Apparently I missed my blogiversary. My wife brought it up to me a few days ago when she asked how long I had been blogging. I figured it had been about 9 or 10 months. It turns out my first post was on August 20, 2011.
Oops.
But in all seriousness, blogging has saved my career. Let me explain.
Back in May/June of last year, I was in a bad place in my career. I was burned out, fed up, and all sorts of other things. This wonderful field is the only thing I have done serious with my life, though I have had other jobs. I was at a point where I was angry with EMS, and angry at myself for a myriad of other reasons. I was making serious plans to leave EMS.
Since I was a little boy, I have loved law, and wanted to be a lawyer. My mother says I would make a perfect lawyer, as I love to argue. She will tell you that I rarely argue emotionally, but rather I use a rational thought process in an attempt to sway opinions, or to lobby for a later bed time. The law just makes sense to me, and I truly love it. I like how the law continually evolves, and is a living thing. Much like medicine, law is always changing.
I frequently sit up in bed late at night reading court decisions, much to my wife’s chagrin.
So in early June of last year, I sat for the LSAT. I prepared a bit for the exam over a couple of months, mostly while at work in the ambulance. Preparing for the LSAT was a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to focus on something other than EMS work, and gave my mind a much needed distraction. I was able, while focusing on test prep, to fall in love with EMS again. After I sat for the LSAT, I took two weeks off from work to spend some time with my young family, and to evaluate my future.
Somehow I knew I wasn’t going to law school, and I knew I belonged in that ambulance. But I didn’t want to be there.
When my results came back, I was incredibly surprised. 156. While that is not a stunning score, it was better than I expected. Combined with my college GPA, I certainly wasn’t getting into a top-tier law school, but I would easily be accepted to a state law school.
Something clicked in my mind, and in my heart. I know I belong in an ambulance. There is something about this field, something that laypersons don’t understand, but my fellow EMTs and Paramedics just get it.
EMS is more than a job, and more than a career. EMS is a large part of how I identify myself. Husband, father, son, brother, Paramedic.
When I came back to work after my short hiatus, a coworker approached me and asked about a text document she found on the computer. I had run a particularly bad call that had a bad outcome. One of those once-a-year calls that just stays with you. I was having difficulty reconciling the events of this particular call. Almost two years later, this call still stays with me.
My coworker pulled me aside at the station that day after work, and asked me if I wrote that document. I sheepishly replied that I had, and expressed some remorse that I left that document on the computer. I had meant to delete it, but never did. The result of our conversation was the impetus for my blogging. We talked about that call for over an hour, and she made me realize that writing about the call helped my deal with the outcome.
So I started writing. I started taking my computer with me to work, with a backup spiral notebook. When I have down time, I write. I find that I don’t get writer’s block too much. Mostly, words flow through my fingers, and it has become remarkably therapeutic. My computer has a file with an inconspicuous name which is literally hundreds of pages of writing. I just keep adding to it. Occasionally, something is good enough for me to post here. Maybe one day I will do something with all those words, but for now, it is my therapy.
I received an email shortly after I started posting to my old blog site, which led me to Dave Konig, and EMSBlogs. He and I corresponded over a few days, maybe a week, and the next thing I knew, I was an EMSBlogs hosted blogger, getting thousands of views a week. I have made virtual friends, which are simply too many to name, and I feel like I have become a changed person. This has truly been an exciting ride, and I am grateful to have received a ticket. I don’t know where this ride is going, but I know that I belong in EMS.
I am extremely grateful for you, the reader, for being here with me. I feel honored to work in the same field as you, and am delighted to call my readers my brothers and sisters in EMS. I don’t have to physically meet any of you to call you friends.
This is the best career in the world, and I can’t imagine doing anything else. Thanks for being there with me in my journey. I still have my LSAT scores tucked away in a special spot in my office, but I’m not going anywhere.
CCC ain’t going out of service for a long time.
Thank you for writing! It’s been wonderful to follow you over the past year.
Thanks, MK. That’s very kind of you.
I sincerely hope your “dream” becomes a reality for you one day.
Those of us who have walked this EMS road for long years – and you have known some of us – are always looking at those that we hope will be able to pick up the torch and carry EMS forward. When this EMS world began, there were those of us that were there from the birth and some of us that came along when it was in the neonate unit.
There were all sorts of people in those days. Some were interested in running the lights and sirens up and down the road and using the ambulance as a come on for girls, or there were girls that got into the business to find them a guy. There were firemen who got into the business as a readily available second job and were just there to pick up a check.
And then there were those, men, women, firefighters, and others who saw in this new thing an opportunity to build a new and important part of the medical community, making a true contribution to the care of the ill and injured. Inspired by some of the doctors who saw potential in the prehospital environment, and inspired by our own vision as to how things could be, we pushed the medical community, including our own EMS community, in the direction of clinical medicine, in the direction of making a real improvement in morbidity and mortality. In doing so, we did a lot of “metanoia” – changing of mind – as we moved readily from one innovation to another. We were not faddish; we were looking at changes that were logical and those supported by medical evidence, but we were not afraid to change. Most of us were not remotely interested in using our experience and longevity to catapult us into positions of government jobs or private business authority and wealth. We wanted to take care of patients, influence and teach those around us, and work behind the scenes to improve the profession.
Pete Seeger wrote a song that said, “And when these fingers can strum no longer, hand the old guitar to young ones stronger.” As those days approach, we look for those to pick up the old guitar – to take up the cause – to be the medics, the educators, the advocates that the profession needs.
I have known a few, just a few, to whom I’m willing to hand this thing off. Two of them – two of the very best – are no longer in the profession. Another has been co-opted by ambition and now occupies a position of authority in the profession and is universally disliked – a sad thing for me to see but one that I predicted and warned him against. One of them has moved into a different arena and is an doctor who participates and advocates for EMS – and that is a good thing.
You are one of the ones who is left. I’m glad that you’ve decided to stay the course, at least for this time. The profession needs you.
I’m flattered, Flash. Those are kind words.
I’m humbled when veterans such as yourself express confidence in me, a guy who swears he has no business in this business sometimes.
Who says you can’t do law and EMS? One of the people who taught me medical legal issues in medic school was a lawyer and a long serving medic. Try law school and working a truck, who knows you may be the guy that helps make changes from both angles.
Time.
That’s the problem. I don’t have enough time to work full time as a medic, do my part time gig, and go to law school, and have enough time to study to do well.
Plus, there’s the money thing, too. If I had the money, I wouldn’t need the part time gig, and it could free me up from the ambulance a bit.
But I’m happy with my decision.