Having to leave someone you love so very much because the government tells you to is the worst feeling in the world.

I am leaving this establishment as soon as I can so I never have to leave her again.

You have officially been recalled to active duty

Not the email you want to read early in the morning, but I got to this past Monday.

Its not for an extremely long time. But it still sucks. An unwanted interruption of my life. I have to withdraw from school, take a leave of absence but most importantly leave my girlfriend behind for 130 days. Not my idea of an awesome summer at all.

I will be spending my summer out to sea someplace in the south pacific ocean doing some bullshit waste of time work that no one really wants to be doing.

But it could be worse I could have been called up for a year and sent places other than the ocean. Just up rooting my life sucks.

So I am sitting here with a bottle of wine I didnt even bother grabbing a glass to pour it into just drink it straight out of the bottle. But I have this wine and the Yankees game on thinking about how I would much rather spend my summer nights doing this and sitting here with my girlfriend who I have to leave to fend for her self in our home all alone. The best I can do is leave her with my love and money to make sure she has a roof over her head.

This is just going to turn into a drunken rambling of me talking about leaving my love and going away when I dont want to, so I will just stop right where I am......

Cheers

Illegal U Turns on Highways

Maybe you can see where this is going already.

This past Sunday, Easter Sunday. I was on my way to work. I had to work 3-11. At about 215 or so I was on I90 east bound moving right along taking note of the traffic and how little there was due to the holiday.

So here I am minding my own enjoying the new Willie Nelson album thinking about work.

I was doing a nice 75mph or so moving right along. Up ahead I see this car pull into the U Turn spot, ya know the ones that say NO U TURNS. I see the car stop and inch toward the shoulder on the fast lane a bit and I knew it, I knew they were going to pull right out in front of me. Before I knew it was screaming up behind a car in the fast lane going 30 maybe 40 tops so I attempted to pull into the middle lane to pass but as I did so, so did this person. So I then attempted to go back into the fast lane as they did the same. Panic started to set in. I tried to pull back into the center lane to avoid hitting them.

Well I avoided them for sure as my car did a 180 slid across the middle and fast lane right into the guard rail at 70 or 75mph. I hit the guard rail spun some more slid sideways for another 20 or 30ft and came to a resting stop blocking the whole fast lane. Thank goodness it was Easter Sunday or I would have been quite screwed if there had been more traffic.

I must admit the sounds, site and intensity of the impact were quite spectacular. Hearing my tires skid, car hit the guard rail with one of the loudest metal on metal thuds I had ever heard, the air bag deploying the smoke from the air bag, the site of fluids spraying everywhere from under my hood and the scenery just spinning with me.

So here I am stopped blocking the whole lane, I think I sat there for all of 3 second in the my car I moved my head left, right and down. Nothing hurt my fingers didnt tingle so I felt it was ok to move. I get out and see the car stopped about 200 feet down the highway on the other side. I called 911 hung up and waited.

I started to walk to get the other drivers attention. I then decided it was a bad idea to walk down there since most people passing by were preoccupied by my car which was clearly destroyed and blocking a whole lane of traffic. So I headed back to my car to wait for the police to arrive.

As the police arrive the car that made the illegal actions decided to make their way back onto the highway. I was never able to get close enough to get a plate number and they got away. I could care less that my car is totaled and that I have to get a new one. Inf act this was a new one I had it for 3 months. But the fact that there are people out there who will just drive off knowing they just potentially ruined someones life or disrupted it in some sort of way.

I have never really been so irate or let down by something like this. The fact that they never asked if I was ok but just drove off knowing they would be getting a ticket and help responsible for this accident. I should really just be counting my blessings that I walked away without a scratch on me.

Last night was Valentines day. Suzanna and I had to work. But we still made it great. I realized more and more last night as I have in the past. I want to marry her and have her in my life for the rest of my life. I want to have a family with her, a home with her, vacations with her, a retirement with her.

She is absolutely wonderful.

I love her so much

Texas

So Suzanna and I went to Texas to visit my father, stepmom and sister for New Years.

It was a good trip a very relaxing trip. It was nice to be sitting on a plane with her knowing we were going together. I remember looking at her with her headphones on, arms around mine and head on my shoulder. I just looked at her and kept thinking "my god she is beautiful I have never loved someone like I do her, this is it. I am done looking she is who I want"

We got there to see my dad looking like my dad. Head band, beer belly and beard. He is who he is and he loves who he is so that is ok. We stopped for gas and he had to get a 12 pack for the ride. Go figure that one out.

