Trauma

I thought I’d type up an entry to let you know what else has been going on. Early January I went on a Trauma course for the weekend, on Monday morning I woke with aches in muscles I didn’t know existed. The course had an extremely practical nature and we were outside for quite a bit of it in the cold, wet weather. The Trauma course is an advanced course for people in the Red Cross who want to become Paramedic Crew in the ambulances. It involves more hands-on stuff having to see to head, abdominal, spinal injuries as well as fractures and other bits and pieces and we play with monitoring equipment too. If I go into the course in depth I would be here all night but my brain and body hasn’t had that much exercise for months! Playing with the long boards was fun. Goodness me I don’t think I have ever sweated as much. We walked in on one of numerous senarios faced with someone who, by looks of, fell off a chair (of course) so we suspected spinal injuries and played the safe route and got her on the board. We had to use a scoop first and anyway it took us about 40 minutes in total to imobilise the ‘casualty’ on the board. Hard work. Very hard work!

I was really nervous at first because everyone else on the course had been on the course before, but it was my first time and they were a lot more experienced than me.. it wasn’t a full course either, technically, I shouldn’t have been on it but my service manager knows I want to get on the ambulances and sit my IHCD so he arranged so I could go on it.

Anyway I thought I’d have to wait until June/July to sit the full course but apparently if I’ve done the practical side and feel confident enough to go with it, all I need now is learn the theory (body works, anatomy etc) then I can sit the IHCD exam in April.

Tags: life, red cross, thoughts

Meh

Well as many of our friends know (I’m friends with most of Callums friends, and vice versa), we have split up. I won’t go into all the details here but we’re still on talking terms, which is good. I feel really crap about the whole thing to be honest, my heart is conflicting with my head and normally I listen to my heart but I’ve decided to go with my head and think it’s the right thing to do. Thinking you’re ‘right’ doesn’t always make you happy though, certainly isn’t the case here.

2009 has got off to such a crap start, my head feels overwhelmed with everything and I can’t think straight. I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going, what to do next or anything. Was hoping to make this year productive but now… I feel so unmotivated, it’s hard. Really hard. Got my payslip today too and was expecting a decent one as I’ve worked all through Christmas, full time, including triple pay for Christmas/New Year but what I got paid was absolutely appauling. The worst payslip I have had since I’ve been there.

When are things going to go right? Seriously. NOTHING has gone right.

Yes, I’m in one of them moods. Ignore me.

Tags: feelings, jobs/careers, life, people, thoughts

Life is fragile

Quite a few things have happened since my last entry, maybe I’ll type it all up in a next entry but today my mind is fixated on a certain thing and I just need to get it out, I guess. I do enjoy my job, but sometimes it can be depressing and emotional and sometimes, certain things happen that really make you think and you leave work but your head is still there. Of course it’s important to be able to detach yourself from your work and to unwind when you get home, normally I can do this, but when I see the same people everyday, you do grow a bond with them no matter how hard you try not to; you do care about them, you do want to ensure they are kept healthy, you do talk to them, you do laugh with them, you are friends with them. For some of them, we are the closest thing they have to family.

When you see someone slipping down that slope of a serious illness it is a horrible thing to witness. When they’re going through all sorts of different treatment but still carry on with their daily life, laughing and joking, asking you HOW YOU ARE, when it is them putting on the brave face through what is a terrible time. When inside they are so tired they can hardly keep their eyes open and they feel so ill, makes you realise just how strong we, as a species, really are.

Past few days this lady hasn’t been eating nor drinking much, we have tried to encourage, sat next to her and talked while she was sipping the tea or taking a few mouthfuls of food. Today this lady is so weak, she couldn’t move out of bed, she said today, “I don’t want food. I don’t want water. I want to die. I’ve had enough, I just want to die”. She has stopped taking her medication (her own decision), and her course of chemotherapy has been stopped. Tomorrow the doctor/nurse is going to set up a syringe driver and judging from her current condition we’ve been told she has a week, or possibly 2 weeks left to live.

