Post Traumatic French Fry Overdose

So in keeping with my tradition of documenting my huge embarrassing failures. After two years of school with relentless studying, testing, and evaluations all passed, if not with flying colors, at least passed without severe emotional trauma. Until now. I had my very last Paramedic test yesterday, the most important test yet. And I failed.

I did pretty well in school. I was in at least the top 75% of my class, haha. Its weird to have my first real college degree in Paramedic science, but still not be an actual Paramedic. After school is over, you have to pass two tests to be certified as a medic. Before this test, I'd already passed the written knowledge test.

This test is a practical test, where you have to demonstrate actual skills in the appropriate order. I had to demonstrate 15 different skills. Some of the skill stations I was pretty comfortable with, and some of them I was more nervous about. All in all, I felt like I was prepared. Nervous, but prepared.

Well after eight hours mostly spent waiting to go into the testing rooms, I can't say I was feeling very confident. My saving grace was knowing that if I'd only failed a few of the stations, that I was allowed a second chance at those stations. Finally when the results finally came, it turned out that I'd failed two stations. One of them I knew immediately what I'd done wrong, and was ready to correct my mistake of administering one drug, and saying it was an entirely different drug (don't let this scare you people in the public, I'm usually pretty good at this stuff, and almost never kill my patients) The other skill I failed was cardiology.

I thought I was good at cardiology, until two days before the test when I was practicing and started struggling. I spent some extra time studying and managed to make myself believe that I had my mojo back. Well I didn't I guess. The first time I tested at that station, I actually felt confident. The second time I went up to test, I completely fell apart.

They hand you these sheets with cardiac rhythm strips and ask you what you would do. Four cards, four different patients. When I went up the second time, I just sat there staring at the sheet, sweating, mumbling to myself about things like P to R intervals, and sinus rhthyms and whatnot, and just panicked. I managed to finish, somehow, but I knew it wasnt my best work.

After another hour or so of waiting for my results, still sweating the lady came down and gave the rest of my class their result. Everyone passed, except one. Me.

The worst thing was I rode over to the test with three of my friends, who were all struggling not to show their elation at finally being done. They're good friends. I could tell that they were bottling up their joy for my benefit. I kept telling them that I was proud of them, and that they should be happy. But they stayed mellow, and I stayed mad at the world.

So, as usual, I am struggling to find the lesson here. I guess what I'm thinking is that if nothing else, it keeps me humble. I worked hard to get through school, but it had come relatively easy to me. This setback is making me more determined. When I went home and tried to drown my sorrows in an extraordinary amount of french fries, I started focusing on the next two weeks. Before my next test, I am going to be the world's foremost leading expert on cardiology static strips. Maybe one day, because of my newfound motivation I can help somebody I wouldn't have been able to before. How's that for some positivity?

Sorry this isn't a funnier post, or better written but my sister always tells me I should write more. And I figure this is a good place to vent, and recenter my chi.

I know it isn't healthy, but I tend to few my accomplishments as big fat middle fingers in the faces of those who tore me down. But I view my failures as just another kick in the crotch by the same people who took away everything I once loved.

The Parts That Won't be Forgotten

We got a call to a person who had "overdosed on alcohol" tonight. When I showed up, it turned out to be a painfully young girl. She was drunk, but probably not in any real danger health wise. Her family was there and all very concerned, but her father was angry. We asked him if he wanted us to take her to the hospital, and at first he said no, but then after a minute he reconsidered and was like "yeah, take her to the hospital, do everything you need to do." So we loaded her up and gave her an IV and some anti-nausea medicine. She howled when we gave her the IV. And our medic gave her the talk about all the bad things that could have happened to her because she got so drunk. It was hard for me to concentrate on what was happening because I couldn't help but think about the girls, that I used to look out for, and wonder if anyone is looking out for them now. The one part of my old life that still haunts me at some point everyday are the thoughts of the daughters I no longer have.
That girl is now at the hospital, and she'll be ok. She's obviously on a bad path. I can only hope that this gets her family's attention and they do a better job of protecting her from herself.

