Little did she know...

Technically, it's EMS week, which means we (I don't actually know who decided) set aside an entire week to celebrate ourselves and our coworkers and to do fun things for the community! I just like to use it as an excuse to post some ridiculous meme's. ;)  HOWEVER.... last week was Law Enforcement Officer's week. And that's kind of a big deal around here, too. In (belated) honor of that, I present to you a conversation: Do you think you would like to be a cop when you grow up? J: I don't know. I haven't made up my mind yet. I think it would be good because you can help people, but it also would be scary! I watched COPS with my grandma, and those people are crazy! What do you think the best part about being a cop would be? J: I don't really know. That's a hard question.  But I know what the hardest part of being a cop would be: making people hold still. They can be creepy. It would be hard! J: ...

yeah, we're tight.

It's been one of those shifts that you just have to laugh at all of the stereotypical calls: the drunk friends, the loud tv's, the chronic lying. the vomit, the blood, the B.O., the "I love you guys." and, "Are you a good driver?" The routine of it is comforting somehow: the feel of Velcro on the blood pressure cuff, the weight of the first in bag, the smell of stale air in the back of the rig, exchanged amused glances and muttered inside jokes. Camaraderie between shift partners, nurses, other ambulance companies, and the cops all are so much "the norm," that I almost forget how much of the awkward I had to go through to get here. I am glad to be done with that phase. I am glad that my work partners are like a second family, because in the back of my mind I am still carrying the hard, hard goodbyes that I had to tell to my siblings after our short reunion this past week. The fact that we could be together for even just over 24 hours is nothin...

I'm not actually working this weekend, which is a weird. But I am eating tacos.Tacos rule. Cheers.

Before I started my job, I only remember death significantly affecting me two times.  The first was when my grandma died a slow death from Leukemia. I remember how she looked the night she died: still and peaceful, as if she was sleeping. I remember how my mom touched her, as if she really WAS just taking a nap and my mom was somehow comforting her. I couldn't bring myself to do the same, but I also couldn't stop looking at her as if to convince myself of the fact that she really was gone.  The second time was when my grandpa died barely a year later, quickly and unexpectedly, all by himself. I was a new driver, driving myself, my dad, and my brothers to my sister's house where I was going to go on a road trip. We were listening to the Nebraska game when news of his death came by phone. It took my breath away and almost rendered me useless at the wheel. I remember how he looked in his casket, not like himself at all. Not the goofy, loving grandpa I knew. That gran...

"Smell my Folgers." "I don't wear pants anymore." "I see dead people." "My bottom feels good!"  "I killed a man once." "I don't get to cut clothes off of people nearly as much as I'd like to." "If you limit your perception to what you expect, you will miss realities..." Happy weekending, folks! May your shift be as busy as you want it to be.