The trip was a nice trip. We relaxed, made love, enjoyed each other and my family (who absolutely loves Suzanna) My step mom told me I had better marry her. I told her I plan on it.

So we went to Austin for New Years which was a good time. We had a nice room that looked over I think it is 6th street, the main street in downtown Austin. We sat there together in a chair, her on my lap. We were sipping drinks and talking and all that I could talk about is how much I love her, how happy I am with her, how forever I am hers. It felt so real, so good. So pure. Looking into her eyes is the best feeling in the world.

We went to a bar I cant remember the name. But after we had a few drinks in our room we found a bar and sat there and rang in the New Year together just her and I surrounded by people we did not know that was how I wanted it to be. Just us. I would have been content with sitting on the couch in my house with her. All that mattered is that I was with her.

The rest of the trip was nice and relaxing. We ate at some palce called Coopers BBQ which is supposed to be famous and I can see why. It was freaking awesome. Real style smoked bbq food.

Anyway. This trip was it. This trip was the one where I realized that she truly is who I want the rest of my life with. I love her so much. I feel that there is nothing that can come between us. She is my everything.

I love her so much

Loving what you do

For the first time my job has really come home with me and sat in my mind. After all the things I have seen and experienced 2 within 3 days have stuck with me and I think will never go away.

Saturday afternoon we had a man come in who was in full cardiac arrest so we do what we are paid to do try to save him. So we worked him with all we could. I was on top doing chest compressions. This was a man who had just been discharged from the MICU (medical intensive care unit) earlier in the day. So here we are family watching trying our best to do all we can, after about 20 minutes the son came into the room and this is the thing that I will never forget that will hang with me for the rest of my life. He came into the room put his hands gently around his fathers ankles and said "Oh pop, oh pop, why?" I looked at this guy and just was not sure what to say he then said "Its ok you guys can stop its just his time" after that he reached up and touched my arm and told me that it was ok to stop. Nothing had ever really freaked me out quite like this before and with all the of traumas and family's I have seen in distress this is the one that has been burned into my mind after a year and a half of doing what I do.

The second one was Monday night a man was trying to cross the street and got hit by 2 cars. The man came in, in real bad shape with a lung contusion and possible heart contusion (bruise), because of this it was making it difficult for him to breathe to the poing where he was blue and gray in the face. The doctors decided to intubate him (put a tube down his throat to breathe for him because he was having trouble). When the doctors told him this I finally saw what fear looked like, the look in his eyes was terrifying. Most patients we get that are intubated are not really conscious when this is done and if they are they are so disoriented that they dont realize the intensity of what is about to happen to them. But just the look of fear that I saw was something I have never seen before and is forever going to be implanted in my head.

What I wanted to say about the second man was that I saw what true fear really looked like, there is no way to ever put into words what true fear looks like, you just have to be able to see it to understand it.

The good news is that the man will be ok.

I love what I do and will never stop doing what I do, Emergency Medicine is my nitch the intensity, unpredictability and the amazing things I have helped do and seen done to save lives and better lives is enough to keep me there. But sometimes I am left with some memories that could be used as good or bad.

Loving what you do for a living is truly important and I have realized this with my job. I dont think I could imagine myself anywhere else but the ER of a level 1 trauma center

So I have been really fighting for ideas of things to talk about lately and have been coming up nothing short of dry and still I feel the same. But I know that there are plenty of things I could talk about(veterans day, politics, traumas at work, some other memories of the coast guard, health care, family/life in general). I guess maybe I need to find the words. Right now I dont have them. School, work and drilling for the reserves has been consuming a majority of my time.

Lately I have just been studying more than anything. But I did but the new Deer Tick cd its titled War Elephant, if you want a musical masterpiece I suggest picking this thing up.

I think I might be suffering from a mild case of seasonal depression too. I feel like I am at war with myself. Just a mini war but one at that. Since I had realized that its been getting darker earlier and colder my moods have been shot tie real hit or miss. I am up and down here and there. I dont like it I think I just need to adjust.

I feel so grown up too another weird thing that has happened lately. I dont enjoy drinking or going to bars anymore, I goto bed early to wake up early with tonight exception. Its 1130pm and I have to be up at about 430am. Soon enough, I almost live vicariously through insomnia in some cases.

The Letter I Will Never Send

So after our conversation tonight I was left thinking about all the things I said and the things I never said. Call it paranoia, call it fear. Whatever it may be, I just sometimes have a hard time saying the things I want. I try to just let them flow but they hit this wall.

