Monday, February 21, 2011

Of Lionfish and laziness

Ok, so I haven't been super forthcoming recently.  I blame school, and a general sense of malaise about the whole school thing.  No, I'm not burnt out (except on school), but I am getting heartily bored of going to clinicals and getting shafted as far as calls go.  Not that I'm wishing ill on anyone, but someone has to get sick or hurt in order for me to garner enough checks in the boxes to make the NR-EMT folks happy enough to let me test. 

So, over semester break, I spent a lot of time at my volunteer house.  Didn't get too many calls (my white cloud-ness continues even there), but the few I got were interesting.  I did get to look all smart and stuff when we got a call for a lionfish sting (there was an episode of Bones that involved a lionfish stinging someone to death).  It was literally around the corner from my station, and I googled it on my fancy new Android phone as we were pulling up to the place.  Luckily, the patient had also used superior google-fu (though I suspect it was the kids who did it) and was already treating things in the correct manner.  The patient could have gotten to the hospital on their own, but they were newish to the area, and hadn't had the pleasure of needing our lovely local ER's, and were unsure of how to get there.  So, we had a lovely drive down, where I continued to google 'lionfish stings' and found that what happened was not so uncommon after all.

I also had the pleasure of seeing a patient in SVT (going from sinus tach to SVT) and helping the medic push adenosine, which failed to have the desired effect, but the patient converted anyway.  I swear I see more interesting things at my own station with the medics than I do when I am at clinical. 

Point in case: at a recent field clinical (in a system where the medics run everything from hangnails to heart attacks, and I'll leave it to you to guess which is more common), all but one of our calls was a BLS call.  I did get the hard IV stick when called on, so the day wasn't lost completely for me.  However, the last call took the cake, and was so ridiculous I couldn't find anything to warrant writing it up to count.  The patient called because they had been constipated for several days and their back hurt.  The patient had actually gone to work earlier in the day, and a family member was kind enough to ride to the hospital with us, leaving their perfectly good car at home.  REALLY??????  Just when I think people can't amaze me anymore, I am proven wrong.

In other news, I've been busy training.  Not just for paramedic school, oh no.  Because I don't have enough on my plate right now, what with finishing school, attempting to graduate, studying for the NREMT-P tests, and planning a wedding, I have decided that it would be an excellent idea to begin training for a triathlon.  this from someone who is woefully out of shape and has a hard time running up the stairs.  I have started a Couch to 5K program (C25K), have a cheap, beat-up road bike on a bike trainer, and have been swimming at the pool on campus.  Thankfully, my class schedule this semester allows for a bit more time in the mornings, which I take advantage of.  It also gets me on campus earlier so I can get a good spot.

So I am looking at scheduling a mini-sprint triathlon locally.  It's at the end of March, and is a bit backwards so no one freezes (generally the routine is swim, bike run...this one will be run, bike swim), with small distances (1.4 mi run, 4 mi bike, 250 m swim) that I think I can do without killing myself.  The bad part is right now I have what I think is tendonitis in my right knee.  My yearly physical is conveniently on Thursday, so I will be able to ask my doc what she thinks.

The general plan is that not only will the triathlon training get me motivated enough to keep working out, thus losing weight for the wedding, but it will also get me in sufficient shape to test for a fire department over the summer.  At least, that's the plan, should any departments in the area actually scrounge up funds to hire a class.

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