surreal

Becoming 18 is an incredibly surreal experience, for starters there is a world of actions that hours before were wholly illegal, like purchasing alcohol, or knives. I can now take out a loan, and then gamble it all away if I so chose to. It's like someone has come along and flicked a switch to open up what is essentially an adult toystore. I feel no different. I suppose there is an expectation that by the time you reach 18 you will have matured to the point of taking on full moral responsibility for your actions, like in Germany. If I murdered someone in Germany on Sunday the police would not have been able to do a thing, the legal age of responsibility is 18, yet if I had murdered someone on Monday, I would have been locked away.
Incidentally I haven't actually murdered anyone, this is merely an extreme example of the point that a few minutes can change a life.
I can understand the logic though, because I have matured quicker than a lot of people, after all, maturity comes with experience, not age, and I have had a lot more experience than most. But considering there are people where I live who are probably 40 odd years old acting like 15 year olds I can see why there is an age of responsibility.
Nonetheless, it is still really surreal.

try athlete

Why do people take part in triathlons? I mean really, why? I'm knackered just following these maniacs around on a bike for a few hours, well, until my rear tyre bought it going cross country, oh joy of joys, something else for me to fix. But no matter, from tomorrow I am a full adult member, and able to drink in a pub after particularly long duties. Roll on Monday.

developments

Things are all go for me this week, firstly, it looks like I will be starting ambulance technician training in September, which is exciting, as long as I can get all the funding I need from various sources.
Yesterday I went to a gig in the evening, it was quite fun. I was there mainly for a band I have met before, Grand Pocket Orchestra, but there was another very good band there, The Racket. It was an enjoyable time and a nice little night out, if only I could drive, then I wouldn't have to rely on public transport and I could have stayed to the end of the gig, but oh well, such is life.
A newspaper article I've been organizing is finally coming together, and should be out in the next week, and with any luck that should give a bit of a boost to St John in Barking and Dagenham.
I know I have a duty on Sunday, but the start time is ridiculous, something like half six in the morning I think, oh well, it isn't like I need much sleep or anything.
Family are coming over from Thailand on Saturday, which is exciting, I haven't seen them for a year now.
Oh and best of all, I turn 18 on Monday, needless to say, I am thrilled, and can't wait.
Yep, the coming week is, for the most part, very good.

muddy boots

So as promised, heres my weekend on duty, thing is, I cant go into too much detail, mainly because so much happened, and all on the Sunday, because, to be honest, the Saturday was shit.
We can get the ball rolling with a young girl who managed a faceplant on stage, we had to get a nurse to check for c-spine injuries, which meant me standing up for a long time holding her head still, one hand in a funny position because there was a side of a vehicle in the way.
Then we had to break out the oxygen for a woman with low sats.
Then, and this is my personal favorite of the day, just because it was so different, a girl who got bit by a funeral horse. Thats something you don't see every day.
As soon as I got back on station, after going for a run in the rain from a PR tent, hence the muddy boots (although to be fair parts of that park now resemble Glastonbury) we got a running call to a guy who dislocated his shoulder closing a car boot. Well that should be a query dislocated, but you could see it was.
The rest of the day was fairly mundane, until we had packed up and we were leaving, then the police requested we attend to a girl who had been pushed over, we got there to find her flat on the floor, a bystander already controlling the head, which was good of him. Another c-spine check by the nurses (we have to keep them busy) and she was cleared of any neck injuries, but with advice to travel to hospital because she had lost consciousness for a couple seconds.
All in all Sunday was a satisfying day, but i could have done with a bit less running, and rain.

distraction

Life, and well my laptop, is full of distractions for me. At the moment, for example, I really should be getting ready to go out, I'm going to see ghost stories tonight. But instead I find myself thinking "ah, fuck it, theres plenty of time left". And what do I do, play solitare and freecell, then, write this blog. Not to mention facebook, and listening to music; snow patrol in case you happen to be wondering. And the reason I am listening to snow patrol? Facebook, of course. One of my friends put, as her status, a couple lines of 'chasing cars', so I added the next line, then realized that I had a sudden urge to listen to snow patrol, but it wasn't sudden, because I had thought about the song and decided I should listen to it.
See now, I've gone off my original point, which should have been life is full of distractions, until card games and the internet distracted me.
So, if you think about it, I'm being distracted, from a distraction that had distracted me from distraction that was distracting me from the biggest distraction in life (facebook), confused yet? Because I sure am, and now I shall distract myself from my distractions by trying to figure it out, and in the process using up more time I don't exactly have to use.
I need some ibuprofen.

