Stream of Consciousness

The sky is falling
All around me hero's are dying
The sky is falling and nobody will hear me
Another hero died by his own hand

The world is shaking cause all our hearts are breaking. We stand here united at your funeral but where were we when you still walked among the living?

The sky is falling
All around me another hero is suffering
The our lives will never be the same, because the images we see are burned into our memories

If I could have another moment with you I would say how much I respected you. If I could have one last second I'd say that no matter today's pain it's only temporary and an eternity away from us is no solution.

The sky has fallen and I never took that moment. All around me hero's have fallen and it took to much blood to realize there was a problem. Now we stare into the darkness of depression and face not fire but our own suffering together. 

It's taken to long to realize that a hero can only take so much before it takes them to.

In Motion

I am one fluid motion. I go from one place to the next, do what needs to be done and move on to the next. Blow some narcan up someones nose, drop an IV or 10 go home at 8pm then come back in and do it all over. 

Some calls make you think, actually use clinical judgment, or at least notice the shit your stepping in reaks of GI bleed. Some calls you do on auto-piolet. Heroin overdose, narcan, scoop patient out of car and put in truck. EKG, IV and move on. 

I tool this job for the experience, kinda like a drug you want the desire effects but didn't realize the side effects. The experience came and so did a lot more. I really can put an IV in anyone at any time. I know PCP before I got out of the truck. 

I am one fluid motion from 0800 to 2000. I am a paramedic thus I require no sleep, I never have to urinate, or eat. I am never stressed by my job, and am never personally effected by the things I see. 

Little Things

I look for the little thing in each shift, looking for the one victory I can claim. Maybe one person who I made a difference with, connected with or helped in some way. 

It takes a lot of looking sometimes because each day is filled with so much garbage. Garbage like the liter that covers these streets staining any hope this struggling community has. The liter isn't going to kill but it's an outward expression of the overall attitude that exists here. Just like the constant parade of nonsense through my ambulance is slowly eating away at me. 

In the one twelve hour shift the person, or family as a whole I made that needed connection with was a hospice case. Opposite of our nature to swoop in and take you to a hospital, in this case it wasn't. What needed to happen and did was to reassure the family, calm them down, remind them that the patient was dying, and the best place for him to do that was in HIS bed in HIS home with HIS family. While this took place, juggle a few phone calls with the hospice service and wait with the family until a nurse arrived.

What a path I've chosen...

Seperate Ways (repost from 8/2007)

Fires rarely burn in the middle of the evening, sometimes in the morning but mostly at night. Twice in the last week our fire department has been out to a neighboring town for house fires, seems that department always likes to burn things in couples. More then a week ago though a serious fire broke out in the local of one of the departments I’ve spent a lot of time at through school. At about two in the morning they responded to a middle of the row dwelling with heavy fire in the first floor. The ambulance arrived, assistance chief and within a few minuets the first in engine made the attack through the front door. It wouldn’t take long for disaster to strike as they were fighting the fire the second floor came down on the engine company trapping two firefighters very close to my age. Other crews arrived and worked for something like ten minuets to extricate both of the firefighters. In such a short period of time everything had turned dark and medic units from that department and our city truck were en route to the hospital with the injured hero’s. As the fire took hold the second alarm and cover companies would involve almost half the county, apart of that group was my preceptor Brad who ended up hospitalized overnight. Even in the midst of tragedy, as each call comes in the trucks still roll and we pick up the pieces and move with each passing day.

