The Beginning of the End... More ramblings from a stressed out paramedic student

It's late. It's almost 2:00am, I'm at the station on shift, and I can't sleep.
I've been thinking about the things I've accomplished this year, and how much more is left ahead of me. A few months ago I wrote a blog post about all the things I had left to do in school before I could even get to the point I'm at. It seemed like forever away, and now it's over! I'm hoping a similar phenomenon happens to me in the next few months, because for the first time in my life I'm about to embark on an adventure to a new place all by myself.
I'm a small town girl (living in a loooonely woooorld... Thanks Journey). I grew up in Alaska, which many people don't even consider part of America. The longest I've ever been away from home was on a 6 week long road trip I took after I graduated from high school. Now, years later I'm headed to a city in New England I can't even pronounce for three months. Three Months. That's ninety days. I don't know where I'm going to live, I don't know what I'm going to eat, but I do know that I'll be tired and busy. I'll be spending those three month running with a fast-paced EMS service, learning the ins and outs of how to be a good paramedic. I've spent the year cracking the books and learning the techniques, now I'm being sent out into the world to put it all together and see what I can make of it.
Is it an awesome opportunity? Yes. Am I excited? Of course! Do I sometimes throw up a little when I think about it? You betcha!
I took two months off between school and internship to earn the money I was going to need to support myself while I was away. Meanwhile, most of my classmates have left on their journey and are getting ready to come home already! I'm hearing stories and learning things via them, which adds to both my excitement and my nervousness!
Corny as it is, my biggest stumbling point is leaving behind this really wonderful man I've started building a life with. We've been together a little over two years now and frankly, I keep expecting this feeling of ridiculous attatchment to wear off. We're supposed to be past this stage by now, it shouldn't feel like torture to not see each other for a couple of days, but it does. I will get to see him for a little while in October, he'll be meeting up with me in New Jersey for his daughter's wedding. That will be a fairly rushed visit, I think. He has three kids and three grandkids that I'm sure will be occupying his time. I'll do my best to be a fly on the wall for that and not let my missing him get in the way of his rare bit of family time. It will be hard. I'm hoping to extend his trip a little bit longer, but unfortunately money is going to be tight and our finances will need him to get back to work before too long.
The thing I need to keep reminding myself of is this three month internship is the means to an end. Afterwards, it will be over and all I'll have to do is pass a test and I'll be a paramedic. That means being able to get a steady job and starting down a career path that I can support a family with. That means being able to start digging myself out of debt and being able to eventually live a more worry-free life. That means vacation pay, retirement, and sick leave. That means health insurance. That means being in a place where I can finally take the time to become who I want to be and not have to work three jobs just to get by.
This particular investment in my future has taken everything I've had to give and then some. Looking back over the past year, I've given time, money, blood, sweat, and tears to this endeavor and it's not enough yet. There's this one last huge hurdle in my way, and I'm not willing to let it defeat me. I've always thought you couldn't be courageous unless you were afraid, but I never really wanted to test that theory.
Oy... Here goes nothing.
-Jess