apologies

A quick one here, for the next few days there wont be much activity on here, unless I stumble across a situation where people need my help. This state of affairs will likely last to the weekend, when I shall be providing my services to all the visitors of the Dagenham town show, my services being first aid of course, so unless something interesting happens in the meantime don't expect much activity on here, but by all means keep checking in.

flexibility

The name of this post has a twofold meaning, firstly, in what I do, take last night for instance, i was a bartender for a diamond anniversary, two days before that I was on duty as a first aider, later on today I'm gonna end up being a courier for my family. I am flexible in what I do basically.
However, I'm not always flexible in what I wear. Now I don't mean that in the sense of I have a set way of dressing and that never deviates, I mean it more in the sense of last night, just after the first guests arrived, I was bending down to put a cracked glass away, I had just been paid as well, so surprise surprise when I heard a rip. Yes, my trousers had split, and I had 4 hours of bar tending left to get through. And this wasn't a tiny little split, this split is so long that i can fit my head through it, with room to spare.
Good job I was wearing black underwear then isn't it?

bouncy castle

I was standing outside the truck, another kid was being assessed in there so I couldn't get in. It had stopped raining by then though, which was ok. Then I saw it, blood, deep red, oozing from a small child's forehead. A teacher said 'he's fallen off the bouncy castle'. I grabbed a pair of gloves from my belt and told this kid to put his hand on his head and hold it really tight. He had been crying, but giving him something to do seemed to calm him down a bit. I shouted through the vehicle door 'we've got a patient, get me my pack'
I took this kid, and his parents, down the side of truck, out of the way, for a bit of privacy, its a school fete, and kids are generally curious at that age. It was a simple enough job, some saline solution, add gauze, clean and bin in a clinical waste bag. Finally dress.
But the smallest dressing I had still would have covered half his face, but the bandage that came with it didn't. Not a problem, i grabbed a conforming bandage the size of the dressing, a couple of rolls later and hey presto, one neat dressing. I did some basic obs, pupil dilation, which was fine, then the normal questions, are you dizzy, do you feel sick, can you remember what happened?
Everything was fine, the kid and the parents were happy. I gave out one of our head injury advice
cards, then did the paperwork, thats the bit of the job I hate, it can take ages, and you don't need half of the stuff on there most of the time.
I gave a bit of advice, answered a couple questions then they went on their way, leaving me to clean up the mess I had made, open wrappers, discarded gloves, all the paraphernalia that gets left over. And I had to brush myself down, after kneeling on a wet floor.
Once I had finished I turned around to my colleague and said 'so we are only hear to show kids round an ambulance then?'

a question

Do you think animals can tell when the end is near? (i use animals to describe humans too, because that is what we are at the end of the day) I've read that you can see it in the eyes of a person who's near death, that they realise what is coming, and they look fearful, which I can understand, but I'm thinking about cats. This isn't particularly random, seeing as one of my cats died of cancer last year, and one is dying of it this year. Thing is, I'm noticing patterns between the two. My cat that died hid a lot for example, every day we would have to look for her, and more often than not she would be in the neighbors garden, and now my cat that is dying is spending a lot of her time hidden away at the very end of our garden. Neither did anything comparable before they contracted cancer. This has made me wonder because in the past I've heard that dogs that are about to die go off and hide to do it, as do elephants, although not so much the hiding bit, lets face it, in a game of hide and seek the elephant will loose every single time.
And I've mentioned cancer, thats a fearful word, odds are it'll affect over 1 in 3 of us at some point, directly that is. But the thing is, cancer is only an extension of normal processes, that is the division and replication of cells, but it's accelerated, which is why you get a tumor. To me, that's what makes cancer scary, the fact that it is such a simple cause, just one little mutation in the genes.

I'm back! (almost)

hi everyone, know its been a while, without any word, but i blame that on A-Levels and all the revision that you have to do for them *groan*
well its all over now, all that revision and sixth form stuff. so now im free to write whenever i like. and trust me, that will start soon, by the end of the month at any rate, so, tell your friends, spread the word, tweet, text and post. this will be getting a revamp, a new look, and a whole lot more posts, not just about the week, but about work, life, and pretty much anything i can be bothered to write about, so keep your eyes peeled, you dont wanna miss it