Introduction Song: “My City of Ruin” –Bruce Springsteen

The flames would eventually be subdued and as the sun rose it was clear these two brother firefighters would have a long battle in the burn center for survival. The outpouring from the community was stunning, and only fitting for the tragedy that took place to such a close knit fire department. Firefighters always regard others they work with on the job as brothers and sisters but in this department like many others there are real family ties. The two injured firefighters have made it almost a week now after being seriously burned, still every night we pray for them, there families and the department. Two days after the fire I arrived for what would be my day and night as a paramedic student. A dark cloud hung over the entire area as everyone still tried to reconcile what took place in there own minds. I came with donuts for the day crew, just like I had done my last shift at Hahnemann. Day shift yielded only seven or eight calls, with only one really memorable call. Evan has found his way back to the street riding with his preceptor we ended up backing them up on the east side of the city for what looked like a GI bleed. Labs at the hospital eventually found it to be a Tylenol overdose. The fifties year old female was unconscious on the floor of her house, dry blood everywhere she was nasally intubated on our arrival and received fluids up to the point where she got blood in the hospital and a bed in intensive care. This mundane day shift rolled right into the night and my final twelve hours with Doug and Ramona.

Segue Song: “When You Were Young” –The Killers

My last night was filled with a meteor shower and strangest patients the stars could bring to the street. But before it was all over I joined the crew from the department with the injured firefighters for a combative diabetic. When it was all said and done this one stubborn made who had been hyperglycemic all week and was severely hypertensive had garnered the attention of three ambulances, seven police officers and our supervisor. I came downstairs to the sounds of shift change, quietly gathered my belonging and made my way out. The billboard on the left side of the day room my note hung “1089 Hours, 125 shifts, 9 Cardiac Arrests, 1 Nickname, Being Signed Off=Priceless. Thanks to everyone for your help” In the bays in front of one of the medic units Doug, Ramona and I had my final conversation as a student over there morning cigarette. A couple words of advice about going forward, about getting a job and of congratulations. Then finally came the hand shake from Doug, hug from Ramona and I was finished. I pulled out of the station, passed the hospital on the right. As I drove memories of the last eight months unfolded before me. Nights where we went chasing through the streets in the green and white ambulance with shootings, cardiac arrests, and the more mundane calls for tooth pain are burned into my mind. I passed the hospital and made the left onto the highway where other memories of standing on the highway pulling people from wreaked cars and days in the rain, snow, heat and cold. Heading towards home this Tuesday morning I drifted into the flow of traffic looking back in my rear view mirror the little city behind me. I dream of returning here as an employee but until then the road ahead leads to National Registry’s practical and written exams.

Segue Song II: “Strait Lines” –Silverchair

Jeff, Paula and I gathered again this Wednesday for what may be our last Wednesday together before the coming semester takes us our separate ways. As awkward as the week before had been we are all starting to get comfortable with the way things have unfolded in this friendship, relationship, or threesome as her mother called it. Looking back at the weeks after this point last year I’m no looking forward to that lonely feeling once people leave. We’ve already had a bunch of people leave work for school, and the revolving door of employees makes every shift interesting. Another new menu has the customers struggling to count to three. Go figure that even putting pictures of food on the menu is too complicated for people to understand. Some days are better for others for money but for now it’s plenty to get by until the point where I can move on to bigger and better things in the real world.

After being cut lose from ride time a few thoughts come to mind, mainly what the heck do I do now? I had spent over a thousand hours and something like three or four days a week at the least each week. Within my first few days back I had already been to more fire calls then the entire past month. I considered adding more shifts at the apple but don’t want to get too distracted from the coming tests. So between calls, studying, and working I’ve spent time making lists of prospective places to apply, putting my resume together and wondering where and what the future will be like. Jeff will be returning to school within the next few days and Paula back to Delaware not soon after. Michelle and the remaining crew at Pearle have finally moved to a new store on the mall. Once a rumor it has now materialized long after many of us have gone our separate ways. The scary possibility exists that I have parted ways from Doug, Brad and Ramona as well but my best efforts will be to get back there. I talked to Brad this morning about when I’m planning to test and right now the closest test is in Virginia around the middle of September. Such a long journey through ride time came to a rather anticlimactic ending but the real challenge in the road to registry is still to come.

