Lessons From The ER

OK, so most people know that I work at an emergency room (actually two emergency rooms but one of them not as often as the other one). I haven't written anything in my blog for a while and I thought I would write something which may be interesting or at least educational for those who are not so familiar with some of the common things I see at the ER. I will get right to it. These are all things based on my personal experiences:

1. No matter what age you are, make sure you have something in your wallet or someone in your cell phone listed as an emergency contact. You will regret not having done this simple thing if you are unable to speak. It happens quite often. You will also regret not encouraging your loves ones to do this if something terrible happens and you weren't by their side because we didn't know how to get a hold of you. And by the time we get a hold of you, it may be too late.

2. If you are saving up so you can part-ay and travel during your retirement, it probably won't be enough or realistic. I don't know if you are aware that Assisted Livings or Nursing Homes are NOT covered by insurance other than after medical procedures (aka knee replacement etc) only for a few days. So if you or your loved one can't get around your two story house or one of you wonders out in the street dangerously because of dementia, you are all on your own. Assisted Livings average $130 per day. Nursing Homes are anywhere from $120 to $500 per day.You need to plan for that too.

3. Getting medical care should be a priority. Your cell phone and your hair highlights are a privilege. It's sad we have been taught we are entitled or the world "owes us." Unfortunately, even though you can be seen at an ER without making a payment upfront, if you need follow up with a specialist you will not be seen unless you pay a rather large down-payment (meaning a few hundreds). And yes, they CAN turn you away. My suggestion? If need be, get rid of the cell phone and the highlights and save the money you need because my impression is that if you are referred to a specialist it is likely you will not get better without their treatment and without it you will probably get worse.

4. If you ever want to work in an ER you have to be a self-starter and a team player. It's amazing what I have seen accomplished by the great people I work with. 

5. Just because it's an ER it doesn't mean = fast. When you are having several different tests being done, they take time to get results. Be ready to be there for a little bit.

6. Calling an ER with medical questions does you no good. It's impossible to give medical advise over the phone without seeing someone, you could make a fatal mistake. Plus the people who answer the phones are not nurses of doctors. You should just google it or if not, come to be seen by a doctor.

7. Do not let your kids walk around barefoot in the ER!!! I probably shouldn't go into detail for this one but trust me, avoid it at all costs.

8. Please consider organ donation seriously. It is my personal belief that once I am dead, my body doesn't do me any good. So I hope I can help others live or see or walk or hold they children in their arms. If you want to choose to donate, please let your loves ones know. Just because you are registered through the State doesn't mean that your family will choose that for you if they weren't aware. It is very difficult for a loved one to make that kind of a decision when they are in so much pain.

9. Cherish the time you have with your loves ones. Even if they are really young, or the safest drivers you know, or the healthiest people ever, etc; I have seen people pass away for no reason pretty much. Meaning, natural causes which were completely unexpected. It is those times that I am reminded of the people who are important in my life and how most things don't matter. But love does.

Well, I don't think I have much more to say. There are always new things that I am learning but these are the ones that stick out in my mind because it would have been nice to know them a long time ago.

 

Some Songs Should Be Retired

My last post mentioned two shows, one that I like and one that dislike. Today I have decided that I am going to write something regarding a show that has both of those characteristics:

AND...THIS...IS American Idol! 

(could you just picture little Ryan Seacrest saying that just now?)

I am definitely a hater when A.I. begins their season. I think it is mean to make fun of people who think they can sing but they totally can't. I happen to know a few...

I am a lover when A.I. gets to the top 10 (or 12 or 13 or what ever number they choose to "surprisingly" change it to in an attempt of making the season more exciting). It is so fun to watch really talented people do their own versions or popular songs.

There are have been a few times that I believed songs were so good they should have been retired. Here are my top 5:

5. MacPhee singing somewhere over the rainbow

2. Cute dreads guy (Jason Castro) singing Halleluya. I love that it is not perfect but it is so heartfelt

3. Adam Lambert singing Mad World

2. David Archuleta singing Imagine (very touching, I actually shed a tear)

1. David Cook singing Hello (the song start on second 20, the volume is a little soft for this one, you totally need to turn it up to get the full effect). I heart David Cook

These songs should so be retired. Every time another contestant sings one of these songs, you already know they are just not going to be as good! Therefore, they choose to have a disadvantage in front of millions of fans who cannot forget the best version they ever heard!
I'm writing them a letter.

Morning or Night

Sometimes I struggle going to sleep. Not because I am not tired or because I have a lot of energy. The struggle tends to happen when I am really tired actually. I think sometimes I can not sleep because I am excited or nervous about plans that I have been thinking about and for some reason it feels as if I continue to think about it for "just a little bit longer" then I will continue to be excited about it a little bit longer? You are absolutely right, it makes no sense.

