Course Quote

I found it a bit strange to suddenly disasemble the group I had been with for 9 days on Sunday. We had acted out tragedies together, splinted arms and legs, contracted and recovered from a multitude of symptoms, even packaged up and carried each other on litters. And then suddenly it was over. No more late night cram sessions and playing fetch with a herd of dogs at the bottom of the steep driveway. No more 2 hour drives and quizes. No more frantic collection of vital signs.

And yet my life will never really be the same. I watched a couple episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard Sunday night while folding laundry. And all I could think about following the fantastic jumps over gullies was that they sure had experienced a mechanism of injury (MOI) to their spines and really shouldn't be driving. Smokey the Bear came out one night and helped with a scenario and then sat and watched the video of the exercise with the class. I think it has affected him too. This morning as we were sliding sideways along the highway on-ramp (my driving) he commented that it would suck if we got in an accident. He quickly followed that up with an explanation: it wouldn't suck for his spine because the MOI would be obvious, it would suck because no one would think to perform the Heimlich on him because they wouldn't realize he had been eating at the time of the crash. "How do you do the Heimlich on an MOI spine patient anyway?" I had a sudden moment of panic when I realized I didn't know the answer to that question. And then we both laughed.

Yes, life may never be the same again. The instructor was so good I've recommended her to everyone I know. And I'm thinking of having a shirt made for her with my favorite quote of the course. It happened when a fellow student was working with me on a patient whose symptoms indicated he had a bloody nose. We were trying to decide what to recommend for treatment and I said he shouldn't tip his head back. He followed that up with "Well, all bleeding stops eventually'. Our instructor was 5 feet away and heard that clear as a bell. That one was good for several repeats in the following days. Watch out world, I'm not the only WFR out there.