On Confidence

I wish you didn't need the validation of strangers to believe how awesome you are. Hell, I wish you didn't need my validation either. But somehow it stings when it's my opinion that doesn't count. In reality though, I really wish you believed in your own muchness. 

You are so much. 

Rockstar Human

Leaving this here for a time when I need a reminder that there is a rockstar human under the snark and sass:

"I'm sorry I cranked at you and your brother on Sunday. It wasn't you. I was projecting."

"No worries Mom. I could tell."

Disjointed Psuedo-Rant

Posted about 6 weeks ago on Facebook...

I am still grieving before... Insulin is not a cure... It is life-support. Please Heart, beat from love, not from fear...

"Thank You For Being Nice To Me"

"Thank your for being nice to me." Every so often, really often actually, a patient of mine will say this to me. Hearing this makes me really sad, and pretty damn angry. You see, that means that along the way, my patient has had an encounter with one or more EMS crews, my colleagues, who were not kind, or worse.

Emergency Medical Services. That's the industry I work in, as a Paramedic. There's a saying, it's cliche, but so true:

The call is rarely an emergency. It is sometimes medical. But we always provide a service. 

I think that last sentence is oft forgotten, hazy in a fog of yet another blue faced junkie, a perfectly healthy, ambulatory young adult with a fever that they haven't treated at home, a lonely Nana who has a hangnail... for the past three weeks, it's endless. This post however is not about the burnout, or the overuse of the 911 system, that can wait for another day. 

My point here is this: Each person we interface with deserves our empathy, and our compassion. Each one deserves to be treated as we would wish to be treated. Why? Because we are all part of one human family. Because being kind and empathetic is not actually for the other person, it is for our own humanity. Because we are in service to these people. All of them. I challenge you, in EMS and in life, to be love, be kind, be human. The energy you put out will return to you.

 "Be kind whenever possible.  It is always possible." ~ 14th Dalai Lama