Balance March 25, 2008

For the last…month? few months? as long as I can remember, I have been working at least 48 hours a week.  This isn’t my choice; then again, it isn’t really forced overtime either.  I work a job where I feel obligated to show up and cover shifts.  If you called 911, you’d want a dispatcher to answer the phone, right?

Anyway, 48-hour weeks.  And 60-hour weeks.  Add to that my husband’s work schedule, the fact that I sleep during the day, errands, meetings, and whatnot, and I hardly ever see my husband or my baby!

One of these days, she’s going to get up and walk around and speak in full sentences, and I’ll be at work, worrying about which ambulance I should send to which call.

One of these days, my wonderful husband might run out of patience with me.

One of these days, the friendly banter with coworkers (whom I see more of than my own family) might turn into the dreaded “emotional affair,” followed by drama and soul-searching and drama and counseling and internal turmoil.  And drama.  Ugh.

Before any of that happens, I need some balance.  I need to go home and stay there for a while.  I need a few hours alone with Stephen so I can remember that we’re friends and lovers instead of just coworkers who work opposite shifts running a household.  I need to play with my little Lizard, too.

What a stupid world. March 18, 2008

So far, and this is just today, I’ve dealt with the following calls:

-A man threatened to blow up a hospital and was shot by police.

-A pregnant woman was assaulted and went lights-and-sirens to the hospital.

-Another pregnant woman overdosed on illegal drugs.

-A one-year-old was transported to the local pediatric hospital due to burns on his buttocks an genitals.  The crew was delayed because the police were taking pictures of the injuries.  This was most likely non-accidental.

What the hell is wrong with people?!  

I was telling one of the EMTs today, the hardest part of my job isn’t the multitasking.  It isn’t keeping track of all the information.  It isn’t the boredom.  It definitely isn’t the sitting on my ass for 12 hours.   The hardest part of my job is the constant bombardment of bad news.  I hear five radio channels of shootings, stabbings, fights, child abuse, assaults, drunk drivers, and suicides; with heart attacks, strokes, allergic reactions, and cardiac arrests thrown in for good measure.

We spend a surprising (and somewhat alarming) amount of time not being affected by these bad calls.  We laugh at them, pick them apart from a medical standpoint (people shooting each other is bad; gunshot wounds themselves are interesting! and so on), tell jokes that are no doubt going to send us all to hell…but sometimes, the gravity of everything that happens around us catches up with us.