This brings me to a very important topic that I have been thinking about (which may or may not have kept me up a few nights). If you are tired at nights and completely crash by midnight AND you struggle every single morning waking up, even when the previous night you retired to sleep very early, are you a "night person" or a "morning person" or neither?

For a long time I have wondered what I am. Since my body feels like I was struck by a moving vehicle when ever I attempt to wake up before the sun has risen, I have decided I am not a morning person. Easy decision.

The problem is, at night when I find myself hoping my date will drop me off not too late so I can go to sleep because I am tired, I think that I am probably not a night person either!

Did this picture not just make you yawn? How does that always happen?

My conclusion is: I am completely lost. Is there not any other time of the day to choose from? I think my best time of day is around 10:00 am. So would that make me a "mid-morning person?" I could live with that.

Oh Sunny Days...

I know some may disagree with me... but the best part of the year is SUMMER. Oh how I miss the early mornings when you actually want to get out of bed because the sun is out and it is starting to get warm.  Plus all the fantastic things you can do during the summer! I like to ride my bike to the library. I like walking on grass without shoes on. I like washing my hair and letting it dry out. I like having a chocolate covered cone that drips down my fingers (dripping soft-serve ice cream is the best!!!), unfortunately that's how I gain 10 lb each summer. But that's a different story.
Oh SUMMER, I love thee like I will never love anyone (or thing) else. Please come back soon!

Ageless Love?

I have to admit, lately I have spent way too much time reading The Pioneer Woman's blog about her life. I envy it...and now that I have admitted to that, I would like to officially repent for having such feelings.

One of the things I love most about this woman is her and her husband's story: how they met and fell in love. I think the reason I love it so much is because I remember the feelings that she describes while falling in love. She was around the same age I was when I truly fell in love. The sad thing is that comparing our stories has made me wonder, do people still fall in love the same way as they get older?  I look at what my dates and relationships have been like since the dreaded breakup with the one that I felt such feelings for and nothing has ever compared. Yet, here I am reading about someone who felt the same way I did. As a result, I have come to the conclusion that when I felt that way it wasn't all in my head.

Still, nothing even close to those feelings has ever come since. Finally, I convinced myself that I'll never feel that same way again and something lesser will have to do; but then I wonder, could it happen again? Or was it just the excitement that accompanies that stage of our lives?

It is very difficult to date guys when you can never forget the way you felt with (and about) that person you truly loved.

Hopefully, someday I'll be proven wrong.

Pre-Thanksgiving: Pet Peeves

This is a necessary pre-Thanksgiving post. I am very grateful for millions of things, so I would like to get these few things that I am not grateful for out of the way.

Pet Peeves:

I hate it when people clip their fingernails at church. Who are you and did you grow up in a cave? Seriously.

I hate it when people have a hard time making decisions. Just choose something and do it! I think people waste more time trying to decide what they want than enjoying their choice.

I really dislike all the fake "lets make you cry" stories that people read around the holidays. First of all, they are usually cheesy, second of all there are enough true stories which are inspiring that you don't have to make some up. And I don't really care that the little boy bought his moma some shoes.

Well, that's pretty much it! So you if you don't want to be on my bad side, don't do these things.

I feel so much better now!!!!!

To The Survivors

Most of the time I try to keep my blog posts light and happy...but in all reality, I think about social issues a lot. Unfortunately, most of those aren't usually what you would consider "light and happy" at all.

Since it is my blog, and I can write what ever I want to, that is exactly what I am going to do right now. And just a warning, this is not a topic for young children.

Over the last two Fridays I have been able to watch two very disturbing, but very important, episodes of Oprah regarding men who were sexually abused as children. The whole audience was made of 200 grown men of all ages (probably mid 20's to 80's) who were survivors.  1 in 6 boys is sexually abused in America.

The pain that these men showed during the show was incredible. As some of the men told of how their childhoods were destroyed by adults, other men in the room wept, because each of them had a different yet similar story.

During the shows they showed a few statistics: 81% of those men had at some point in their lives contemplated suicide. 81% of 200 men, that means 160 of those men who could have represented anybody you know. A staggering 33% percentage of those had attempted it. The pain that one must feel to think about ending their own lives cannot be described in words. I won't attempt to write like I  know what it may feel like, because I don't, but I know that it is great. Most of these men were married, had children, perhaps grandchildren, and had careers etc...in a few words they didn't stop living their lives. Yet, this pain has always been present and has affected everything they are.