I am trying to take your advice and not worry and know that things are ok. But its part of me. When I care, I worry. Its natural. Or at least I tend to think so.

I guess when you asked me what was happening, where we were at caught me by surprise. Or maybe not surprise. I really don't know what to call it because I knew it was coming, I just did not know whether I was supposed to be claiming you all to myself as mine or leaving it like its been. I just was not sure what to say. Its that fear of saying the things I should not say, but then I say things I should not say anyway. Its just me. I am far from perfect just like everyone else.

I have that problem of trying to be careful about the things I say. Careful in the way of to not sound possessive, I guess its really just a fear of showing emotion which in turn is my own demon that destroys things, more or less just leaves me in the dust wondering what I did wrong and then I figure it out when its too late.

When I told you I was going to think about this all night, I did not want it to be in that typical freaked out paranoid way. But your response of "I knew this was going to happen" leads it into that. Now I am just not sure what to think. I know I am a freak, I think too much, I look into and analyze things too much. Is that not part of human nature?

I know the only way to talk about the things I should be talking about is to be forward, to the point but for some reason I have a hard time with it at times. I stumble over words, stutter and hesitate when trying to spit them out. Its very apparent how I feel. I do everything I can to show how I feel I know that I need to voice how I feel more and it is something that needs work. But I still feel like I am avoiding the topic, even in this letter I will never send.

I have knots in my stomach right now. Thinking about this binds me up. This is the first time in a long time I have felt this good about something/someone and I am terrible at expressing it.

I am not even sure where to go with this. I just feel like I am going in circles here. Just know I really care for you. Your personality is so....well so peaceful, compassionate, caring, gentle, kind, free. Its incredible. I want to keep enjoying it.

This is where I end it.

Sincerely Yours

From the coward who will never send this letter

Health Care in America

Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about health care in this country and the reform it needs. It is something I had never really thought about until the last year or so. Mainly because I was always covered through my mom and then while on active duty through Uncle Sam.

Now that I have spent the last year with out health insurance and working in an emergency room I really understand the need for universal health care. Every day people get sick or injured and every day a good percentage of these people have no sort of health care coverage. They are left scurrying around after trying to get emergency medicaid, if not that then just the money to pay the hefty bill. Think about this to just set foot in there is some where around $100, if you take an ambulance in they charge you by the mile, a cat scan is about $2000, you come in med flight expect to pay around $10,000. Every day people without health care face these problems. Its scary and sick. That in a supposed perfect, well perfect is an overstatement, but the place people all over the world want to live cant even provide universal health care.

Health insurance companies also decide when you are good enough to go home. They decide your stay has been too long and cut off your insurance, more or less pushing you out of the hospital because they dont see it sufficient or cost effective for you to stay. Unless your case worker or doctor pushes for you to stay. Sick I tell you

Recently the one thing that has really made my blood boil was the proposed $35billiom reform that passed in the senate about a week ago to generate universal health care for all children under 18yrs old in the country. I thought and still think its a fantastic idea, why should a child be denied vaccinations, yearly check ups and doctors visits while growing up. Well GW seems to think its not necessary. Just as fast as this bill was passed he vetoed it. As soon as I had heard this I was screaming in my head, cursing out him and his cronies who back this vetoing. He (the president) had proposed a $5billion spending bill for universal health care for children in America, the senate drafted the $35billion plan which he thought was too much. There is no way in hell there is every too much to spend on a childs health.

In my mind I had thought about sending an email or writing a letter and sending it to DC voicing my out rage to this veto, but I knew it would make no difference. I guess I am a type of defeatist. The reason I was so fired up about this is because it cut into his war spending budget for Iraq and Afghanistan. So lets see "help sick children in our country or keep sending people to die, have their lives put on hold and altered for ever, yep going with the war" I guess I will just never understand this. Maybe my priorities are are a touch different, to me its just so sad when I am at work and I see these kids, innocent kids who are hurt and their parents who can already just barely afford to put food on the table now have to find some way to pay for them to see a doctor.

I would love for this to change for the health care to be offered. But its not only that. For me to be covered since I am a part time employee around school, it costs me $200 a month for insurance while full time employees pay $18 a month. Its like I am being punished. Its insane and reform needs to happen.

This is a topic I could go on about forever it to me is sickening and needs to change.

Oh how life can be awesome

The last month or so has been interesting in my life. Interesting in a good way for a change. Things I never expected to happen are happening.