Yesterday was a glorious day of sleeping in and doing laundry and watching Agent Carter and studying and reading a hand-written letter and reading a magazine and two hours of climbing and still more studying and a few episodes of Friends over dinner. So, basically everything I set out to accomplish on my rest day. (especially reading that magazine- I have a growing stack by my bed that clearly requires more free time...)
But today was back in the WFR saddle! I felt amazingly refreshed, which was wasted in a way, as we spent most of today going over CPR. It was all very casual, because 28/29ths of us were all previously certified, and this was just sort of a refresher. My screaming skills were not needed in any way, shape, or form, and in fact I played the Rescuer three times today, and royally effed it up twice! Share in my shame!
The first screw up I realized literally as I was putting the pill under the tongue, but by then it was too late- my "patient" keeled over. Which is why I will never, ever forget to make certain that my patient is not on ED drugs before I give them their nitroglycerin. Fortunately the instructors were basically expecting us to screw that up, so we got to "reset" and continue the Scenario.
The next Scenario I did pretty damn well in- but then, I live with someone who used to go into respiratory distress on a regular basis, so I've got plenty of practice with it. And then I got to feel particularly useful to the class (and instructors) when I told them that, in the absence of an inhaler, they can use eucalyptus oil in steam to help open the airways.
But then- oh then- I just made a plain bone headed mistake. I had an unresponsive "patient" and could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong with her, until I happened to overhear one of the instructors coaching someone else to look for medical alert jewelry. Well, I'd already done that- but I did it again, and discovered to my absolute mortification that the nylon "watch band" I had handled not once but twice was actually a diabetes alert when I flipped it around. I was so pissed at myself. But I was also incredibly grateful that they ran that scenario, because it taught me not to assume. I was looking for metal, because I've only ever seen metal alerts- but that was a potentially deadly mistake, and I'm bloody well glad I made it during practice. I get cold when I think what would have happened if she'd had a metal bracelet, or a necklace, like I was looking for- sure, I'd have passed the Scenario in record time, but I wouldn't have learned.
Yay mistakes!
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