What I do.

Hi.

I'd like to talk about a little bit about my job in the medical field. I'm currently an EMT and working for a private ambulance company. Not too long ago, I was just a driver for people in wheelchairs needing transportation to various medical appointments and procedures. I've been doing this for a little over three years now. Learned a few things about the people I interact with. I won't bore you with a lot of details. I just want to share some of the highlights.

You see, one of the things people not involved in the medical field often don't understand, is that's it's more about dealing with people, not so much what their medical issues are. Now, when I encounter someone needing my services, it's never on their best day. Often it's on one of their worst. You think working in customer service sucks? Try it in my field sometime. We human beings can be really bad at interacting with each other. The jerk in line at the coffee shop who treats the barista like crap. The nasty customers at a restaurant who bad mouth their server and don't tip. The person trying to return an item that clearly isn't returnable and goes off on the clerk. The idiot who fried his computer and can't understand what tech support is trying to tell him. We've all got stories and some of us have ourselves been those unfortunates engaging in that lousy behavior. I plead the fifth, ahem. 

Now take that less than perfect person and give them a medical problem to deal with. They are now in a situation that affects them deeply on an emotional and physical level and is often well past their ability to easily understand. What happens to them now is at least partially and often totally removed from their control. If they have to be admitted to a hospital or similar facility they also lose quite a bit of privacy, independence and their dignity. It's not a pretty sight. 

And that's when I get to meet them. Regardless of whether or not they need it from a medical perspective, I'm required by state law and my supervising doctor (whose authority is what guides my actions and carries the legal liability for anything and everything I do) to do a bit of poking and prodding of every patient I transport, every single trip, both ways. It's a good rule, it keeps everybody medically safe and legally protected. It is however, often annoying to my patients. I ask them questions they've been asked a dozen times already. I take their vital signs, which is sometimes difficult and uncomfortable. I get to know a lot of very personal information that could cause them a great deal of harm if I were to steal or share it. Most patients don't really seem to be bothered as much as they could be by that last bit. Some are. Then they get to sit or lay down on a relatively uncomfortable cot in the back of my ambulance with me. You feel every bump, curve, stop and start about ten times more back there than in a normal car seat. It can really suck on long trips. A lot of people get car sick and some even throw up.
At either end of a trip, my patient and I also get to deal with staff at the facilities offering them their care. These places are often understaffed and overworked. This does not always lead to an easy exchange. We have to wait on them and we aren't usually their highest priority. 

Now, most of the time, things go relatively smoothly despite all the potential for it not to. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I'm late, usually due to having a previous transport take more time than expected or just a really busy schedule with not enough crews to fill the gaps. Paperwork gets misplaced and has to be tracked down. Facility staff is having an especially trying day with their other patients or even mine. Patients of mine often aren't able to do much for themselves when these hiccups happen and it's my job to step in for them and deal with it. 

I'm good in a crisis, better in a disaster. I stay calm under pressure. I have a knack for smoothing out wrinkles and making things work even when everything seems to be trying to go wrong. People instinctively like me. I have the ability to empathize with their problems and help them cope a bit better. I've found that this talent is often the most important part of my skill-set, more so than my ability to drive an ambulance or take vital signs. Yeah, I can restart a heart or splint a broken bone and those are great things. However, what I'm more concerned about is talking to the elderly lady with dementia or consoling a child that doesn't understand why mommy won't wake up after the car accident. Not everybody has both the compassion to do those things and the strength to do it, every single time. We EMT's, Medics, Nurses and Doctors, we have to be able to do both. And I'm glad I can. 

So, if the day comes when you see me walk up to you after you've been through the ringer, just know that you're not just a job to me. You're my patient and I'm going do whatever it takes to understand what you're going through and give you the best I have, every time.

He wanted me

I was inspired to write this after watching a short clip from an iconic show, "the Fresh Prince of Bel Air". The clip is very different from much of the show's humor and comedy driven content. It's incredibly poignant and displays actor Will Smith's capacity for raw emotion in his acting.
I'll put it here, go ahead and watch it before reading further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSKyaXkzVvc

In it, the character Will is rejected at the last minute by his biological father after being under the impression they were going to spend some time together. It's made pretty clear by Will's following speech to his uncle Phil that he's desperate for that kind of father-son interaction and it's been largely absent in his life.

I've not spoken too much about my father to very many people in my various social circles. To be sure, I don't say much of any import about my family in general outside of the people who already know them well. And that's not because they're terrible people. I'm just reserved about such things.

Today I'd like to put something out there about my dad. You see, I started this path of becoming ideal with the realization that my various dysfunctions weren't something I had (mostly) done to myself and I wasn't doomed to live under their rule. I'm dysfunctional largely in part due to my parent's dysfunctions. Most people are, really.

In my case, I share several of my dad's less attractive personality traits, like conflict aversion, terrible time management and putting myself down whenever someone compliments me. He's more extreme, I acquired a few traits from my mother and other adult figures in my life that have really helped balance me out better. I should point out that my dad and I also share a number of positive traits. We're both compassionate, generous with our time and resources and people instinctively like us, or at least don't dislike us. 

When I decided I was going to get better, one of the things I had to do was take stock of the various negative influences in my life. My relationship with my dad stood out prominently. We can bring out the worst in each other, especially when I was a teenager and felt the need to push my boundaries. This often forced the two of us into confrontations that neither of us really knew how to handle well. Now, my mom and I could argue productively. She brought out my more assertive traits and knew to fight fair, even with her own kid. Dad didn't fight fair, because he hated having to fight at all. He often just tried to assert his authority and attempt to manipulate my emotions, particularly guilt. Which is fine (and sometimes necessary) when you're talking to a 5 year-old, not so much an emotionally intuitive teenager. First I feared him, then I resented him and finally I began to regard him with contempt. I realized that the time he spend lecturing me was more to reassure himself that he was right, not so much to correct me. 

This screwed up my ability to know when I should or shouldn't feel guilt and remorse over my behavior. Since I wanted to be a good person, I erred on the side of feeling guilty by default, while simultaneously resenting the situation and usually person that caused the feeling. This is not healthy, at all. It causes you to build up a lot of self loathing and disappointment. And frustration with the world around you.

Fortunately, I got better. I'm still getting better. I've learned to focus on the positive aspects of myself and put effort into making them grow stronger. And this caused me to also look at other people with a different perspective. Like my dad, who I eventually realized hadn't gotten where he was by himself. His father screwed him up, too. The more I find out about my dad's interactions with my grandfather, the more I understand why my dad is the way he is. I'm still not "ok" with it. He could be better.

Here's the thing, though. My dad didn't screw me up as badly as his did him. That might sound like faint praise, but it's not. Because it wasn't an accident. He very deliberately loved me to the best of his ability. I know this, because unlike a lot of men, my dad chose to be my father on purpose. My biological father was a married coworker of my mother's that she had an affair with. He was a bit older and I never got the chance to meet him before he died. 
My dad married my mother and adopted me. I never felt like I wasn't his son. Even at our worst, that never happened. The one time he asked me if knowing I was half adopted was why I was acting out, I broke down in tears because he asked with such anguish in his voice. It never got brought up again. And you know what else? When my dad sees and hears about the things I've accomplished in my life and the lives of others, the teary-eyed look of pride he gets, it makes my day. So, when I look at him, I don't hear the word "stepdad". I hear the word "daddy". 

That's because, unlike the Fresh Prince's dad, my dad wanted me.