Throwback Thursday on Friday

I've been wanting to write this post for a while. I think about it often, but on so many levels I don't know how to express myself on this particular subject. This is probably the fourth or fifth draft I've written, it's just as rambling and non-sensible as the other drafts and I don't know if this one will even be posted, but here goes.
Yesterday, I spent part of the evening looking through my senior year book and reading all the well wishes that idealistic high schoolers write to each other. I was fortunate my senior year to find my path in life. I feel like I got ahead of the rest of the pack by discovering so early what I was called to do. It's interesting now looking back at the people I knew and lost touch with. It's even more interesting thinking about the people who I still stay in contact with and how far they have come in their lives.
One of my oldest friends is moving back home after living in Hawaii with her husband who she married in 2010. She will be a registered nurse when she gets here and her husband was just discharged from the Army. I don't know how we've done it, but we have managed to stay really close friends and I am unbelievably thrilled to have her moving back here. I remember our senior year of high school, we fought almost non-stop. I don't remember why we fought all the time, but I do remember that somehow we made it through. Now, I value her opinion above most others because she has always been able to tell me things without sugar coating it. We have both grown into different people, but we have managed to share experiences and memories even though we're thousands of miles away from each other. Every so often I get a call from her when she is driving home and we talk as if we saw each other yesterday, we always pick up where we left off. It is phenomenal to me that we get along as well as we do. I have never met someone so different from myself, but we make it work. I like to think that our black and white differences are the glue that hold us together.
Another wonderful woman who I have been blessed with almost 10 years of friendship with is graduating college this week with a bachelor's degree in Business Management. When you meet this chick, the last thing on Earth that you would consider her doing is sitting in front of a computer. However, according to her: The sexiest thing in the world is a well organized Excel Spreadsheet. She doesn't know it, but she is way too cool to be friends with me. She does all the things in life I wish I had the guts to do... Like travel the world and do other awesome exotic things. The other night she picked me up for dinner and took me to this total hipster restaurant. I could tell from all the trendy young people my age that I didn't belong there. Of course, she saw someone immediately that she knew who screamed her name across the parking lot. She introduced meI't to her friend "This is Jess... She's a firefighter. I like to tell everyone that because it gives her street cred." I wasn't sure exactly how to respond to that, so I just smiled and looked awkward. Whenever she comes to my house, my boyfriend leaves the room shaking his head and later says things like "I have never seen two girls who love each other as much as you two do." To me, that's pretty special and a darn keen observation. I love that girl. I'm going to name my someday daughter after her.
Then there's that one guy friend who I've stayed in contact with from school. The one who wore homemade pants made from stuffed animals to school one day and forever endeared himself to my heart. He's the one who I traveled through Canada and Oregon with on a poorly planned road trip in my Chevy Aveo.  That guy. He's great. He is so unique, I can't describe him in words... You have to just understand that there is probably no one else like him. He never ceases to amaze me at his lack of self esteem, because not only is he an amazing actor, musician, and comedian, he is just a genuinely nice person. He ranks in my top 10 coolest people that I've ever had the privilege of knowing. If I had to pick one person I know who could be famous, it would be that guy. It's funny though, he didn't write a darn thing in my yearbook.
At the end of the day, those are the people I've stayed in touch with from high school and it's plenty. Those three individuals I feel incredibly lucky to call my friends and I love to watch them become the amazing people that they are! I'm so awe-struck at how much all of us have grown and become semi-responsible adults. I apologize for the rambling blog post, but I had to throw this one out there.

Spring is in the Air... That means fresh produce!

Ahh, springtime... The sun is shining, the trees are budding, the flowers are starting to bloom, and wildland fires are beginning to pop up all over our little fire service area. Since I am still out of service as far as fire and medical response goes, I'm occupying my time with clinicals, school, and spending unnecessary amounts of time in my kitchen. Today's long overdue blog post is about my meal planning. I wish I had something more exciting to report, but the deep and thoughtful subjects just aren't flowing today. So, I'll take what I can get.

The boyfriend and I have been avidly pursuing spending less money and eating healthier, so for us the best way to do that was to meal plan. With that in mind, we sprung into it head first last week and were pretty successful! This Sunday while I was setting up this week's menu I looked through the grocery store ads and realized the time of year for delicious produce is upon us and planned accordingly. Here's the menu for the week and the thoughts behind them:

Sunday: Cheat Day! Eat whatever you want! (We ordered a pizza)
We need at least one day a week with no rules and since we usually spend Sunday lazing around the house it seemed like the perfect day to get to eat whatever we were in the mood for. 

Monday: Steak night with balsamic roasted asparagus and baked potatoes
Red meat is a requirement, gotta get that iron! Asparagus was on sale and can be cooked quickly and easily in the oven. This was the perfect meal after a long day because it took little to no prep work and can all be done in the oven.  

Tuesday: Pasta Salad and Cucumber Chips
Tuesday is our busiest day of the week, the man works all day and teaches at night and I almost always have a 12 hour clinical. I tried to plan something I could cook the night before and stick in the fridge for when I got home. Recipe to come for the cucumber chips... They are the bomb!

Wednesday: Chicken tacos with fresh avocados on spinach tortillas
Wednesdays are a little more relaxed around here and I can take the time to cook a nice meal. Can't say no to avocados this time of year! They're so tasty and can easily take the place of sour cream saving a few extra calories!

