Tuesday, December 18, 2012

It's been two years...

I am in the process of renewing my National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) license. I can't believe it has been two years already. It feels like I was in class just yesterday. Becoming an EMT has been a goal of mine since I first became a trained first responder in 2005.  And I'm already renewing the license.

Listening to the news, I'm reminded of what I haven't seen while in the back of the ambulance. I haven't been on any major trauma calls, no MVC, or farm accident. I actually hope that I can go another license period without having to treat a major trauma patient, because that means my neighbors and friends and family are safe.  I don't know what I would have done had I been on a rig in Newtown, on Friday. I am guessing that like the men and women there, I would do what I was trained to do. And as I'm sure many of them have done, hold my tears back until I was back at the station.

The folks who are on the front line of responding to a 911 call, the police, fire, and those of us in Emergency Medical Services will bear the scars of what happened as surely as the families of those lost. We all have calls that stay with us. To this day, I can tell you every detail of  a search that ended up being a recovery, and the every detail of the first fatal accident I responded to.  My sister-in-law keeps telling me that  it takes a very special person to be an EMT. These things stay with you, and either hold you back or make you better at your job.

Here is a really good synopsis of why critical stress debriefing is VITAL for all first responders, no matter the depth of the tragedy.

To learn about the different types of debriefs, click here

And, while being far from a mental health professional, I think in the wake of tragedy that touches each and everyone of us, whether we lost friends, family, or hope that innocence is still safe in America, a critical stress debriefing would benefit each and every one of us, that and a hug.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Full Weight

I am currently reading the book, Crafting the Personal Essay: a Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction by Dinty W. Moore.As part of the book, Professor Moore has writing exercises.  This is number four.
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The guilt of failure can be overwhelming. It often sneaks up and strikes out of nowhere. My dad died at the end of August. I gave him CPR, but failed to resuscitate him. Now, you can tell me that it was his time, he was ready to end his fight against cancer and COPD, and ready to be free of pain. I know those things on one level. But that doesn't keep me from feeling the guilt of failure, and shedding tears as I write this.

My training says I did everything I could... breaths, compressions, shock when advised by the AED, but I still feel the failure because I wasn't ready to let him go. I thought he would live till November, see one more harvest, one more turn of the calendar to Autumn, maybe even one more snowfall.

So I am moving through grief, burdened by a guilt that others say I should not carry, yet can't seem to set down.

The flood of memory

I am currently reading the book, Crafting the Personal Essay: a Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction by Dinty W. Moore.As part of the book, Professor Moore has writing exercises. This is the third.

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This is an exercise in memory. Take 10 minutes and mine the details of a memory. My classmates have been talking about the blizzard of 1975. There have been other blizzards since, but this one was really memorable for me. 
One of the first things I remember are the losses. The storm turned out to be much worse than predicted, and at least one cattle feeder lost most of the animals in his feed lot at the time.  What don't remember, but have found a link, is that it made national news

I remember Dad couldn't get my pony into the barn with the other horses, we have a photo of her standing on a drift ABOVE the machine shed. She was too mean to perish in such a storm. 

I remember the farm was out of power for two weeks and I had to stay at my grandparents in town, yet I don't recall anyone caterwauling about the power company not doing enough to get power restored....

Our family hobby was snowmobiling, I remember as a family, we went to check on all our neighbors after the storm and  went to town on the snowmobiles to get groceries for everyone.

I remember snow drifts as tall as the trees, and power poles nearly enveloped in snow.  Which a google check shows why, 90 mile an hour winds, added to lots of snow, and it was one of the top 10 worst storms of the century.   

I look out the window at the bare dusting of snow on the ground today, it doesn't even look like real snow, it looks like fake TV snow, and remember the snows of my childhood, including and especially the Blizzard of 1975.

Why do you write?

I am currently reading the book, Crafting the Personal Essay: a Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction by Dinty W. Moore.

As part of the book, Professor Moore has writing exercises.  This is the second.