Blatant Overuse of Commas

Obligatory Plug for Body for Life website
There are some new videos of last year's champions on the website. I watched them and found them to be really motivating. They show Porter Freeman surprising the winners at their houses, and then has short interviews with the champions about Body for Life and their winning philosophies. Ok, I'm quitting now, I sound like a disciple.

Personal
I have this Anatomy and Physiology class that I am trying to get through this summer that is totally killing me. I'd been out of school for years, and it never really bothered me to work during the summer, but for some reason its torturous to study and go to class when it's gorgeous outside. Also since summer term is a little light on schedule options, I have two 4-hour sessions a week. My brain reaches maximum threshold about an hour into every class, and then I just have to endure the next three hours as valuable knowledge just goes floating in and out of my head.
The thing is I have to pass this class. I worked my ass off to get into the Paramedic program in the Fall, and this class is a prerequisite to be allowed into the program.I am having a hard time not settling for the minimum standard. I have been getting awesome grades all year, and I don't want to start settling for C's now. I am going to get through this, I am just really struggling. I keep reminding myself to apply the mental toughness I've learned over the last two years towards "nutting-up and getting it done." That's what it takes, and that attitude is what will get me through the next eleven weeks.

Fitness
So yesterday, I went out with my super awesome sister and ate a ton of sushi for lunch. And later for dinner I had a massive cheeseburger from Carl's Jr. which I could barely choke down. Then I went over to my buddy's house to watch the fights with my brother in law and probably drank four beers. So yes, I took full advantage of my free day.
It's always so hard not to let that become a trend. But I've done a good job today. It's five o'clock, I got my 20-min HITT training in and I've had four good, clean meals. My medic is making dinner tonight, but after a bunch of back and forth about the stipulations of the program it looks like I am going to have a good dinner of chicken, brown rice, and broccoli. And then later tonight I will have a protein shake.

More Personal
I focus a lot of energy into making myself not miss my family, but living at the firehouse sometimes punishes me with imagery and ideas about what my life was and could be like. Tonight my medic's family came in to make us all dinner and hang out. He has two little boys and a girl, and I thought it was so cool for them to come down and spend some time with him and the rest of us. It really made my evening. But it also made me a little sentimental.

Irreconcilable Similarities

I wasn't sure how personal I was going to get on this, and wasn't sure I wanted to even tell this story on here. But then I realized that this entire blog was originally started by documenting my trip through "Batterer's treatment." So how much more personal could I get?

I am so glad that I recently made the commitment to participate in, and ultimately finish the Body for Life program, because before when things bothered me, I would let them translate into some sort of unhealthy self-abuse: i.e. drinking, smoking or overeating. The old me, would have been dealing with today with at best, a bunch of beers and a big bag of chips.

The problems began when I had some family drama this morning that moved into a weirdly intense and combative conversation with my sister-in-law. Ultimately all that bickering resulted in nothing but stress for everyone involved. I should learn to pick my battles better.

After that I went to the gym, the place that is supposed to take care of stress. But as soon as I walked in the door I ran into my (soon to be) ex-wife's boyfriend. He obviously recognized me, and I recognized him from the weird night a few weeks ago when I came out of the bathroom at a restaurant and almost bumped into them walking in hand-in-hand. We didn't say anything, I just looked at her, and she looked at me, and we both turned around and walked our separate ways. That was painful. I would like to think that I am in a good place with it, but I really don't like running into that dude at my gym. That is supposed to be my sanctuary, and it feels violated.

I found myself struggling not to think about that night, and about him being there. It threw my whole workout off. But I got it done. I have to focus on not hating him by reminding myself that he didn't take anything away from me. I try to remember what I have, and not what I've lost. Still it hurts, and all I wanted to do was quit lifting and go smoke a cigarette.