Thursday: Enchilada Soup served over rice
I like to have a soup night once a week and this was perfect because I will be able to use any leftover chicken from the tacos on Wednesday. Serving it over rice makes it a little bit more filling while still allowing us to eat lightly. 

Friday: Night out!
We usually go out one night a week anyway, so it's nice to be able to plan ahead when we can. This week I have a class field trip so my classmates and I will be going out to eat afterwards. 

Saturday: Leftovers
Chances are good that I'll be too tired to cook anything when I get home from my Saturday clinical, so if we just plan to eat whatever is lying around I won't be tempted to get Taco Bell on my way home. 

That's the plan this week! So far so good. Dinner tonight was delicious, I splurged a little and got nice grass-fed rib eyes from the butcher. It was so worth it.
Here's a simple recipe of mine to try out on your own! It's easy, healthy, and absolutely delicious.

Balsamic Roasted Asparagus:
Ingredients: Asparagus, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, olive oil, chopped garlic
Preheat the oven to 375
Cut the ends off and wash your asparagus, place uncovered on a cookie sheet
Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar over asparagus, I use about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar
Sprinkle fresh ground pepper, salt, and garlic powder over the whole mess
Add fresh minced garlic for extra flavor and garnish
Bake 8-10 minutes for "al dente" style
Serve hot, fresh out of the oven. We eat them like french fries!

Time Heals Some Wounds

This weekend was full of enlightening and healing experiences for me. I met a young boy who I helped  resuscitate a year ago, and I got to start patching up some relationships that I thought were gone forever. I'll start with Saturday, because it just makes sense to go chronologically... Before I get into that though, here's the background story:

About a year ago I was on a call for a two vehicle collision where four individuals were critically injured, the worst of all the injuries being a little boy. We arrived on scene of the accident before it was even dispatched due to a vehicle roll over on the same road less than a mile away. We rolled up to find a smashed up car with too many injuries for a single ambulance and an engine to handle. Before I knew it I had an unconscious, unresponsive child on my gurney. Resuscitation efforts began immediately and miraculously were successful, but there was very little hope for his overall recovery. We transported the child to the nearest hospital and then transferred him to the pediatric center an hour away. My partner and I were with the kiddo from the time of the accident, to the time of disposition five hours later. When we rolled in to the Pediatric ICU, I met his mother, we exchanged a few words, and I left. None of us expected him to last the night. 

Flash forward about 12 months. I'm in paramedic school doing my Pediatric ICU rotation, when I hear the patient's name come up in morning report. I wander down to the area they say he's in and sure enough. There he is. Sitting in his wheelchair, looking around, and talking to his Mom. I had heard he was alive and had been following his case on Facebook, but I guess I never realized how alert and oriented he was. It was unbelievable. His mother met me at the door and surprisingly remembered me. She asked for my number to get in touch with myself and the other medics/firefighters involved in his case and later invited us all over to meet the young man, celebrate, and eat steak and crab. The food was great, the joy of meeting someone we helped was amazing. 

In my short time as a firefighter/EMT, I have seen some pretty tragic things. Too often, all I get to see of people is them on the worst day of their life. Very rarely do I get the opportunity to follow up with a patient and hear how they are doing. I know for a fact that this little boy gave many of us sleepless nights wondering if there was something we could have done differently, but at the end of the day, we did the best we could. The cool thing was, it was enough. He's here today to talk, cry, and wink at the pretty girls.

So that was my Saturday night. I went home covered in feel-goods and slept like a baby. 

Sunday morning I slept in. When I woke up I had a message from my former mother in law inviting me to her open house that afternoon. 

Unfortunately, like so many young Americans I am divorced. I'm not going to go into the how, why, or other erroneous details, but like any marriage it took two people to get in and two to get out. We were married for a little over two years, and I believe in the end we were both better off without each other. In the process of getting divorced I lost touch with his family, which was heart breaking for me. I hadn't really spoken to anyone in the family much in the last two years and it was made pretty clear to me that my presence was not overly desired. It's understandable, I didn't hold anything against anyone, but it was certainly a surprise to get invited to the open house. So, I said I'd be there. Getting up the gumption to go inside when the moment came, that was where the effort came. I sat in the driveway for a few minutes reminiscing and almost left. Finally, I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained and went inside. It was awkward for about 30 seconds. Then I got to meet a brand new addition to the family: my former brother/sister-in-law's son, my would-be nephew. Oh, dear god. What a handsome, beautiful baby boy. He's got a Captain America chin, bright blue eyes, and he smiled at me when I held him up like Simba. Melted my little heart. He's going to be such a lady killer, I'm already sold. 