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Why do you write? That 's the question. I think I write because I like to tell stories. To share someone's story with others or to share knowledge that just might come in handy in a pinch. 
I remember during the Cedar Rapids flood, I came home to find the power out. I asked my neighbor how long we had been out, thinking about the food in my freezer... She answered me and referenced an interview I had done with an extension specialist and aired on WMT... that's why I write, and interview, to help people when they need the information that I can glean from the experts. 

I think what I want to write now, I am writing more for myself, the need to re-develop a creativity, that feels likeit has been quashed down into a little box. To share something of my self, and maybe help myself with the information I uncover.

Get it out of your system

I am currently reading the book, Crafting the Personal Essay: a Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction by Dinty W. Moore.

As part of the book, Professor Moore has writing exercises. This is the first.

I don't remember writing many essays. It could be that that writing has been blurred into the reporting and news stories I've since written.
When I think back about what I wanted to write through those high school and college courses, I think about who I was at the time. The passions in my life then were horses and music. I probably wanted to write about horses.  I do remember an elementary school essay about a day in the life of my cat. I still have that one, it makes me laugh.

So, what do I want to write about now. I want to write about what I reported on for so many years. I want to talk to farmers and write about agriculture and how it has changed I want to write about farm families that have left the farm, families like mine. My great grandfather farmed about a thousand acres in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Not much by today's standards, but a lot using horses. Today, of eight great grandchildren, non of us farm, there is involvement in agriculture, but not on the farm. I want to explore the factors that went into that transition. I think it is something that has affected many farm families beyond my own.

I want to write about safety. how to be safe on the farm, and in town, what to do in emergencies before the responders can get to you.

I want to write about horses. So I guess that passion has stayed with me, it will never leave me. I will be the old lady in a turquoise shirt and purple cowboy hat.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

I've been thinking....

I've been thinking about a lot of things... The fiscal cliff, gun control, climate change, and on and on, so this will probably be a bit of a ramble. I what to know what YOUR thoughts are on some of these issues if you have been thinking about any of them.

(cue scary music and thunder) The fiscal cliff. you can't turn on the TV or radio to a news show where this isn't one of the top stories. Here are my thoughts on this issue. For me, at this point, I don't care if we go over even if it adversely affects my finances (which are a whole 'nother issue). I want to see EVERY politician who refuses to even listen to a perspective not his or her own booted.  What's wrong in Washington is there is no longer consensus building, but party line rancor.

What makes that worse, is the American electorate has no long term memory when they go to the election booth. They (we) tend to vote for either the top name, or the guy who is already in the office, forgetting how mad we were at how he voted just months before. If ever there were a valid reason for term limits, I think that is one. I say next election, if there is a third party candidate, vote for them. If we all do, maybe the  republicans and democrats will get the hint and start working together for our country instead of against each other for their parties.
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That's all I'll rant on about that subject, today.
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Gun control. This hasn't been a hot topic, but in the wake of yesterday's tragedy in Connecticut you can bet it will be.  I was thinking about this as I drove home from work, listening to the coverage on NPR.  Mark Follman from Mother Jones was on talking about an article he did recently on mass shootings. I've linked it, it's good. According to Follman, there have been 7 of these incidents THIS year. They found 61 mass shootings in the US in the past 30 years. Most of the shooters, according to the article used legally obtained guns.
  Weapons: Of the 139 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and semiautomatic handguns. (See charts below.) Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to massacre students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes (along with an AR-15 assault rifle) when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater.
To me this says it's time for gun enthusiasts to step up. Because if I'm thinking we need stricter gun control, a lot of people are. Here's my proposal.... keep the current law for the more common, small caliber weapons that are used by hunters, to me that is the only legitimate reason for someone other than law enforcement to own a gun. For the other weapons, such as the AR-15 assault rifles ( why the  hell does any one need one of those?)  Make it harder, add a mental health check at the purchaser's expense to the already required (in most states) criminal background check.  Neither side of the issue will be totally happy, but it sounds like a reasonable compromise.
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That's what I think on that.
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Climate change... Has anyone stopped to wonder if global warming is normal, and not completely a man made issue? Serioiusly, the dinosaurs supposedly lived in a semi tropic climate, we had an ice age... see where I'm going... the climate has changed  a lot, not just in the years man has kept records of the weather. Just sayin'.
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Discuss.