Episode Song: “The Rising” –Bruce Springsteen
Today’s Five Points
5-“he done fell out” or is just drunk?
4-this is too far into the jail for my comfort
3-is it that hard to pick three things?
2-$350 in gas in July
1-Pray for the injured Parkside Firefighters

Fear

It's a feeling deep in your abdomen. When something happens and your not just in danger, but staring at it face to face. The face on the other side was a well-built man three years younger then me high on PCP and swinging wildy at anything he can hit. Luckly he hits no one, in fact the police get him, taze him and 10mg of valium later we win the fight like we usually do.

A man not more then two years found dead by a neighbor, suicide the cause. All these things images that will hide themselves deep in my mind, only to reappear when you least want them to. I don't know if I can call what we do a "calling" but to me its more a journey then a job. Because we never know what each day will bring, and as we learned ten years ago at any moment our lives can come crashing down around us.

Caught In The Moment

In this moment I am staring down the throat of a cardiac arrest patient trying to sneak the tube into the trachea. It lasts for probably 10 seconds but at that moment the whole room pauses. 

In this moment I am trying to snag an IV on a suspected stroke patient who is nearing the end of the tpa window. I do most IV's before we start transport but this time I'm half challenging myself and half saving time.

In this moment, not a day since the last tube I'm elbow deep in an airway and like most times I come sucessful. Two squads, four medics and one trauma code, just another night in the big city.

Night

9/3/2011

Will it ever be the same, or at least come close? Ask Dave Matthews asked "what will become of me?" I can't predict the future and and while I try and plan for it and all its plot twists there is only so much that can be done. 

What I do know is these "EMS Rotations" are going to make or break alot of us. I submitted my memo, and submitted it with a "partner preference" who just happened to be my replacement at Medic 7.  While the memo was written with my hand as it leavs me it now becomes totally out of my hands.

Future aside, tonight I'm repaying Jenn on an MXT and back for one night with my old partner. Friday night of a holiday weekend, and what more could you ask for? Start the night off with a baracaded male, had a stabbing downtown, and as expected a drunk college student. This was nights at itsl best, or basically the oppsite of everything that happens on days.

Around 0300 we were dispatched to a medical alarm at a independent sr.building and found a patient on hospice, alone and unable to help himself anymore. We worked our way through the hospice med kit, and spent the next two hours making him comfortable while waiting for the on call hospice nurse to arrive. I didn't think the patient would die tonight, but nobody should be alone when death was so near. 

I wrote nearly two years ago how some of the calls we get in the city we'd only get here. While thats not totally true, the volume of calls makes it seem that way. The average life span of an urban paramedic is 5 years which means I may only have two years left. But, no matter what happens in the near and distant future this has ben one hell of a dance with life and death.

Trauma and Drama (repost from 2009)

How this mid-Spring story begins is the same way the story often goes. Repetition is the norm as call after call require little thought and each call is forgotten five minuets into the next. How repetition goes out the window happens in a way it only could in Center City. Early one rainy afternoon we are dispatched to a pedestrian struck four blocks ahead from we were sitting, and en route the dispatcher advises that “the mayor is on location” I jokily ask if he is the one involved and as we arrive on scene the mayors security staff are running around the street looking very secret service like with radios in hand. Our patient is a female lying on her side in the middle of the roadway, and appears to actually be injured unlike every other “pedestrian struck” call you get downtown. As we are packaging the patient I see the mayor walking down the street toward our direction, and as we try and cover the blanket with a sheet before leaving he reaches in to try and assist. My partner and I don’t make eye contact or say anything, because in retrospect what could you say? It is a random and yet totally unforgettable moment that is just another reason this job is better then any around.