Thank goodness for perfect babies breaking the ice because I got to catch up with people I never thought I'd speak to again. It was a relief to hear from them, reestablish a few connections, and just have a normal conversation. Nothing crazy happened, no dramatic blow out, and I walked away from it feeling lighter than I have in a while. I had been holding on to so much angst and anxiety and in a one hour visit, it was just gone.

I don't regret getting married or getting divorced, but I regret hurting people... So it was nice to see some wounds do heal with time. 

On a personal note, since my divorce, the comment I get the most from people is "You look so happy!" ...That's because I am. Life has its ups and downs like anything, but for the first time since I can remember, I feel like I can be myself. I've got a pretty amazing support system, a happy home, and I'm pursuing an education I never believed in myself enough to try. 

This weekend was pretty awesome. It is just reaffirming my belief that I need to follow my instincts and everything happens for a reason. I think if you can stay positive through the hard times in life, good things will come out in the end. 

-Jess

The Period of Ologies: A Mad Paramedic School Rant

Paramedic school. People ask me how it's going and I don't have enough words to describe it to them. On the one hand, I'm being bombarded with information, and that's really neat! I am learning more than I ever thought I could (or thought I wanted to) about the human heart, emergency medicine, respiratory management, and every other thing you can imagine. I know how to paralyze, intubate, and breathe for a human being. I know what drugs to give to a heart that's beating too fast, too slow, or not at all. I know the American Heart Association ACLS Algorithm like the back of my hand. It really is amazing the amount of knowledge that has been packed into my little head over the last 7 months!

On the other hand, I'm overwhelmed. We spent the last month and a half on cardiology and I still get confused and have to stop to think about what protocol to follow for any given situation. I passed my cardiology final with an 86.5%. It's a B, that's not bad, but somewhere in there I missed 13.5% of the information that I might need to know to be able to save someone's life! Granted, I took the test on a double dose of Vicodin because I was in excruciating pain from a broken ankle, problematic Achilles tendon, and a DVT... So maybe it's not so bad, but I digress. 

This week we began the "Ologies". That is to say, over the next month we will be covering pulmonology, neurology, endocrinology, urology, immunology, nephrology, toxicology, gastroenterology, and hematology. It's sounds like a song from Mary Poppins. Let me say it again... We are covering all of this in a month. On top of clinicals. My brain! It hurts so bad!

Yesterday, I got mad at my boyfriend. The poor man has suffered through paramedic school with me so far without too many stress-induced fights... but yesterday it all came to a rolling boil about twenty minutes after I looked at my April schedule and then got a text from him saying he unexpectedly might be leaving for Maryland next week. I live in Alaska. To me, Maryland is a foreign country. Oh, and he'd be missing my birthday. Did I mention I was sitting in class getting a four hour lecture on pulmonology when all this happened? (You might ask me why I wasn't paying attention instead of answering texts from my boyfriend and looking at my schedule... I might reply to you, hush.) After about six hours of extremely uncharacteristic frustration from the two of us, we snuggled up in bed, reminded each other that we love one another, and decided the prognosis for the whole situation might look a little better with a good night's sleep.

Sure enough, when I woke up this morning, April still looked like crap. However, sleep aided in taking away the anguish of the situation and gave me some good ideas.

1. I've decided I'm not going to look at my schedule a month at a time again until paramedic school is over. Every time I do it causes a panic attack. I've made it this far, I can get through another 14 weeks. 

2. I have a little message screen on my phone, every time I open it up it says "Be Thankful". That's what I set when I wanted to remind myself to appreciate what I had. I'm going to change it to "Be Caring". Hopefully that will help me remember to not take my stress out on other people. 

3. I'm going to do a meal plan every week. It's common knowledge that hunger makes stress worse. With me, you can multiply that by about 10,000 and conclude that hunger makes me evil. 

