The midpoint of year 29 kind of snuck up on me. I suppose that’s because these last three months have been a whirlwind of activity: with med school secondary apps (19) and Red Cross shifts (100+ hours) on top of the usual work responsibilities, it’s been busy, but in a good way. (Well. I can say that now, but in the thick of essay-writing, I think I had different emotions.) It has given this latest quarter a different quality than the one before it, feeling more purposeful and less like merely treading water. There are glimmers of hope for the future, maybe from proofreading my secondaries numerous times; they are tempered by doses of realism, but in the end, optimism wins out, buoyed by the sense that I’ve found what I want to do.
Maybe it’s fitting that this past weekend I hit the ground running to start this third quarter, logging some not-uneventful hours at Irish Fest, but the tone for this quarter will be set by the folks on the various admissions committees and whether they like what they read…
I had already gotten the unofficial word from Jerry last Friday, but last night’s shift at Festa Italiana was my first as an official full member of the team. “Take that red dot off your badge!”
Work-wise, it wasn’t a quiet shift, which felt like a good way to kick things off; there was a good mix of trauma and medical cases, some ordinary and some less ordinary. And hanging back with my teammates, the EMTs, and the paramedics is always fun times.
After having logged 56 hours working first aid at Summerfest (over its 11 days, I worked seven of them, one a double shift) in addition to putting hours in at the office, it’s going to be weird going back to a more normal routine. The adrenaline high that can come on busy nights like last Friday contributes to a post-Jessup-like withdrawal, which makes me thankful to have today and tomorrow off from work so I’ve got some time to decompress and regroup (and take some time to write about it, I guess).
Eight shifts in such a short span of time might be nuts, but it was entirely worth it. Training is one thing, but experience is another matter entirely. Every shift was a chance to reinforce and practice what I learned during training and to build on the experiences of the previous shift. If I let too much time lapse, it’s likely that nothing would stick. And there was a lot yet to pick up–simply getting familiar with what supplies are available and where they are, both at the stations and in the run bags, takes time; not to mention the matter of what do you actually do when you are called on to help someone. While a lot of it just involved mundane tasks like dispensing band-aids and ice packs, I handled some less-mundane traumas and medical incidents that let me actually put my skills to use in real life situations as opposed to the safety of the classroom. Even in situations where the EMTs or paramedics were in charge and our only job was to provide assistance if needed, I learned a lot just watching what was going on. And every incident was a lesson in patient care and interaction, no matter how brief or trivial.
Even the idle times were still valuable. I had the opportunity to work with and learn from people who really know what they’re doing and who also had genuine interest in helping me learn and grow. Yeah, a lot of the downtime was spent chatting (when not talking through responses to hypothetical scenarios or stealing moments here and there to go listen to nearby bands), but I got a lot out of simply getting to know everyone on the team. And, if nothing else, I’m more solid on taking blood pressures now.
After 56 hours on the job, I’m confident that I can take the lead now. Even though there are skills I didn’t get to practice, the hesitation and nervousness that comes from inexperience is gone. And I’m increasingly sure that this is the type of work I want to do.
What lengths would you go to for something like grabbing a drummer’s sticks tossed into the crowd after the set was done or getting the band to autograph your copy of their latest album? Would you think that leaping into the air from the bleachers to grab the sticks was too much, even though the drummer’s “hot as hell”? Would you ditch your friend, who had just broken his ankle leaping for said sticks, to go harass the band for an autograph?
My FAST teammates couldn’t really understand it. I just thought to myself, man, I remember when I was that age and felt that way about stuff.
First of seven Summerfest shifts completed last night. It was not without its quiet moments, but the night was still busy enough for me to get some practice in–some minor traumas (blisters, cuts, nosebleeds), a couple of medical situations that were most likely just anxiety/panic attacks, but nothing catastrophic. The flow went something like this–long periods of downtime alternating with short bursts of multiple persons to tend to. I like to think that Fate or whoever was screwing with me, because the night was pretty slow up until I took the first bite of my dinner (a brat from Mader’s). It must have been at least 30 minutes until I was able to get a second bite. Not that I minded–it felt good actually doing something useful.
If my next shift is at least as busy as this one was, I might regret thinking I’d be up for six consecutive nights. oy.