It’s hard, sometimes we’re faced with hard situations but we have comfort in knowing the last few weeks of her life we will be there for her and she need not be alone. She’s scared, weak, but deep down just wants it to be over, she’s been fighting for so long. Now she feels it’s time to give up.

Life is fragile, every life needs to be handled with care.

Tags: life, people, thoughts

Happy New Year…

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Sorry to start this entry off on a down note but I went to my Uncle R’s funeral yesterday. Was a little worried about how it was going to go because there is a bit of hostility between a few family members but thankfully all went well. My dad wasn’t feeling well in the church and unfortunately we didn’t go to the crematorium but the service itself in the church was really good, I’m sure my uncle was smiling at the number of people who shown up and how good his send off was. His coffin went into the Church with ‘Simply the Best’ being played in the background, I held myself together through the service and listened deeply to how fufulling his life was and how he would help anyone, and everyone, dedicating his life to his wife, daughter and local community.

Made me smile when the vicar was talking about Uncle R’s love for Arsenal and said he would be disappointed about Liverpool being top of the league this weekend, but then would be smiling at the fact Liverpool would probably come down the same time as the decorations, but then I really started crying when his coffin was leaving the church with Angels by Robbie Williams playing in the background. His poor wife was inconsolable, but then, that’s expected. There were a lot of tears from a lot of people.

The vicar at the service was really good, I think when it comes to funeral services the vicar can make it or break it.

I’ve been to a few funerals these past two years and thankfully, each service was a good service but I have heard some truly horrible stories. One being where the vicar forgot the name of the deceased and ended up calling her ‘the lady’ throughout the service, or when a vicar has no ‘feeling’ when giving out the service… it’s not good… not good at all. I think a funeral is the most important ceremony in someones life and it makes me so angry and upset to hear of anything going wrong during a service.

Anyway, happy new year to you all and best wishes for 2009. I’ll update this blog sometime later.

Tags: family, life, thoughts

Facebook and People

Well, Callum is sitting beside me and we’re both on our laptops, on Pet Society – an application on Facebook. Callum is in the ‘Stylists’ store and is clicking the ‘randomise’ button looking at the different styles you can make your Pet look like, some are cute, others are just plain scary. My ‘Orange Pie’ (name of pet) is betting in the Stadium and has won three times on the trot. Now she has bet on ‘Sketchy’ (Callum’s pet) to win a race and wonders if he is going to ruin her stream of good luck!

I forget I have these smileys… I need to use them more often.

Anyway, today Callum, dad and myself were invited to a nieghbours for a few hours. The family only recently moved to the UK from Europe and they are a lovely family. They are quite a big family and only 2 of them speak good English (the others know bits and pieces) so these two ended up doing the translating for the family. They were showing us their family video and shown us around the house, invited us to stay for lunch but we said we would another time.

I’m tired today, and my cough is still there it’s driving me crazy. I still can’t taste food which is annoying especially as it’s Christmas and there’s all sorts of yummy food around.

Hmm… “Sketchy finished in third place”. Ruining my lucky run.

Tags: christmas, health, life, people, thoughts

A Day at the Races

Today I was providing first aid cover at a racecourse, it was a large race meeting today so they were expecting thousands of people, and it was thousands of people they got. Thankfully we didn’t get many casualties but typically, the last race something just had to happen…

The race was 10 minutes late starting and what had happened was in the paddocks, one of the horses who was due out to race went a bit crazy, flung the jockey off him who fell onto the floor, kicked another person in the paddock in the head and then fell onto the jockey, lodging him between the horse and the wall. Didn’t sustain any apparent head injuries and was talking etc but was in a lot of pain in her hip area. She was administered morphine by the onsite doctor and strapped to a board to stablise her and then had to wait for the ambulance, the race happened and the meeting drew to a close by the time the ambulance got there, thankfully there were plenty of trained personel in the jockeys hospital (on site) including 1 red cross paramedic, two private ambulance paramedics, one county paramedic (only saw one… there was probably another around, though), a doctor and a nurse. Oh, and the trainer decided to say hello too, he was very upset and wouldn’t leave the jockey when we asked him to step back, in the end he spoke to the doctor he was most concerned about any possible spinal injuries, I guess seeing the jockey strapped to the board was a concern to him, but the doctor reassured him sayinng it was more of a precaution than anything and to stablise her. Anyway off the jockey went to hospital, the other person who was kicked in the head was surprisingly ok.

