hellimedic

Wakefield's 200th win #redsox

2011-09-13T22:17:00.001-05:00

Finally! Way to go offense tonight. Big Papi needs to get a little critical more often :)

Forks over knives on #netflix streaming

2011-09-12T16:54:00.001-05:00

I've been hoping to see this movie for awhile and now that it's on streaming I watched it today- excellent documentary. If you don't like diabetes, cancer and heart disease you may want to watch....

Kids football

2011-09-10T15:11:00.001-05:00

Soooo... Some kids love football and try really hard. My kiddo is not like those :(. But he looks good in uniform so that's something

2011-09-01T15:22:00.001-05:00

argh! I'm using the new blogger posting thing and just looked at my last couple posts -- all the lovely line breaks and spacing which make it readable are gone! GONE! madness!

Gonna go fix those posts quick. Sorry if you read them and cried at the jumbleofwordstogetherwithoutspacingandlinebreaks

juicefast day 5 and podcasts I love

2011-09-01T13:37:00.003-05:00

Woke up today, and, since I'm not working, went back to bed :) Did that a few times before finally deciding to get up for the day. The energy boost is starting to kick in, but I was too tuckered last night to jog so I just walked a ton listening to my podcasts

Here's what I listen to

5by5.tv - Dan Benjamin's podcast network has a bunch of great tech related podcasts - most are related to Apple and mobile. These guys are so geeky (in a good way) that I feel normal :)
Savage Love - Dan Savage's out loud version of his advice column... its Ann Landers for our generation. Some of the callers are so weird it makes me feel normal :)
Confessions of an EMS Newbie - Ron Davis is a paramedic student and Kelly Grayson is a grizzled veteran. Ron asks Kelly questions, Kelly tells humorous stories. The questions Ron asks are questions I'd ask, so it makes me feel normal :)

Last night I did 4.12 miles around the neighborhood, nothing fancy, just walking and listening to the above gentlemen.

Total distance: 17.5 miles
Total time 5:31
Total weight loss 5 pounds
Hunger 3/10
Health/Wellness 6

Odd facts - I'm starting to see more veins. If my veins had been this visible a year ago when we were learning IV starts in class I wouldn't have had so many bruises.

I need to do some reading about exercise during a juicefast. I'm pretty sure walking and jogging and biking (staying aerobic to burn fat for fuel) shouldn't be too much of a problem. But with the lack of carbs to refuel muscles is anaerobic work a good idea?

juicefast days 3 and 4

2011-08-31T18:22:00.003-05:00

Juicefast Day 3 and 4

Juicefast day 3 was spent at the station working a 24. I brought 4 juices (16 oz, 2 green and orange and a watermelon). I drank them spread throughout the day and had little hunger or other problems.... until 2am when I had to take a 5 hour trip. Lack of sleep and I haven't had the "juicefast energy boost" kick in yet meant, again, stopping at a gas station for caffeine and munchies. I went with a diet soda, a 5 hour energy and some nuts, I tried to keep the damage to a minimum.

Once I got home I slept all day (of day 4), finally getting up around 3pm.

Juicefast day 4 - sleep. didn't eat or drink until my first juice at 6pm.

Now watching the Red Sox on ESPN.
Weight loss - 2.5 pounds
Overall feeling - pretty good
difficulties - minimal

Juicefast day 2

2011-08-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

Monday was horrible and I didn't fast and didn't lose any weight... here's what happened

Sunday night one of the supervisors called with a transfer... 16 hours, starting at 2:30AM. I'd napped most of the day on Sunday and couldn't fall asleep. Went to the station and left on the transfer, hit horrible fog on the way to get the patient (3 hours west), then it was my job to drive to the receiving hospital (7.5 hours east). We got about 2 hours in to my driving when we stopped for fuel. I wanted to drink juice all day but I couldn't handle the "Just started the juice fast feel rotten no energy no sleep last night can't crash the ambulance" syndrome so I broke down and bought food and mountain dew.

