Paramedic Nat

I miss:

• interpreting ECG’s;
• the smell of tourniquets;
• the feeling when I got to take my coat off in a warm truck after standing on the cold highway for hours;
• getting a pulse back;
• when I had a student and I let them sit in the front so I could sit in the back alone with my feet up on the stretcher, looking around my ‘office’, wondering how the heck I got to do the best job in the world;
• the clang behind me of the base’s garage door when I first arrived at work;
• patching to the hospital with a CTAS 1 knowing that everyone was listening and wanting to do a good job;
• telling the room that I got the order for midazolam;
• getting the tube;
• hearing a healthy baby cry for the first time;
• getting cancelled at 5am;
• being a preceptor;
• making my preceptor proud;
• my fire guys and my police officers;
• knowing a street address without looking it up – and knowing the patient too;
• knowing the nurses and doctors well enough that they trusted your word;
• being able to stand up in the back of the ambulance;
• checking my bags and the sound of the zipper;
• seeing the relief in a parent’s eyes;
• new boots;
• having a sunny day and not having to clean the truck;
• getting the line that no one else could get;
• lifting the patient after they said I was too small to lift them;
• laughing so hard when my pants split that I almost peed said pants – and duct taping them back together;
• having time to pee, have a coffee and eat on the same shift;
• dynamic calls;
• my partners;
• the helicopter landing and taking off from the highway;
• knowing the dispatcher’s voices;
• Jugo Juice at the hospital;
• when my partner brought extra dessert for me;
• my EMS family.