In the days following clicking “Submit” on my primary med school application, that initial sense of accomplishment has been increasingly replaced by a sense of dread, realizing that, by having done so, I am subjecting myself to critique and judgment orders of magnitude beyond the yearly employee performance review. I suspect this may not be so bad for the more typical med school applicant, who hasn’t had time enough to develop not only a significant body of experience but a sense of…well, I guess it’s entitlement. Not so much the “I’ve had everything spoon-fed to me and I expect it to continue” unjustified sense so much as the “I’ve paid my dues and then some–to reject me is an injustice” unjustified sense of entitlement. But, in line with not self-identifying with the “entitlement generation,” any feelings of indignation I might feel are subsumed by worry–worry that I didn’t market myself well enough on my application, that I might be judged unqualified or unprepared; and then where would that leave me? (“Oh, yeah? Well, I’m gonna build my own med school. With blackjack. And hookers. In fact…forget the school.”)
Humility. I should keep that in mind.
And there’s so much waiting. Waiting for my transcripts to be verified, waiting for secondaries, waiting for interviews… one foot is moving towards the future, but the other foot has to stay in the present and take care of present responsibilities, despite all desire to continue moving forward, making the wait more intolerable. Oh, and the uncertainty. None of what I’ve done so far is guaranteed to result in the outcome I want. (Amusing thought: does the uncertainty principle imply that if I knew that I made it into med school, I would have no idea what I did to get there?)
Maybe I need an actual vacation…especially before the secondary applications start to kick my ass.
I started my 29th year trying to make the most of every day. I wish I could say that I have, but at least I’ve been somewhat successful. Maybe it’s unrealistic to do that with every single day; the weekdays, for instance, are hard, and it’s tough to stay motivated when I’ve got two major focuses in my life–work and school, one of which is more out of necessity and the other being what I want to do. Spending my free time with friends and family, in creative pursuits, and in service to others does bring a measure of fulfillment, but it isn’t enough for a net positive feeling. And losing Fred on the heels of losing Scott–well, Scott would have used the adjective “tenderized” somewhere.
At least I’m making some progress towards the future.
I wasn’t expecting to make those calls again so soon–those calls that no one ever really knows how to make, those calls that, if you’re on the other end, you don’t know what to say in response. If not for that always-on connection that is my iPhone, I might have been relieved of that responsibility. But because I did get the message when I did… it’s one small thing I could do for a friend I hadn’t seen for years. Fred, I will try to make it out to see you, one last time.
This is always how I picture Fred.
By the way, I’m way past done with tragedy for this year.
“I want to be a comfort to my friends in tragedy. And I want to be able to celebrate with them in triumph. And for all the times in between, I just want to be able to look them in the eye.” -Josh Lyman, The West Wing
1. I can be pretty sensitive to sound and perceived sound, especially my own heartbeat, so my first attempts at taking a blood pressure weren’t helped by being in a noisy environment or by having the sphygmomanometer tubes bumping all up against the stethoscope.
2. I need to retrain myself to pay more attention to my senses. Engineers need to make accurate, precise measurements that are repeatable, which we do using various tools (multimeters, oscilloscopes, network analyzers, software debuggers). Nowhere do the five senses factor in as collectors of primary data. On the other hand, medical workers, first responders especially, have to rely on their senses to assess a situation.
3. I’ve become too…left-brained. Back in undergrad, I kept my engineer-side balanced with a healthy dose of acting (some of my fonder memories are of late nights/early mornings during tech week). And after hanging out last week with a couple of high school friends who are also drama babies, I started to miss it. Not to mention, some of those skills would help ease this career transition I’m slowly working through.
The unique perspective that being an alum provides for serving on the admissions review committee cuts both ways. The first-hand experience is an asset, as it allows for a particular insight on the type of student who would thrive in this setting. However, it’s also a burden once you realize that same privilege you were afforded could have just as easily been denied, and presumably, since you’re serving on the committee, you know what a Big Frakking Deal that would have been. When I think about that–and not only that, but that this had to happen for Every Single Person There–when, try as I might to avoid it, my mind attempts to ponder a life not having become friends with these Wonderful People… I can’t.
old enough to feel ways about stuff
What lengths would you go to for something like grabbing a drummer’s sticks tossed into the crowd after the set was done or getting the band to autograph your copy of their latest album? Would you think that leaping into the air from the bleachers to grab the sticks was too much, even though the drummer’s “hot as hell”? Would you ditch your friend, who had just broken his ankle leaping for said sticks, to go harass the band for an autograph?
My FAST teammates couldn’t really understand it. I just thought to myself, man, I remember when I was that age and felt that way about stuff.