I know, I feel rotten about it too, but we made it to the destination safely. After I got home (after 8pm) I had a juice, made juices for Tuesday and went to bed.

Weight loss - 0

Best recipes -
Orange/Carrot/Sweet Potato/cinnamon. YUM!
watermelon/pear
apple/pear/cucumber/spinach/kale

Over the next week I want to keep working on less fruit more vegetables. I have juices for today and I don't work the next 2 days so I can definitely make some headway.

juicefast day 1 complete

2011-08-29T00:51:00.000-05:00

Weight loss - none, cuz, duh, I just started.

Hunger - not that bad. I remember reading something one of the folks from the biggest loser wrote awhile back that they (the contestants) got used to hunger, and they wanted that feeling... it meant they knew they were on the right track (weight loss). Tomorrow is going to be a big challenge--- I'm leaving at 0230 for a 16 hour transfer (total trip time). I've got 4 juices and a cooler, hopefully that's enough to drink.

Here's the documentary trailer on youtube

This is the juicer I wanted to buy, but there were none left in town-- seems everyone saw the documentary and there wasn't a Breville juicer to be found in town. The Breville juicers get huge amounts of 5 star ratings and their fans seem fanatical about it. I didn't want to wait and got a Cuisinart which is working good, but if/when it fails I'll get a Breville.

starting the #juicefast

2011-08-28T01:52:00.000-05:00

Today (well, 90 minutes ago ) I started my juicefast. I kicked it off with

A) McDonalds - burger and fries
B) Going for a run.

I figure that a burger and fries is a pretty iconic last meal.

I love the Nike GPS app on my iPhone - it does such a great job showing you speed, time, maps, etc etc. My running was longer and faster than its been in forever, plus the voices at the end of your run are great (so far I've had Lance Armstrong, Paula Radcliffe and Dirk Nowitzki congratulating me.

In other news, I'm really liking apple, cucumber, pear, lemon, lime, ginger in my juices... orange/carrot is really good too. I really don't like it when the juice is too thick-- I am going to look for a strainer of some sort I think to keep it thin and watery. The past week of easing into juicing, trying recipes, learning some tricks etc is totally the way to go IMHO.

In paramedic news - I learned 2 really cool tricks this past week

1- an alcohol swab under the patient's nose can help put off the puking -- it doesn't fix the problem, but can buy some time to get anti-emetics (zofran!) on board.
2- when moving a patient to a long board for spinal precautions, a blanket can be a great aid. If the patient is sitting on the ground (like our patient was Friday), put the board directly behind their butt with the blanket on top of the board (folded over in half). Lay the patient down onto the board, then slide them up using the blanket (still hold C-spine and use good spinal precautions)

One of the perks of the system I work for - we have a bunch of medics, some flight medics, with 10-20 years of experience that we get to work with (see tips above)

partner in the ER

2011-08-23T16:13:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was my first 24 of the week. It started out pretty normally, show up, do rig checks, stop at the grocery store, clean, etc. Had to get my radio fixed, bring rigs to the shop etc.

We had a call (elderly person HR 140, possible ST elevation, full lungs, low O2 sats) that we patched up with some duonebs after online medical control looked at the 12 lead. Then got lunch, wrote report and practiced chilling out. We watched a couple movies (Inception and Funny People) then ran to the restaurant for food. We ate supper and I decided to turn in - partner was going to shower.

I got up a couple hours later for water and a bathroom break -- door was locked and my partner was in there, showering again?

He came out and looked wretched and complained of back tightness-- I asked him if he needed anything, patient refusal. I asked him again, and a third time just to be sure. Still refused. I had him fill out the patient refused service form (PRS), then went back to bed.

Got up early in the morning to do a quick check that everything was ok -- partner's bedroom was empty and there was someone sleeping in the living room... bizarre but I was tired so I went back to bed. (Notice a trend, don't expect much out of me at night besides sleep).

Got up at 7am and HOLY SHIT, I have a new partner(the person sleeping on the couch). My partner is in the ER. Whaaa?