Introduction Song: “Natural Reaction” -Gomez

One of the most frustrating things about an urban Fire Department that also runs EMS, is the fact that the fire department also runs EMS. That may sound simple or a bit repetitious but it is the root of nearly every problem. Most career fire departments in the major cities have been around for over a hundred years and Emergency Medical Services has only been present for about thirty years. As fire departments grew through time it became necessary for them to learn “first aid”, then “scoop and run” basic services then later train and hire Paramedics. Fire Prevention, sprinklers, and many other reasons caused fires to drop at the same time EMS demand skyrocketed. Now these fire departments that fought fires night after night in the “war years” are forced to realize that EMS is the major operation of the department. The reality of this imbalance comes to the street medic when you encounter accidents and other EMS based incidents where the street medic or Paramedic officer should be in charge but that doesn’t happen. With the impending schedule change for EMS, and continued struggle to meet the rising demand of emergency medical calls the war years of EMS will continue to reshape this department.

Segue Song: “Bixby Canyon Bridge” -Death Cab for Cutie

You were one of the first to ever give me a chance, regardless of what the rest had done or said.You were the medic the day the soon to be chief caught the truck on down wires and we laughed at the flashing light bar sprawled across the shattered windshield after the fact. You were the one who’s car I backed into one afternoon while trying to pick up something for lunch. I waked inside the station my face red with embracement and fear only to watch you handle it with total composure and control. You years later held me to a higher standard when I thought I was ready to break free and do this alone. Now that your gone I have no idea how the our little world of EMS will ever be the same. Now that your gone I have no idea how I was ever lucky enough to learn from someone as wise as you. Now I hope that when I do this job I can do it in a way that you would approve of. A giant in our world of EMS has fallen this week in a long battle with cancer. I found out Saturday afternoon while driving down Woodhaven Road that Chris Haber had died. I tried to hang up the phone and continue on to work without it effecting me but that would be like asking the sun not to set. After some time on the job you get so use to suppressing your emotions in the face of total sorrow that when something so personal happens you grieve in different ways. I remember not long ago while precepting with you how I believed I had finally demonstrated everything from a solid run code to basic ALS call and you caught me on my attention to detail. Now in the face of a warm Saturday night where the cities EMS system will explode over capacity I think of a giant that we have all lost and the legacy that will remain.

I’ve been to my share of funerals, and each is a different shade of sadness and depression. Those for the elderly in our lives all who we expected to pass before us are often more celebrations then suffering. Funerals for those who died in the line of duty are a bitter heroism laced in sorrow. You knew that it could happen and now hate that it did. Then there are funerals fro the ones that were to young to die. Maybe by there own hand, mistake, or illness. Regardless it is as if there story was cut to short and we hate to continue ours without them. The funeral for Chris Haber was something like the latter. He had cancer for two or three years and for a time seemed to have won. Now that he has died all that is left are pictures and memories. For an evening these pictures and flowers cover the inside of a funeral home, and in the days ahead it will be up to us to carry his legacy from this day to the next. The scene of this funeral reminds me of a similar one when Frank White died. Squad members in there dress blue uniforms tried to stand as soldiers but looked so broken instead. That funeral was held on a cold winter night but this one was a beautiful warm spring evening. The sun had yet to set and those who came stood in small groups for hours outside the funeral home. Some came from hundreds of miles around because the man now lost had touched so many lives. His story is over but this story will forever be influenced by the life of a great man.

Episode Song: “Hero” -Jars of Clay
Today’s Five Points
5-”hit a patch”, of what stupidity?
4-”D.P.S”
3-”attention to detail”
2-If I get swine flu I’m going to punch a pig
1-some nicknames never go away

In Memory of Christopher Haber, 4/18/2009

Murder On Mellon Street

Sunday, December 06, 2009
Season Thirteen: Episode Two “Murder on Mellon Street”

Those early beginning days as a new Paramedic have faded away. That exciting “fresh” feeling of beginning every shift, of treating each patient like your family and believing everything the patient said are no longer the same. The realization that your place in the system is low and typically your opinion isn’t heard or important begins to take over and even when you try and stand for what you think is right will likely get you in trouble in the end. I went head to head with a nurse one night at a hospital over the fact that unless we literally bring in a cardiac arrest anyone else will be placed in triage. I may have been right, but she filed a complaint and I lost. That complaint and a couple spars with patients, families, or bystanders has forced me to realize another aspect of the partner dynamic. My actions reflect on her, just like the classic “you’re only as good as your last call.” I may be satisfied going down in a flames of glory but I’d rather be engulfed in flames then do anything that would harm my partner. So recently I’ve tried to take a step back. I can still control the scene, treat critical patients, or treat non-critical patients with some degree of respect but will try and do it differently then how I have been in the last few months.
 