I got to drive one of the ambulances today. I was a bit reluctant because I was a bit nervous, haven’t drove this one before! My feet could hardly reach the pedals and the handbrake was in an odd place! Stalled it a few times and I think I scared one of the guys I was in the ambulance with, because when we got out of the ambulance and had to get back in, he jumped in the drivers seat before I had the chance to. Haha. I wasn’t THAT bad. Seriously, I wasn’t.

I’m waiting for Callum now, he’s staying a few days and I’m picking him up in 20 minutes, then going to my mums to drop off her Christmas presents.

Tags: driving, life, people, red cross

Merry Christmas!

Current Mood: Crazy

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Hope you’re all having a good day. =)

I am feeling a lot better today. Thank goodness. I felt so ill last week I can’t put it into words. On Saturday I started panicking because it was almost Christmas and I was nowhere near ready for it, so I dragged myself out of bed and went to town but I was home within 30 minutes. I felt so weird, I couldn’t think properly at all and I just needed to get home and as soon as I did I collapsed onto the sofa. Totally draining. My nose is still blocked one minute, running the next, which is a pain but heck, I can’t complain. My poor boss has it now and is refusing to take time off work (Christmas time and all that) but I am just really hoping I don’t catch it again!!!

Christmas Day has actually gone a lot better than I thought it would. I was finishing off my wrapping last night and realised I have actually bought a lot of presents, it’s no wonder my bank looks like it has taken a battering and when I checked to see if I got paid the other day, it seemed like I hadn’t (I was paid, just I spent so much it didn’t look like it…). Thing is, with Christmas I understand it’s all commercialised these days which, to be honest, I don’t like but then at the same time, I do like treating my friends and family and buying gifts for them… it’s just the effect it has on the bank. Ouch. >_>

Anyway today I was working. I had to dress up as St. Trinians today so there I was in my knee high boots, black skirt, fishnets, shirt, carelessly tied tie and scruffed up hair in bunches. Father Christmas popped by on his way home to drop off some presents for the tenants then we served a 3 course lunch and the boss let us home early. I didn’t bother getting changed, couldn’t be bothered. We looked like a bunch of hookers if the nieghbours wanted to talk, let them, I really couldnt care less! Haha

I was surprised by the presents I got today. I have a new Samsung SGH-G600 and it looks so sexy. Also got 9 pairs of socks (I love socks, so I actually don’t mind getting them for Christmas!), chocolates, wine, cute puppy themed diary/calendar, clothes.

Thing is… it’s not almost 9pm and it makes you think… all this stress and worry is coming to an end. All the headaches and worrying, lack of sleep for ONE DAY IN THE YEAR. It’s crazy. *Sighs* I think I’ll turn to the shopping channels. I watched Bid TV out of curiousity the other night and was shocked at the prices!! One lovely necklace went down from £300 to £50 or something… and there was a globe that went down from £1,100 to £81 :O I need to stop watching or I’ll end up buying and I can’t afford to. >_>

Anyway, Happy Christmas everyone! Have a drink for me, seeing as I’m driving in the morning to work I can’t (and wouldn’t, anyway) take the risk. No doubt there will be plenty of police on patrol in morning randomly stopping people and breathalising them.

Tags: christmas, health, life, people, thought

Hiyaz

Hmm well I haven’t updated for a while.. first of, relating to last post, someone contacted me the other day about the traffic situation on that particular road where drivers should ‘give way’ but they don’t, they said they were going to go down the road and have a look themselves and pass it onto the traffic management team (or something) who will do something about it because I don’t care what anyone says, it IS dangerous.

Speaking of dangerous I can’t remember if I mentioned my dads ex or not… it’s a long story but basically she’s being a right bitch and is trying to make our lives hell. Tonight I was threatened, police called again. Didn’t do much, said they couldn’t do much. If I’m followed or get any trouble at all or see anyone suspicious they told me to call 999.

