A Baby's Smile

Merry Christmas everyone!

I just wanted to share a quick thought I've been pondering. It's about babies. It's fitting since today is the day we celebrate in honour of our Saviour's entry into the world as a little baby.

I'm fortunate enough to spend a fair amount of time with my favourite little boy. He's a happy one-year-old with a full head of dark curls and the sweetest smile. He's the son of two of my very good friends. Anyhoo, the other day I was lucky enough to be the first one to hear him wake-up from his afternoon nap. I walked into the room and leaned over the crib and this little guy with his eyes still squinty from sleep blessed me with a big beautiful sleepy smile when he saw me. It was such a heart-warming feeling to have this little person look at me like that. I lifted him out of the crib and he let his head rest on my shoulder as I carried him out to his mom. That warm-fuzzy feeling stayed with me the rest of the day and has stayed with me in the weeks following. It got me to thinking about Jesus' birth.

After all, I was overtaken with the warm-fuzzies by a baby that is not even my own. Imagine how Mary felt holding her miracle first-born who she has been told will change the world. If my favourite little boy could make my heart melt with a single sleepy smile imagine how the shepherds and wisemen felt when they were blessed in the presence of a Holy child. If the baby Jesus smiled at them, I would imagine that their hearts would feel like they could burst. Perhaps that, along with a bright star and a multitude of angels made their belief so big that they could have moved mountains at that moment if they had so desired.

So I was just thinking if you want the warm-fuzzies when you think of the meaning of Christmas, try thinking of your favourite little one and how they make you feel and then multiply that feeling to suit the power and glory of our Lord and Saviour born in the form of a little child.

Merry Christmas and God Bless.

~Lexi

EMS Taught Me This: Part 1

Mock accident. No one is actually hurt.

I want to tell you something and I want you to put away any doubt and any fear. I want you to just give in and believe that what I am about to tell you is the absolute truth and that there is no circumstance that changes this truth. Truth cannot be defeated or destroyed but it can be ignored. I need you to know that the only thing that can push away this truth that I am about to tell you is your own doubt and fear. Are you ready? Feeling all warm and fuzzy and ready to wholeheartedly accept what I’m about to tell you? Alright, here it is:

You are always capable of more than you think.

Always, always, always, every single time. Nice and simple eh? The truth always is. EMS has taught me this. Not the truth part - Jesus taught me that. I mean EMS has taught me this specific truth that you are undoubtedly always more capable than you give yourself credit for. I am an example of this, my patients are an example of this, my patient’s families are an example of this. 

You know what the most common thing is I hear from my patients when we are discussing what it is like to work on the ambulance? It’s this:

“I could never do what you do.”

What I do? Really? It’s flattering I suppose to some degree when people think you’re amazing because you turned the pillow to the cool side for them. However, I know there are some of my peers in the industry who would believe that most people couldn’t do what we do, but I’m not inclined to agree. 

Writing comes easily to me. It has always been the next best thing to effortless for me. But EMS? Nope. I can’t think of anything in EMS that came particularly easy to me when I was first learning. I remember when I quite literally could not lift the stretcher if there had even been the weight of a bunny on it. I remember being nervous about cracking open an oxygen tank, fumbling with nasal cannulas, awkward about doing physical assessments on people, wondering what crackles in the lungs really sounded like, the list goes on. And now, all of that and more comes as easily to me as putting my hair in a pony tail. It’s all stuff I learned. Anyone could learn it if they wanted to. But that’s the thing, you have to have some driving force. “Want” was mine (I guess the more literary pleasing word would be ‘desire’ but I’m gonna go with ‘want’). I didn’t know the difference between a BVM, BGL, NRB, NC, KCL, D50 etc, but I wanted to learn. I didn’t know what it was like to crawl into an overturned car to check on a trapped patient, or to be the first person to initiate CPR or to hold a stranger’s hand while they cried but I wanted to learn how to have the privilege of being there in someone’s time of need. It was something I wanted to do. That’s how I was able to do it, not because of some innate ability. There will be other medics who will argue that you have to have a certain mindset (a mixture of eery calm under fire and sense of black humour perhaps) to survive in this job. I think that if you didn’t have or possess the potential for that “mindset” you wouldn’t want to learn the EMS skill set. That is not the same as capability. This is what I’m trying to establish. All of those people who tell me, 

“I could never do what you do” I want to tell them (and sometimes I do) “Yes, you could. We are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. The thing is, would you want to do what I do?”