A) although I don't like being woken up, if we'd gotten a 911 call I'd have been confused as hell
B) I wish he hadn't refused help so many times.
C) Speaking with the supervisors I found that the back tightness is the early warning sign that he's not going to be ok.

In other news, I came home and found that SyFy likes to show Star Trek:TNG over and over and over - so I've been napping in the recliner watching TNG all day.

new juice recipes

2011-08-21T23:57:00.001-05:00

Apple, Pear, half a lemon, cinnamon - crazy good

A green veggie juice with swiss chard, celery, apple, cucumber, ginger, lemon - not bad.

other blogs i like

2011-08-20T23:11:00.004-05:00

Meghan the Veghan - hilarious writer and great recipes/food ideas. I love these (shamefully stolen from her site)

Mango and Black Bean Salad

1 can (15 oz.) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 ½ cups chopped peeled ripe mango
1 cup thinly sliced green onions
½ cup cooked brown rice
3 tbsp. fresh cilantro, finely chopped
2 tbsp. fresh salsa (you can also use tomatillo)
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
¾ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Classy Ramen Salad

16 oz. chopped cabbage
1 bunch chopped green onions
½ cup dry roasted peanuts
1 cup sunflower kernels
1 ½ packages uncooked ramen noodles
3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
¾ cup vegetable oil
4 tbsp. rice vinegar

Screaming at the Shortstop is about the Red Sox! The author is a 20something (I think) huge Red Sox fan who loves the Captain, Pedey, and hates Lackey. She's rooting for Wake's 200th win as much as I am (all these damn no decisions keepin poor Wake from the milestone).

Forks Over Knives (contest)

2011-08-20T01:31:00.003-05:00

post #juicefast, I'll be following this food plan (I don't like the word diet). Sadly the documentary didn't come close to where I live, so I'm planning to buy the movie and/or book.

writing and juicing

2011-08-20T00:30:00.003-05:00

So I didn't end up writing any more during internship. 3 12s as a paramedic intern and 3 12s as a tech in the hospital was too much - that was a terribly difficult 2 months. After that was finished in February we had another round of tests at school, the final, then a week of prep for National Registry practicals. Then in late February I took the National Registry written test and after 70 some horribly horribly difficult questions the test put me out of my misery.

oh way, I had to wait 24 hours to find out my results -- THAT was the misery.

Well I passed, then went and found a job as a medic. Our service does 911 and transfers, most of my weeks are about 2 transfers for every 911 call. The great part of the transfers is having a lot of time to research medications, read the physician's H&P, study lab values and look up everything on the internet on my iPhone. All of that is great! Plus, after the patient contact portion is done you're just drivin down the road chatting with your partner (and 95% of my partners are great fun to talk with. 1 is a total bitch)

Not terribly related, but, well, sort of related is a quest for improved health. I watched the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and it struck a chord. I bought a juicer earlier tonight (after quite a search in town) and got started, first with a "Mean Green" and then an orange-carrot. Both were totally drinkable, say, 5/10 but I'm guessing in a week or two of palette changing they'll taste great.

In order to make sure I have something to talk about I'm going to blog the juicefast (and weight loss/health changes).

My goals

30 days of juicefast
30 pounds of weight loss
my nagging little health issue fixed
happiness (although i'm pretty happy all the time anyway)

this starts on the 27th. This next week I'm going to try to replace about half my meals with juice and no more soda -- get the caffeine detox done this week.

Matt

first day of field internship

2010-11-30T21:26:00.000-06:00

Dear diary

Today was the first day of field internship. I'm happily paired with a great preceptor that took the time to explain why we were doing things, and even apologized when I didn't get to start any IVs (which I'm fine with). He taught me how to better write a narrative (and I wrote half a dozen, all improving I hope) and gave good tips for interviewing.

Tomorrow we're back at it for another day.

Oh, and the lesson for the day: drinking and driving is bad, mmkay :)

code blue

2010-10-10T01:04:00.001-05:00

Code blue the ICU tonite. Those rarely end well. Sure, you get cpr started rapidly, but the person is usually quite sick with multiple problems. As was the case here, there just wasn't enough reserves to handle it.

