Still Alive and Kicking

Well, where do I start? My goodness it's been a long time since I've taken the time to put thought to "paper". Not that I haven't had anything to say, but there has been a lot of stuff that has either prevented me or discouraged me from continuing like I had wanted to.

I too, like Medic999, faced some opposition from my superiors. Now let me be clear about this, mine were for reasons far removed from his. Most of my opposition came from the fact that my writing style was personalized and in some sense unbridled, and some were quite unhappy with my airing our dirty laundry to the world. But true to form, I'll maintain consistency in telling it like it is, but with a little more tact and grace. Soooo, where did we leave off....

I guess the biggest change is that as of a couple weeks ago, I became a fully growed Paramedic (wink, wink). Some goofball in Columbus, OH was either sleeping on the job or slap drunk and somehow pushed my National Registry stuff through and generated a certification card with my name on it! Why is that a slip you might ask? Well, I'm glad you asked.

You see, I work nights and for the past five months we've been working CRAZY overtime. I'm talking about 130hrs a month overtime on top of my regular shift. Anywho, I had worked on a Friday night and was scheduled to test in Roanoke, Va the next Saturday morning. Just as luck would have it, we got our butts handed to us on a silver platter. I think that night between three trucks we had like 16 calls, and several were inter-facilities. I didn't even so much as get to look at a pillow much less put my head on one. During the daytime before I came on-shift I had worked eight hours at the ER(Now theres a blog series that I can't wait to get into), and that preceded by another busy shift.

So here I am in Roanoke at the Pearson Vue testing site, tired as hell, eyes bloodshot and haven't even touched a book or note card in a month. One of the reasons I waited so long to test was because I just didn't have the time too....seriously. They run me through the usual security stuff to make sure I ain't gonna cheat my way through this thing and sit me in a nice comfy cubical. There in front of me is this computer, keyboard, mouse, dry erase pad.....and a pair of ear muff thingies.

I resist the urge to put these ear muffs on because I know what's gonna happen if I do. However, there are about ten other people in there and most of them must have been taking a test that required them to type out an essay paper or something. Man, those keyboards were justa rattling away and I had to give into temptation or go mad with all that pecking.

Ahhhh, silence. Pure silence like a winter day at dawn with a fresh coating of snow. The only sound I could hear was the S1 and S2 of my heart. Sure enough, just as fate would have it, I started to get sleepy about ten questions into this beast. Now I know they have cameras everywhere watching the testing room and I am overly conscious about them laughing at me because I'm falling asleep in there. But sure as I'm typing this right now I start to do just that...I fell asleep no less than four times while taking this test! I'd be reading a question and next thing I'd know I'd wake up with my head just about on the keyboard. Once i actually woke myself up because I snored. OMG I was so embarrassed. I'm not even gonna mention how I felt when I walked out of there knowing that I was tired as heck taking this test; but I actually fell asleep taking it! I knew beyond a doubt that I had just wasted $110 and two and a half hours driving time.

For the next day and a half I felt like crap...literly. Not that I know what crap feels like mind you, but I would imagine that crap has some what of a complex being at the end of the food chain an all. All I could think about was the fact that I had told several people that I was going to take it that day and every body was expecting to know the results when they posted on Monday.

Well, that Monday about 9:00am, I entered the web address for the National Registry website. With a knot in my gut the size of a butterball turkey I entered my log in information, refusing to allow myself to believe that it would say anything other than that I was still an Intermediate. But sure enough, there it was. Right beside the word "Level" was the title that I have studied so hard for, fought so hard to defend and wanted so badly to wear with pride...PARAMEDIC. It was a surreal moment to say the least, almost like I couldn't believe what I was seeing. In the back of my mind I was just absolutely sure that somebody had messed up and sometime later that day they would realize what had happened and return to fix the mistake. So I fought off the urge to check it again...and lost.

I'm willing to bet that I checked my certification status no less that ten times that day. And every time I would see that title under my name I would get just a little more giddy each time. By the time I went to bed that night it had just about sunk in; I actually slept through the National Registry Paramedic exam...and passed!

Well, that's all for now. I've got a lot more I want to get back up to speed on, and I will over the next few days or so, but one of the biggest projects I'm going to be undertaking is a complete overhaul of my website. I want a new look and make it more "professional" if you will.

Until next time....Medic Up!