Introduction Song: “Needle and Haystack Life” -Switchfoot
 
Halloween one year ago and days earlier the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. That afternoon all normal city functions are suspended and a celebration parade takes place that many will remember for years to come. What I remember of that Parade is the aftermath. The subways filled with drug twenty something’s trying to get home. Piles of trash and overturned newspaper bins line the area. The sun would set that evening and the masses of people dressed in red changed into costume and after fourteen hours we set a record of nearly thirty calls in that shift. So needless to say come this Halloween we were ready for the same thing to happen. This year there would be no Phillies Parade as the Series wasn’t over yet, but later they would lose to the Yankee’s. But this year with daylight savings taking place at 0200 hours our typical twelve hour night would in reality be thirteen hours. Most nights begin busy, taper off to a small break around midnight then resurge at the drunk hour at 0200. This night there was no break at midnight, and around two that morning, the clocks changed and the rush continued. Our dispatchers struggled to keep pace as the computers no longer could indicate the actual time as calls overlapped the time change. Engine and Ladder’s waited for an available squad, and each tried to make there run sound more serious so they would get the next squad. Eventually the night ended and when all was said we tied the twelve hour shift record of twenty calls. The holiday season was soon to begin but in retrospect I had no idea how busy the November ahead.
 
Several years ago as I attended Drexel’s Paramedic program I routinely took the train from home to class nearly every day a week. During that time SEPTA went on strike and for five days the city was gridlocked and regional rail was a hot mess at the same time. During the last month a similar event occurred. The SEPTA union threatened to walk during the Phillies home stand of the World Series, but under political pressure they waited until hours after the game ended. Early the next morning the city again folded to the will of public transportation and for the next five days people learned to deal without the buses and trolley system. Eventually like years past the Union and SETPA reached settled on a new contract and the returned to the status quo.
 
Segue Song: “D.O.A (Death of Auto-Tune” –Jay-Z
 
Another night and another I find myself elbow deep in an airway and later covered knee to elbows in blood. A thirty-something female is lying near the entry way of her apartment in a pool of blood, stabbed through the chest multiple times she is in cardiac arrest. The police arrived first and after opening the door to let me upstairs to the apartment locked my partner and the Engine crew behind me out. I followed the officer upstairs and leaves me for what was only seconds but seemed like a lot longer when there was little one person could do but start CPR. Once everyone was in place our plan was to secure the airway, give the first round of drugs and transport but the best laid plans fall apart. As I struggled with the airway my partner struggled with an IV. The patient is in PEA, and finally on my third attempt I secure the tube. We carry the patient down to the truck, switching to the EZ-IO we have access and drugs on board. En route to the hospital it’s clear that this was a fatal wound and from the police perspective they have there suspect. There was another female on scene that said “She said she was going to kill me so I killed her first.” We arrive at the hospital with a crowd waiting; the trauma team performs a thoracotomy, transfuses blood but soon surrenders to the reality of the situation.
 