Still in work… just… review coming up re job share in December, haven’t a clue whats going to happen (which isn’t fair really) but I have told my boss I’ll stay on through Christmas and New Year.

Red Cross.. my name has been put forward to go on a resusication support course on sunday, one step further to being on the ambulances. I remember back last year I was allowed on the 4×4 at a racecourse and it was such fun, I was going speeding over a HUGE bump thank goodness I had a seatbelt on, shame the other red cross dude (who gave me the keys in first place) didn’t. I should have given him a head injury info card. 

Relationship… still with Callie

Pets… Snap, Crackle and Pop still don’t like me… well, Pop and Crackle are ok with me but wont let me hold them properly yet. Snap on the other hand, the white albino, is a bastard because he keeps biting me!! He bites me and I pull my hands away but the little shite is still hanging from my finger. Aw, can’t help but love ‘em though.

Family.. well my mum wants to have another baby so who knows… maybe I’ll have a little brother/sister in future… my dad isn’t too bad, uncle is having relationship problems and has been living in a car, he moved back to England but we’ve told him there’s a spare bed here if he wants to crash for a few nights or something.

So.. there ya are.

Tags: family, gerbils, jobs/careers, life, people, pets, red cross, thoughts

Our NHS

Current Mood: Mad

I am sick to death of the current state of our NHS. Since when did it become acceptable to let a person who may have cancer (who had it in the past) to wait a ridiculous amount of time to get an important scan done? Since when did it become acceptable for someone to be told to go to get their scan results on a certain date, turn up to be told the results aren’t in and to come back next week? Since when did it become acceptable to have to wait for another scan to find out what strain of cancer they have? Since when did it become acceptable for someone to wait so ridiculously long, I’m talking months now to find out what strain of cancer she has and she still hasn’t started the treatment?? In this time her cancer has spread to two other parts of her body and the waiting is bloody stupid and it makes me soooo angry. It really does. You know you have cancer but nothing is being done (other than being prescribed painkillers) and in the meantime your health is getting worse.

Then there’s this spreading of MRSA and C-difficile, what happened to being saved by the NHS? You should go into hospital to get better, it seems like more often than not you end up getting worse before getting better, sometimes, not even getting better!!

Then there’s the problem about the response time from ambulances to patients who call 999.  Maybe that’s because our trained paramedics are too busy wasting time having to sit with patients inside the A&E department until they are ‘passed on’ to hospital staff. So while a paramedic is standing next to a patient (who probably isn’t life threateningly ill and probably is one of the time wasters who call 999 basically wanting a bed for the night) someone, somewhere is having a heart attack, stroke or has difficulty breathing/stopped breathing and it means they need to wait longer than they need to for an ambulance. Thank goodness for the first responders, but it shouldn’t be this way.

Our NHS is so messed up, I think many people would rather sit and suffer at home rather than endure the treatment you get (or won’t get, as the case sometimes is). I understand they are stretched for staff, I understand no one is perfect etc but we rely on this service for our health, our money goes into this service and what’s to show for it?

It makes me sick.

Tags: health, life, people, thoughts

Thinking Aloud

Current Mood: Tired

*sighs*

My brain is in such a frazzle I can’t even think about how to get my future started. Knowing me it won’t work out anyway, or I end up causing more pain and suffering in the ambulance service than actually helping. My biggest fear is if I ever get to that stage, a patient of mine dying on my first shift. Whether it be a fault of mine or due to their significant health problems, I just really don’t want that to happen but I guess it would be a reality check. No doubt there will be plenty of times where a patient is critically ill on arrival to hospital.

I am genuinely caring and I find the human body facinating, I also love driving and it would be an exciting and rewarding job. I’ve thought about nursing but I wouldn’t like to work in a hospital all the time. I’ve thought about medicine and becoming a doctor but it’s a very long route and I certainly don’t have the brains for that.

Oh, I don’t know. Whatever happens, happens.

Tags: jobs/careers, thoughts