So tonight, I wanted a healthy distraction. It just so happens that a few of my friends from the fire station are going out as The Oregon Suits. This is a group that one of the guys here started a long time ago that involves everyone getting dressed up in some haggard suit out of the back of their closet, or at Goodwill in my case. Then we gather together and go out on the town to do something that looks ridiculous for a bunch of guys in suits to do, or as the motto says "Hitting the town with class." Tonight we bowl.

It's totally cheesy and dorky, but it sounds like exactly what I need

EMT Class - More nudity than I expected

I am really enjoying my EMT class. From the very first day -- actually from the very second day, after the cop dropped the class, I've really felt like this is going to be a great bunch of people to work with. We're kind of forced together, because we're all in uniform already and we do a lot of "team building" stuff together.
So far, I don't think I've made any enemies, which is good considering my penchant for making friends and enemies at equal and alarming rates. At least no obvious enemies, which is even scarier because that means that they're stealthy enemies, and I'm not equipped to deal with that kind of thing.
Thursday in lab was "Playing with Stethoscopes Day" which was cool. We had to break up the class into two groups, so my group went off to go learn how to take blood pressure, and after awhile we were going to switch with the other group. In between the switch we had a break, where a couple of my friends from the other group came to me, and said "Whatever she asks: volunteer. Don't worry about what it is, just volunteer." Luckily my buddy came to me and said "So are you going to take off your shirt?"
Basically for the next class, they needed someone to get up in front of the class and take off their shirt so they could show where we're supposed to listen to lung sounds, my little buddy there had been the unfortunate soul who got up there, and was nice enough to warn me. When we got into class, the instructor called for a volunteer, and simultaneously three girls in my class point at me and say my name.
So now I'm sitting there, and I've been called out. I went, "I don't think any of us want this to happen," but I had to do it. So I had to take off my shirt and get up in front of the class.

This sort of thing is definitely motivation for me to get my diet AND my gym routine back on track. So it looks like I'm going to start BFL again hardcore, because if I'm going to be getting all naked in front of my class, it's the least I can do.

Bridges Week 10 - Fernando Revealed

General Recap

This was another week full of laziness on my part. I didn't go to the gym, and I was all over the place on my diet. My workout buddy Tim is coming back from a business trip and I told him that we are taking "before" pictures again. So those will be posted this weekend, or Monday at the latest. (Editor's note: I guess Tuesday at the latest)
I have been struggling with feeling sorry for myself, especially since I got "laid off" at work. I guess I can explain that a little. The small company I work for is really struggling, partly because of the economy and also partly just because we've hung our balls out there on some risky business decisions that aren't paying off like we'd hoped. My boss approached me and we'd talked about the status of the company and whether or not there were going to be layoffs. After we talked I spent the whole night thinking about it, and everything else going on in my life. By the end of the week I was obsessing about it nonstop so I took a meeting with the boss. I told him basically that I really love this company and that I want to see it survive. I know who we can live without, and still survive and unfortunately I'm one of those people. At first he was incredulous, but I finished by telling him that I was so financially abysmal right now, that even getting laid off wouldn't really make it any worse. So on Monday he called a couple of us into a meeting and let us go. Even thought I knew it was coming it still stung. I know it must have been a thousand times worse for the other guys who still have families to feed. So now I'm sort of a volunteer at work for the time being. I told the boss I would hang around for a month or so, and if they don't rehire me, I would move on.
I've been sleeping at weird times, and not sleeping at night, which isn't helping any part of my life. I'm still riding my bike to work which is probably the best part of my day. I got some good tunes to rock out to along the way:
Motley Crue's new one
Sabastian Bach's (of Skid Row fame) solo album (feat. Axl Rose, hell yeah!)
Sixx AM, Nikki Sixx's (of Motley Crue) new band.
So by the time I make it home, I'm usually all jacked up on buttrock. Then like twenty minutes later I go to bed.