A few nights before the Murder on Mellon Street my partner and I responded to a call for a child stabbing around four in the morning. The Engine from that local responds, police from all over that district, and when we arrive there is a crowd of people outside screaming. I swear I hear from one of them “you killed my daughter” the crowd outside is equal to the crowd inside the house and inside the mother is screaming while holding her daughter in her lap. The firefighter pulls up the shirt and uncovers a basically superficial wound on her sternum. I try to calm the mother as we place the bandage but no sooner do we pick up the four year old, then the police have the mother in cuffs. Everyone on scene is blaming different people, but neither of us has yet to figure out why anyone awake let alone stabbing each other at this point of the night. On the way to the struck I ask the patient what happened and without a second thought she says who stabbed her. We bring a police officer over and have the patient tell him what she just said to us. This neighborhood nicknamed “da bottom” sits just a few blocks away from some of the most brilliant research and education areas of University City or the high rises and rich living of Center City. It’s never been a good area like the City of Chester was and it’s only the influx of college students that has changed some of the blocks from blight to something close to livable. So much violence on just one street I have no idea if the circle will ever be broken. The first snow of the season fell yesterday and with the holiday season in full swing the white flakes of innocence covered the city for the night before it turned to ice and melted into the next day.
 
Episode Song: “Red Eyes” -Switchfoot
Today’s Five Points
5-peak hour hoes
4-“she looks fantastic” –says the drunk patient
3-reaping away
2-22 ETI in 2009, one month to go
1-first snow of the season 12/5

In Your Memory

8/23/2011

"In Your Memory"

I never knew you as a philly paramedic. I never knew half of the stories I heard til after you were gone. I never worked with you at tri-hampton as we were both paramedics but always looked foward to hearing you when I had to call the ME's office for a code I called in the field or patient that was dead on arrival. 

The first peice of music that came to mind after I found out you had died was I believe an old poem turned to song where the lyrics say "Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there. I did not die"  I first heard the song as apart of a Third Watch episode when a paramedic was killed and it was played at her funeral. 

After moving my work scheudle around, and two MXT's thanks to Jenn Moore I was able to make the trip to your funeral in Niagra Falls, NY.  We were far from close friends but this is what being in Emergency Services is about, paying your last respects and doing so even if that means driving 700mi round trip.

As apart of the trip we took your dog along to bring him to your family. Needless to say there is a ton of dog hair in my trail blazer, and a near fatal escape at a rest area made for an interesting trip. But, the heart felt thanks from your family made it while. I must say the falls were beatiful and the area a fitting place for your burial. Just as the poem said though your not at your grave, your in heaven. 

A fellow paramedic said it best as we taked after services. "Everyone knows that you do enough time at Medic 3 you lose your compassion for people and he didn't." I heard so often in these last few days how much your cared for people, and if I could make one fitting memory to you it would be for me to do the same on the same city streets you served. 

Live Life Returns

It's been more then a year since I formally put anything of worth together. I've written in my little black book. But now I'll try and refocus myself and tell my story of my job and my life again.

Resusitation

8/16/11

When we arrived you were lying half in bed, unconscious. The dispatch was for "unconscious/unresponsive" but thats a common dispatch and this wasn't a common call. Within the first couple of seconds it was clear you were pulseless and not breathing and the resusitation began.

The intubation simple, IO line placed and Asystole on the EKG. I didn't expect much here but my partner and I with the help of the firefighters did our best. At about 15min in there had been no change an I took your wife downatairs, sat her down and gave the first part of "the speech."

 "When we arrived your husband wasn't breathing and his heart wasn't beating. We are breathing for him, doing CPR and giving him medicine. At this point its not working. If nothing changes within the next few minuets were going to stop. But, there is a slight chance something will and at that point you'll see alot of acitvity and we'll take him to the hospital."

The second part didn't happen in your case. First your heart went into VFIB which is still dead but progress. 360J later you had a pulse. My partner and I knew we were moments away from 'calling it' but now we were in a brisk rush of sucess we were going to the hospital.

I watched to make sure nothing got pulled, a few breaths got thrown in duing the carry, the hospital was notified, and someone saw to the wife and then we were off. 

I doubt you'll walk out of the hospital but your a rare case of field resusitation and I wish your family that it gave them a chance to make peace with you in your end. As I cleaned up and my partner documented I said to him "We may not be the best of friends but we run a good code." He agreed and our day continued.