I can hear some of you now. Blood? No thanks. Germs? Ugh. Needles? Not likely! Sure, that’s fine if you know without a doubt that EMS is something you have no interest in. But if you do have an inkling that you might like to try it, then don’t let yourself think that you are not capable. I can assure you that you are.

Now that is just me applying this truth in medicalanese. That’s the great thing about truth though, it is always applicable regardless of the circumstance. So, if you have a bit of a ho-hum job and you would like to do something else but you’re not sure whether you can handle a pay cut, or having to go back to school or putting the kids in daycare, you can! You will always be able to do more than you think. The question is do you want to?

You are capable of jumping out of a plane, you are capable of starting your own business, you are capable of raising another kid, you are capable of going into the mission field, you are capable of leaving your abusive boyfriend, you are capable of kicking that bad habit. Even though you will feel that you can’t do it, you need to know that the truth is that you can. The question is really whether or not you have enough of a driving force to make you want to do it. 

You are always more capable than you think. The only thing that can make you ignore this truth is your own doubt and fear. So I’m asking you once more to put away your doubt and fear. Imagine that thing you’ve wished you could do but don’t feel that you’re capable of. 

Do you want to do it? Because if want to do it, rest assured you are capable. It is the truth. 

EMS taught me this.

I Don't Write About Work but. . .

I don’t write about work. A reader noticed this the other day and wondered why. I have a feeling that some people would think that the most exciting thing about me, the most exciting thing I could possibly write about in my blog is my job. Perhaps they are right. I’m sure most people would much rather read an account of my latest adventures in the world of emergency medical services than in the spiritual encounters with my creator, or how I sing when I do mundane things like going grocery shopping. Somedays, I too would rather publish a post on “the funniest patient I had the other day. . .” or my observations on hospital hallways or a commentary on recent EMS political events. I could confidently say that if you were to put a sheet of paper in front of me right now I could effortlessly list at least 20 different EMS blog topics that I would love to comment on. However, for a few reasons I do not. 

The first and arguably most important factor in this decision is that it is not safe. There is of course, the matter of legality when it comes to trying to recreate certain calls that, even if you were to change the date, place, time, and name of your patient, you open yourself up to the possibility that someone could accuse you of breaching confidentiality. It can be done, mind you, as the revolving door of EMS blogs on the web can attest, but it seems like a lot of work for a lot of risk to me. Sadly, though, that is not even my worst fear when I think of safety. Truth be told, like most of my fellow co-workers, I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things related to my industry - some very mainstream and some that would be considered radical. At one time I would not hesitate to write and publish these thoughts. However, I feel that the EMS political climate at this point in time is not particularly conducive to free-thinking. I can console myself with the fact that “EMS is EMS everywhere you go” which translates to mean that no matter where you are working, who you are working with or what is happening in the politics, your high level of knowledge and patient care should remain the same. Put your patient first and be the best you can be regardless of the circumstances. Unfortunately, consoling myself with this fact would be of little use if I suddenly found myself without a place to practice it.

The second reason is that I find EMS fascinating. Much too fascinating. I blame it on the first day of EMR class when my instructor taught me how to MacGuyver a flutter valve after decompressing someone’s chest - something far, far out of my scope at that level, but I was hooked. I wanted to keep learning things that were “above” me. This was good at the time and for many of the years following. However, I now also think that there comes a time when you can become over-saturated. A sponge that is filled with water needs to be wrung out sometimes if we expect it to be able to absorb more. To prevent being over-saturated, I try now to make a greater effort to separate “me” from “my job”. Part of this means I don’t want to get caught up in writing about EMS all the time, it would be way too easy. So that is why you instead get to read about other non-EMS thoughts and events. 

And if there was a third reason it would be because I would forever be editing my EMS short-hand into normal English! Go back and count how many times I used the word “patient” in this post and that is how many times I had to go back and change “pt.” to “patient”. Blah!

After all that explaining however, I have been inspired to do a quick series on some things I have learned from EMS. No, you will not find war stories, political opinions, or instructions on flutter valves. You may not find them exciting at all. It's just going to be some wholesome thoughts that I may not have considered if it wasn’t for my profession. Stay tuned.