4. Pretty soon, my ankle will be all healed up and I will have to go back to work. I have so far made it through the entire year without working or having clinicals on Sunday. I take one day a week to stay in my pajamas all day, eat whatever I want, get caught up on homework, and enjoy being home with my man. In order to maintain my sanity, I have to keep doing that. 

5. Stay the course. Keep the faith. Keep on keeping on. Do what I have to do to finish this journey I have begun. 

That's it. End of paramedic school rant for the day. I have grilled asparagus and chicken bacon sandwiches to finish making for dinner. 

-Jess

Pre-Patty's Shenanigans

Each year, my boyfriend throws a huge party for St. Patrick's Day. He being an Irish-Catholic-East Coast Originating-Firefighter makes it appropriate enough, but he was also born on St. Patty's so everything falls into place quite nicely. The party is, in a word: awesome. Since we started dating, I've taken over throwing the party since I thought it was pretty lame that he had to do everything for his own birthday. This year we are in a new house, with new ideas, and ready to put previous year's parties to shame. I've been in the kitchen since 3:00 yesterday afternoon baking up a storm and dancing to Irish sea shanties. Here's what I've got so far:

I started out with the boyfriend-requested green cupcakes. My marching orders were as follows: "I don't care what flavor it is, I just want green cake." Last year I made Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes which were a smash hit, so I wanted to do something similar, but with green cake. I rooted around on Pinterest until I found a recipe for Green Velvet Cupcakes and began there. My friend Kelsey was kind enough to come over and dictate the recipe to me from my laptop while I baked those up.  We determined that the 1 tablespoon of cocoa that the recipe called for was not enough, so we added 3. The additional cocoa darkened the color to baby poop green rather than shamrock green, but the flavor was much improved by it.
The end result looked like this:


I stuck a baby spoon my sister left here into the still hot cupcakes to make a well which I would later fill with whiskey ganache. (recipe below) For the evening those were set aside to cool.













Next I made the whiskey ganache, which is my own recipe modified from the days of working at my parent's bakery. It's super simple, alcoholic, and delicious!
Ingredients:
2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
2 Cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
    (I use Ghiradelli because I'm a snob about my chocolate)
1 cup of whiskey


Step 1: Heat the heavy cream on the stove until boiling, stirring constantly to keep from burning
Step 2: Remove from heat, add chocolate chips. Stir until chocolate chips are melted and the sauce is smooth.
Step 3: Set aside for a couple of hours and allow the ganache to cool.
Step 4: Add whiskey, stir until it is totally mixed in. At this point it will look like chocolate-whiskey soup. That's normal.
Step 5: Allow to sit overnight, uncovered at room temperature. The next morning it should be a smooth, shiny, thick chocolate sauce. Theoretically, it should thicken even more over time, but I've never let it sit long enough to find out.


That's it! I don't add the whiskey to the hot mixture because I don't want to lose any of the alcohol to the heat. A few recipes I've found call for 2 or 3 tablespoons of whiskey, but I found that you can't taste it. With a cup of whiskey, the cupcake packs a flavorful punch and falls under one of my many rules of life: "There's no such thing as too much whiskey."

This morning I filled the wells of the cupcakes with the ganache:

After filling, I like to let them sit for a while so the ganache has a chance to harden up before I put the irish cream frosting on top. This makes for some of the most time consuming cupcakes ever made, but it's worth it.

The irish cream frosting is even more simple than the ganache, and just as delicious..
Ingredients:
1 stick of butter, room temp
2 cups of powdered sugar
About 1/4 cup of irish cream

Throw it all in a mixer and whip until it is the desired consistency. Add more irish cream to make it softer and more powdered sugar to make it drier.

The end result looked like this:

It has taken me all day to cook, clean, and write this blog post... So I will post more tomorrow after the party!
-Jess

Blogging, Take two.

So, here I am making my second attempt at blogging. Albeit, this may not be the greatest time for me to take up blogging since I am currently working two jobs as a firefighter and as a confined space technician, as well as going to paramedic school full time. However, since I recently broke my ankle, I need a hobby and this seemed as good as any. I'll be using this blog to chronicle my adventures as a firefighter/EMT as well as avoiding doing my paramedic homework. Since I'm terrible at organizing my thoughts categorically, I'm afraid this won't be strictly a Fire/EMS/Adrenaline Junkie Blog but just a general narrative of my life... I apologize in advance. -Jess