Bridges Week 10

Todd shifts the focus on Fernando. Fernando is this quiet guy who's been coming to class pretty faithfully. When he does offer something to the class, which is rare, he is well spoken although obviously sorrowful. Tonight he actually offered up that he'd been having some problems with his family and that his son has disowned him. When Todd asked him why, he said he didn't really know. Todd was waiting to pounce on this like a lion on an short-sighted gizalle with obesity issues because he jumped up and said "You don't know why your son won't talk to you? Well let's get this figured out." Then he whipped out his pen and began to write on the whiteboard. I am learning very quickly to fear this pen.
We spent the next hour or so talking about everything that Fernando ever did wrong. Whether his son knew about it or not. I have to hand it to him, Fernando was a trooper, he admitted to things, and didn't make excuses for the most part. With every new confession Todd would try to ease the sting a little bit by telling him that it hurt now, but it was going to feel so much better afterward. He would always punctuate this by referring back to Orge (who'd gone through this type of interrogation the week before) and saying "Right Ogre?" To which, he'd always grunt out a hesitant "Yeah." He must've said "yeah" and nothing else, twelve or thirteen times that night.
So that's pretty much it. I'm not going to tell you all the stuff Fernando fessed up to, but it's fair to say that he was a pretty messed up dude and it seems like he's really trying to put his life back together.
He did say that his son told him that he never wanted to be like him. I really can't think of any single thing that somebody could say to another that is more painful than that.

Abuse Clarified

Along the lines of what Fernando went through, I feel like I the need to clarify. I figure the people that read my blog are probably not as familiar with "abuse" as somebody who's had the forced education that I have.
This is the abuse wheel, we have like ten of these posted up all over Bridges.

So if you're like me, the first time you look at this, you're like, whoa those a pretty severe. Once you read "Forcing her to have sex with others" it's pretty much seared into your brain and it's hard to see anything beyond those big bold awful letters.. But if you've been staring at this circle of awfulness day after day, you start to see the rest of it. Those little last sentances in the descriptions sometimes hit a little too close to home.
Everything here elicits images of evil, but stare long enough and you start to see the subtleties. The Devil is in the details here. When I examine myself and look at this wheel I wince when I remember where I've danced on some lines, and completely crossed others, especially in the Abusing Her Feelings piece of the pie.
I say this because I feel like if I admit that this has been a presence, it will further ensure that nothing on the Power & Control chart will ever have a place in my life again.

Things Come to Pass

I am about to turn thirty this summer and I feel more like an idiot kid than I ever have before. I feel like I'm losing everything I tried so hard to hold on to. It's numbing to see it all slipping away. I can't help but wince a little when I'm reminded of all the stupid things I've done to get myself here.
I basically did everything that I've known not to do since I was sixteen. I ran up credit cards, I bought things I didn't need on credit, I financed a car when I had one that was paid off, the list goes on. Now the house is being foreclosed, I get so many calls from creditors that they've abandoned actual phone calls in favor of the more efficient and lazy art of texting. "Hey this is Visa, you got any money for us?"
I might not have a job at the end of next week. There's that numb feeling again. It's hard to see the bright side in all of this, but I'm trying. My dad is a good source of those silver-lining type thoughts; you're building character (that's his go-to for almost any situation), at least you have your health (no joke), trust God (easier said than done with me). If nothing else, the idea that the future is so wide open would be kind of invigorating. If it weren't for all that paralyzing fear.

BFL
Oh yeah, so I didn't really finish with a bang. I didn't even get my final pictures taken. But I'm not giving up. I plan on starting another round at the end of this month. Prepare yourself for another round of "Before" pictures.
I did however accomplish one of my goals: Bench Pressing 100lb dumbbells. I did (once) last Saturday with Tim. I'm pretty stoked about that, and glad to see that although my progress has slowed, I am still progressing.