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almost internship time

2010-09-08T05:34:00.000-05:00

We turned in our choices for internship the other night in class. Our instructors match us for internship based on GPA, with the top person getting their first pick and then down the line. With 15 people and 7 locations nearly everybody is getting their first pick.

I put in for the 2 closest spots so I can still sleep in my own bed every night (plus, it's nice knowing the town). During my ride-alongs I hated not knowing where I was in relation to the hospital since it affects the load n go vs stay and play decision. Also, being stationed in a rig that moves around stinks if you're in the back -- you never know where you are, where you're going, and you aren't part of the conversations that go on between partners.

Lately everyone in class has been in clinicals at the hospital all the time so the stories we share with each other have been great.

I wish I'd recorded more of what happened in class and on clinicals, especially after listening to Ron Davis and Kelly Grayson over at emsnewbie.com and their weekly podcast.

new drawings from class

2010-05-26T23:40:00.007-05:00

Writing about class has been hard, but I can still draw (well, not really, my drawings are terrible, but they help me learn).

Class is going great (we're done with the first of 3 didactic quarters), I had my first ambulance ride time, did my OR rotation (intubations) and ended the quarter top in class.

The second quarter is supposed to be quite a bit harder. I learn/think best when my hands are involved drawing things and, well, anyone reading this has to suffer my horrible artwork (Brushes for iPad rocks! )

brick walls

2010-03-30T14:37:00.001-05:00

The brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture. 2008

I don't tear up or cry very often, but Randy Pausch's story is one of those times. One of the best lessons from him is about how "stuff" isn't as important as people.

Once, about a dozen years ago, when Chris was seven years old and Laura was nine, I picked them up in my brand-new Volkswagen Cabrio convertible. "Be careful in Uncle Randy's new car," my sister told them. "Wipe your feet before you get in it. Don't mess anything up. Don't get it dirty."

I listened to her, and thought, as only a bachelor uncle can: "That's just the sort of admonition that sets kids up for failure. Of course they'd eventually get my car dirty. Kids can't help it." So I made things easy. While my sister was outlining the rules, I slowly and deliberately opened a can of soda, turned it over, and poured it on the cloth seats in the back of the convertible. My message: People are more important than things. A car, even a pristine gem like my new convertible, was just a thing.

As I poured out that Coke, I watched Chris and Laura, mouths open, eyes widening. Here was crazy Uncle Randy completely rejecting adult rules.

I ended up being so glad I'd spilled that soda. Because later in the weekend, little Chris got the flu and threw up all over the backseat. He didn't feel guilty. He was relieved; he had already watched me christen the car. He knew it would be OK.

a couple inspirational quotes

2010-03-28T01:17:00.002-05:00

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity -- Louis Pasteur

Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt. — Special Olympics Oath

What we learn with pleasure we never forget. -- Alfred Mercier

a million articles on your ipod touch

2010-03-27T01:47:00.000-05:00

So, I'm late to the blogging (and reading others blogs) game with EMS. I've been in the bicycling blogging community in my fair city, and before that myspace (eww, we could just forget about that). I spend a lot of time reading the back posts.

I've been trying to catch up, because I truly love all of the medical knowledge contained in the stories of the bloggers I follow. I love reading Peter Canning's stories about naloxone, adenosine, epi and other drugs. When I'm in class and my instructor starts to talk about it -- I've got a leg up. I think about the patient in his story "That Narcan Shit" and have a vivid reminder of the effects and side effects, and why it should be titrated to bring the breathing up (so they live) but not to slam it in full dose.

So there's this great app/website called Instapaper. It's really genious. You add a little bookmark to your list of bookmarks. Then, whenever you get to a really awesome article/blogpost but think "darn, I don't have time to read this right now" you can click your special "Read Later" bookmark.

Through some crazy magical techie wizardry, the Instapaper machine turns that article/post into a nicely formatted, advertisements removed, newspaper-style article for you to read later. All of these articles get queued up on your iPhone/iPod Touch, or (as of next week), the iPad, or your Kindle, or you can go login on the Instapaper site and see a list of all the article's you've saved.