In between their testimonials, they showed a clip of a perpetrator speaking about what he thought he had caused to his victim. This perpetrator said, "I killed who she could have been." That is exactly what abuse does, it destroys people. It limits people's ability to allow themselves to be.

I don't really know why I felt compelled to write about this, but I guess I just want to raise my voice for those who feel that they cannot.

Being abused, especially when you are a man, is something that cannot be spoken about. It is a taboo topic. It takes your manhood away (as described by the victims). There are so many myths about what kind of people victims were when they were being abused or the people they will become. The myths make it so that men are even more afraid than women to report it or tell anybody.

First of all, anybody that has been a victim should not be ashamed. No matter what the details, a victim is a victim (period). Second, victims don't become abusers themselves. In my work I have spoken with many men and women who were victims of abuse as children. Most of them have grown up to be good people who hate abuse so much they cannot even think about causing hurt to anyone else. A true statement that Oprah made is that it is very possible that our jails are full of men who were abused as children, not because they have learned to hurt others, but because when you carry such hurt and feelings of betrayal, if you do not allow yourself to face them and work through them, they will be manifested as anger and dangerous behaviors.

My thoughts about this are: any kind of abuse needs to stop. I get tired when at work I see women and children who are abused. I get tired of mother's choosing their partners who are abusing their children, over their children. I get tired of men being abused by men. People's lives are being destroyed this very moment.

I can't do much other than do my job and make sure that people around me are safe, but it has to be a collaborative effort. We hear of things like this taking place in other far away places such as African countries ravaged by civil wars. Yet this stuff is happening to the kids that your children go to school with, to kids next door, and to your own children, and you may not even know it.

It is time to stop ignoring the facts. It is time to pay more attention to a serious crime that happens even to the "best families," even in the homes of religious people, even to the straight A student who always has a smile on his face.

How grateful I am that those 200 men had the courage to SURVIVE.

"Virtually" Living My Life Away

Sometimes I feel like the internet/facebook/texting/anything done with some kind of technical equipment have taken over my life.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is read the news online, then I check emails from work, check facebook and my day seems to cycle around all these things. I shop/window shop online (or would it be called screen shopping?), I read online, I learn online, I get recipes online, I keep track of my exercising online, well... you get the point.

When I was a little girl, my family moved to a little German town in the southern part of Chile. Technically, we weren't in the town, we were actually several miles from town. As a matter of fact in the area that we lived, we were the first house to be built. And it wasn't just any house, it was a log house. We were surrounded by nature as far as the eye could see and this is what I saw every day from home:

Needless to say, our life was simple and somewhat isolated. We did have a TV, which was black and white but we probably got 3 to 4 channels at the most. I think we had a phone but I don't really remember using it. The simplicity of our life was a most wonderful thing.

All the time I wish that I could go back to those simple days, when we could go for a boysenberry-picking-trip and would come back with buckets full of the wonderful dark fruit which my mother would turn in to jam. It would then in turn accompany her homemade bread. I wish I could still ride my bike any time of the day without being afraid. I wish I could go play on the hills next to our home where little calves would lay and where we found the first bird's nest full of eggs I had even seen.

I was surrounded by white daisy's and blue skies

Thinking about what my life used to be has helped me remember I still love "the simple life." I'm not into traveling the world (even though I have lived in different countries but it was all work related), I'd rather play in my own backyard. When it comes to homes, I'd rather have a small house in a large piece of land. I'd rather only check my email at work because I have to (I wish I didn't have to). I'd rather have a pic-nic than go to a nationally acclaimed restaurant that serves fancy food. I'd rather read a book than watch a movie. I'd rather make my food from scratch. I'd rather have few possessions and peace of mind than have credit card debt and so many things I don't even know where to put them.

It is difficult finding that balance. There are some things which are necessary to live in this world. But I will always prefer the simple life.

End of Summer

I can FEEL the end of summer coming...
The smells, the sounds, the sunrises and sunsets... everything is different.

I have mixed feelings about it all coming to an end. Summer is my favorite season, especially here in Utah.  For me, the temperature "highs" and "lows" during summer are perfect; I am the "I'd rather be hot than cold" kind of person. On the other hand, end of summer just means beautiful changing leafs and snowboarding season (and of course hot chocolate) will soon be here. So I guess it is not all that bad.

This summer has been pretty amazing and it kind of had to be because...uhm, yeah...it is my last summer in my 20's (somewhat depressing to say, I know).  I got to do a lot of the things that I had been trying to do for a long long time but had not been able to for different reasons. All I can say is that the memories will remain.

There is a song that always makes me think of the end of summer.  It is called "Anything But Mine."  Here is to celebrating the end of a most wonderful season.