Struggle

I struggle everyday. I hold my touge as the thoughts race through my head. My skills wasted on someone with foot pain while true emergencies wait. There is so much I want to say but I can't. I need this job. I need money to pay bills and need to make it through the day. I pray we get one person that needs more then basic ALS so I can feel I made a difference at least for 10min out of 12 hours.

I admire my partner for his people skills but wish we could find a middle ground. Honestly I have so many quirks I don't know if anyone but my old partner can really tolerate me. I still love being a paramedic but struggle to be the kind that lasts more then a few years.

Me

I'm sorry if I'm not kind all the time. I'm sorry if I don't look concerned about your baby with a fever, but if your baby actually needed my help I'd give all I had for it. If the story about why you called starts with "I was at the ER for this yesterday" you will probably lose me there, but when you fall down a flight of steps I'll be your biggest advocate. I may not be the most social person at the station but on a fire ground I have my eyes on all of you, and my mind running every possible worst case scenario I can think of. I try to be kind, try to show compassion but I'm not perfect.

Shock

When I saw you a month ago I had no idea in the next you would die.
When I was here a month ago for one funeral I never imagined I'd return soon after for another. There has been to much death, to much change, to much of everything I can't control recently. There is no going back to the way it was. But I'd at least like to return to some degree of normalcy again. 

Day Work

So five days in of eight days in a row is how I decided to make my return to working daywork. Eight days with on average ten calls a shift, some sick, some dying and plenty of misuse and abuse. What stands out was A three year old hit by a car, but the memorable part was the hot dog  his mouth. Who gets hit by a car eating a hot dog? And what family member chooses to say "they are great hot dogs" as the child is lying in paramedics hands. All this and more happens working the 'hood. 

Three more days to go, and while I struggle to adapt to daylight, the real struggle is adapting to life without the partner I shared 40-50 hours a week for the last two and a half years with.

Fresh Start

4/7/2011

We attended orientation to this job together. We were presented our academy class flag together as the "oldest and youngest." And now as of 0800 tomorrow we will be partners. Not of our own choosing but let's make the best of it. We have a lot of common ground, but also plenty ground to bridge. We've worked together before but working together daily will be different. Let's give it a fresh start and see what good comes of however long were together.

Back Where It Began

3/11/2011

Back Where It Began

I must have spent thousands of hours on these streets as a paramedic student. I showered in back garage shower, slept on the floor in stations only built for one.  Saw a flock new hires for a new truck. All for the glory of learning this job, and earning my patch. Then after being released to take my tests never returned. Then several weeks ago I got offered the chance to return to this little city in a PRN position. I still love my full time job, my partner and my local beneath the skyline. But there is a great deal of nostalgia riding these streets again. Because this is the department where I earned my nickname, and where I learned to be a paramedic.

Sitting in the station on my second orientation shift I crossed paths with one of my preceptors who's now a local cop. He's is the reason I always have a radio with me, and wear it the way he did. I don't always find this job easy but owe it to people like him who dedicated so much time to me to continue to do this job and do it well. Seeing that he admires the fact that I'm doing it where I am to makes it count even more.

So I'm back at least a few times a month where it all began and looking forward to see what's to come down here.

"In The Time Of Her Death"

So I'm sitting here in Midway airport waiting to go home twirling my grandfathers cane, and rose petal I took off the head of a rose. The rest of the rose sits on top of my grandmothers coffin. There both gone now, six years apart since my grandfathers death and now they are finally together in heaven. 

As 1516 Judson Street was burning and Firefighters were fighting and falling during that battle my phone rang unanswered in my pants pocket beneath my fire gear with news that my grandmother had died. Her death was expected and really welcome as death brings an end to the suffering from Leukemia. 

Tomorrow night when I return to work and the streets of Philadelphia I'll try and carry her simple grace and patience with me. Things I often lack in the trauma and drama of street medicine.