I guess in the Pro version (which I'm buying next week, since it's got new features etc for the iPad which is already ordered) you can share articles with other people, and it has this really cool looking tilt to scroll. You just lean your device forward to scroll down the page, or lean it back to scroll back up. I usually do a ton of article reading on my Blackberry and on my old one I think I wore out the spacebar and trackball from reading so much.

Now, instead of grabbing my blackberry and hoping to find something good to read when I've got time to kill, I can grab my iPod and KNOW that I'll have tons of great articles to read.

great timing

2010-03-23T23:40:00.000-05:00

excellent post full of videos over at Life Under the Lights. It's great timing for me (we started on airway tonight). One of the videos is embedded below, take a look at Ckemtp's blog for the rest

http://lifeunderthelights.com/2010/03/videos-for-an-airway-management-lecture/

drug testing at paramedic school

2010-03-12T18:25:00.021-06:00

<p>&amp;amp;lt;a style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; float: right; margin-left: 1em;" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-FjsQKzwhlU/S5qkeGg9tJI/AAAAAAAAAJs/rkHQKCEtu2g/s1600-h/table.jpg" imageanchor="1"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-FjsQKzwhlU/S5qkeGg9tJI/AAAAAAAAAJs/rkHQKCEtu2g/s200/table.jpg" style="" border="0" width="200" height="150"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;</p>Now that the Anatomy and Physiology test is behind us our paramedic class moved on to the beginnings of pharmacology. Our teacher grabbed a drug box and let us try the different drugs on each other - then separated us into groups based on the outcome. All the paralyzed people stayed put, everyone on B1 agonists got to run outside, all the people on Beta Blockers laid down to rest, the one dude on opioids sat there tripping, etc etc. It was a really good way to learn what the drugs did as well as how to reverse the effects (naloxone is COOL!)

It's too bad the cops came to break up the party before it was my turn :( I'm sure our new teacher won't be as fun

In other news, the book to the left (Dr. Jeffrey Guy's Pharmacology for Prehospital Professional) is great. I bought it a few months ago to study from and took it along to study group the other night. We sat around doing all the drug calcs from the book so we'd have a leg up on class. It made the drug calc worksheet our teacher gave us really easy :)

Medical Terminology

2010-03-08T23:03:00.000-06:00

I bought these flashcards (see left) a few months ago and started flipping through them whenever I had time to kill but didn't want to open up a textbook for serious studying. To be honest, all of the diagrams and picture seemed a bit goofy. Tonight all the terminology studying paid off being able to deconstruct words on the quiz like

gluconeogenesis
glycogenolysis
glycolysis
glycogenesis

(the questions was something about what glucagon does). All the words were close enough that without the ability to break the word down into its components they'd be really hard to tell apart. I'm glad medical terminology (now that I'm starting to understand it) means that I won't need to memorize everything :)

Return on Investment (or, studying gets rewarded)

2010-03-07T22:20:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was the big test. 3 chapters of Anatomy, Physiology, Pathophysiology and aging/development. I spent 2 weekends studying, plus nights, class, and listened to podcasts about anatomy (thanks iTunesU East Tennessee State for posting the lectures.) We got together Friday night for 6 hours and studied the book, workbook and all the class lectures they put online for us.

(Side note. Did you know that the hyoid bone is the only bone in the body not connected to any other bones. Fascinating bit of trivia that's worth 1 point)

Fast forward to the end of the test (about 11am). I always have this moment of nervousness when I turn in the test and we go outside to talk about it. A classmate asked me how I thought I did, and I said 95, but felt bad, like I was bragging. Turns out I underestimated myself and ended up with a 98 before arguing for more points with the teacher (I think I got one more).

At lunch today with the munchkin I got a fortune which confirmed I'm on the right path.

I eat enough fortune cookies that I can just wait until I get the perfect fortune that confirms what I already believe, then post it and point everyone to it :)