Oklahoma City!

Where to Begin?

Living with a super awesome married couple in a nice house right outside the City. They have two dogs and are expecting a little baby  in August. So, unfortunately we won’t be here. I say we because Brittany and I are living here. Brittany was paramedic of the year in our class! She is an amazing medic! She is here and showing me up all the time! J Which is good. It has been super fun being with her though. It definitely would be a completely different experience without her here. We have done a ton on the days that we aren’t working. Which are not many that we get to have together. The only day we get together now is Sunday.  So, we go to the Singles Ward! It has been fun. We are in the choir and tonight the relief society is going to go see the movie Leap Year together and go get ice cream afterwards! So I’m super excited! Anyway. Things Brit and I have done . . .

• ·      Went and saw Avatar.
• ·      NBA Basketball Game OKC Thunder vs. Pacers (had some super awesome kids sitting behind us!) the tickets were $4 each! It was awesome!
• ·      Fish tank store J almost bought a Beta, I think I will do that today.
• ·      Got caught in an Ice storm! Craziness! Everything gets a layer of ice on it . . . EVERYTHING!! The side walks, the roads, your windows, the tires, its insane.
•       Ate at Panda Express, of Course! They have 10 here! Britts super happy bout that! The closest one from Rexburg is in Logan, and believe you I, she has made that drive to go get it. :) 
• ·      Got caught in a lightning and Hail storm
• ·      They have an ice cream shop called Braums that is super super good!! Been twice.
• ·      Baked cookies
• ·      Cooked meals
• ·      Gone shopping . . . just Wal*Mart, nothing to fancy.
• ·      Went to Johnny Carrino’s . . . Best Italian cream sodas ever! (blackberry’s a favorite)
• ·      We stay up and chat till super late almost every night. 

Work schedule wise, we don’t get to see each other very often.

I work Mon-Thur 10:15-22:15

Brit works Wed – Sat 10:45-22:45

So, we only really get to see each other on Sundays.

I have made it through my second week of my internship! I have had 8 shifts and 39 patients; half of which that have actually been in an emergency type situation. The others basically just use us as a glorified taxi service for sympathy and a direct ‘in’ to the hospital. But, they chose the wrong medic to get sympathy from. My preceptor does not tolerate fakers or drug seekers or drug abusers very well. It is quite entertaining.  The Patients I have had:

• ·      Emaciated old man with a stoma (hole in his throat to breathe out of) He was skin and bone and could hardly breath. He hadn’t been able to get up to do anything and he had been lying in a forgotten bed for 4 weeks without food. The only reason he was found was on a final sweep through before the apartment complex he was at was going to spray for bugs. Sad deal.
• ·      3 asthma attack patients
• ·      3 chest pain patients
• ·      Narcotic overdose that wasn’t breathing when we got there. I gave him some Narcan (naloxolone . . . does wonders) and he was talking to us about 30 seconds later.
• ·      Man with Brain tumors that was unresponsive his pupils were unreactive and the right one was three times the size of the left . . . no bueno.
• ·      3 seizure patients . . . 2 fakers with eye fluttering just to get out of something that they didn’t want to be in. But, no worries, they got treated.
• o      If someone is unresponsive in Oklahoma, protocol states that you must put an airway tube into there nose to keep there tongue from falling into the back of there throat, so if they are faking and fake being unresponsive, they get a lovely surprise. And so do we, when they reach up, yank the tube out and start yelling and then go unresponsive again. It is quite entertaining. But very beneficial for the ones that actually do need it. And, even for the ones that don’t. J

• ·      Face to a ladder from twenty feet up . . .yikes! His nose was split completely in half
•          Massive bleed out from a dialysis port from an arm. Fire men were doing CPR when we got there. She had lost more than half of her blood volume. My preceptor said that there was more blood from her than the gunshot wounds and stabbing patients that she has had. So, that was a very interesting call!  
• ·      A 4 month old baby burnt her hand in sweet potatoes.
• ·      3 toddlers that had seizures.
• ·      Lots of old people falls. One with a pretty obvious deformity to her right hip.
• ·      An insomniac twitcher in his 40’s; couldn’t figure out why his eyes were burning and his body was shaking, but he hasn’t had sleep for the past month and is going to school and working full time. . . . hmmm . . .
• ·      A few drunks . . . they’re always quite entertaining. One that got super combative and we had to tie down to the cot.
• ·      Diabetic with low blood sugar.
• ·      And some various other random calls.

It has been very busy and awesome! My preceptor has been a medic for 12 years in the same place. So, she knows what she is doing, and she is making sure that I do to before she will hand things over to me. so, that’s a little frustrating. But, I’m sure by at least the 4^th week she will trust me enough and see enough of what I can do to actually step back and let me run the calls and things.  But, I have 8 more weeks to get that down. So, it should go well.

Well, I love you all! Just know that I am safe and having a great learning experience. Sorry its so long. And has been so long since I blogged! If you have made it to this point of my entry, congratulations on getting through it! Can’t wait to see you guys! Much love!

Pics from the game! We got our face painted with the OKC symbol! We went ALL OUT!! Really the only thing I have taken pictures of.

Me And Britt! SUPER FUN TIME!!

So before the game, we found this parking lot that if you made a free throw, they would give you your five bucks back! well, Little did they know that I played for the Girls Thunder Basketball Team at BYU, Idaho.

Needless to Say. . .  I got a certificate and 5 bucks back!! Go Team!

I knew I had joined that team for a higher calling in life!