'll take the best possible care of them.
And my wife wants to know whats for dinner
I'm not sure how medical personnel do it day-to-day. Over in the desert I used to swing by the Clinic's to see them to thank them because of the work they do...incredible stuff. Just remember of the great work you're doing for people, because without you they don't even stand chance!
