Get Over It

This post has nothing to do with hips or cancer. I started to write it on my other blog, but I didn't have the energy to make it work there, so I will post my thoughts here. Everything in my life right now is intertwined.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind and have involved incredible amounts stress while I've gone to tests and appointments after tests and appointments, have tried to wrap up my semester at work, pass my EMT class, and keep my family and social life intact. I do not handle stress well to begin with, and the past few weeks have really been testing my limits.

I mentioned in a previous post that while I was really trying to hold everything together until this Saturday, and really hoping to pass my EMT class, that this is not easy for me. I am a book person, not a hands on person - the type of person most normal people make fun of. I know what a narrowing pulse pressure means and why, but I struggle to take blood pressure accurately, even though this is a really basic skill that most minimum-wage health care workers are expected to have. I can tell you, step-by-step, what you are 'supposed' to do during a medical assessment, but yet I always miss one of the critical steps when I am actually doing the assessment myself.

EMT certification is a different beast than even Highly Technical Skills you encounter in science. Due to my extreme incompetence in hands-on stuff, I've really tried to lay low and not even let it be known that I teach at ABC college. Unfortunately, it somehow came to be known that I teach at ABC college (not sure how), and this just adds more pressure in terms of feeling like I can't fail. I think part of it is the perception that people in academia think they are super awesome, and thus people outside of academia like to show these super awesome people that they aren't as awesome as they think they are. While I've never tried to give the impression that I am super awesome (and ironically, years in academia have proven to me that not only am I not awesome, but I am also actually a Piece Of Shit not even worthy of attending meetings for the Truly Awesome, so basically I have no self-esteem whatsoever), I cannot help but feel the weight of people thinking that I think I am awesome. Yeah, it's complicated. You are awesome if you followed that.

I'd be lying if I said that passing this EMT class didn't mean a lot to me. It does. I have put so much effort into it, and it is so far out of my comfort zone that passing is really a symbolic thing for me. But I also realized tonight, which was our last 'formal' class period, that I'm really going to miss the class. As crazy as it has been trying to work and take this class, it has been a huge part of my life for the past five months.

I mentioned that on Monday, I had told my instructor what was going on, and that he was super awesome about all of it. After taking the written final, I didn't feel awesome, but felt like I had probably gotten at least 75%, which is all you need to pass the 'academic' part of the class. When I came in today, he asked me if I had gotten his text, which I hadn't - probably because due to all of this crap, I ran out of minutes on my cheap, $12/month cell phone plan. He then told me that I had gotten a really high score on the final (95%) and he had texted me right away to let me know because he knew I was stressed about it. (Seriously, that's so nice.) Later in the evening, we had a deeper conversation about... stuff. Perhaps because it was the last class of the semester, he mentioned that he really wanted to sit down and talk about 'classroom management' with me, because he wanted to improve his teaching, and figured I knew a little about teaching. He also asked if I'd be interested in guest lecturing about anatomy and physiology in the future, because it wasn't a strong point of his. I assured him that I'm not an expert on teaching, and really enjoyed the class and learned a lot, and in the process of being a student and instructor at the same time, had gained a lot of insight into my own teaching (which is really true). I said I 'd be happy to come talk about A&P, but that he did fine with it. I mean, yeah, he wasn't the greatest teacher, but the reality is that in emergency medicine, most of what you do comes down to pretty simple things (ABCs - airway, breathing, and circulation), and a thorough knowledge of pathophysiology won't really change how you treat a patient. (You even treat hypo- and hyperglycemia in the same way, the idea being that someone who is hypoglycemic will benefit from the treatment, while someone who is hyperglycemic won't be harmed by it in the pre-hospital setting, so you shouldn't bother trying to figure out the difference between the two.) In fact, a thorough knowledge of pathophysiology will probably just frustrate you, like my current job frustrates me, lol. In the end, my instructor told me it had been really fun to have me in class, which actually meant a lot, because I really tried very hard to just be a 'normal' student and not obnoxious, while at the same time sharing what I did know about certain things. I'm glad he recognized that.

Anyway. Unfortunately, tonight wasn't all happiness. Since we had the written final on Monday and our practicals were supposed to be this Saturday, tonight was supposed to be a practice day for Saturday. However, when we got to class tonight, the instructor said that he had figured out it wasn't possible for all of us to get all of our practicals done between 8 and 5 on Saturday, so we would do three of them tonight. I was completely unprepared for this mentally, but at the same time figured it might not be a bad thing. It would be nice to get a few of them out of the way, and at least the surprise element meant I hadn't had to be stressed about it all day/week. I mean, I wasn't thrilled about it, but you just have to go with it. It is emergency medicine. LOL. You could NEVER get away with something like this at the university, but like I said, this is a different beast.

The good news is that I passed two of the practicals - two that although considered two of the simplest things EMTs do (oxygen administration and ventilation), were really stressful things for me. (Oxygen tanks and I do not get along, to the extent that it is a joke amongst my class.) The bad news is that I really fucked up on of the exams, which was the simplest thing ever (bleeding and shock management), and I failed. It is not a huge thing to fail, and actually plenty of people failed at least one of the stations, but still. I was so pissed off with myself over such a stupid thing that I should have seen coming, that when my instructor came to talk to me about it I almost started crying. He knows what I'm going through and knows I'm on the verge of breakdown and was trying to be super nice about it, but I still almost lost it.

The most ironic thing about this is that in terms of work, I'm at the point in the semester when I'm dealing with students who are begging me for a higher grade, and I'm like, wait, you FAILED two out of the three tests, and you are asking me for a C as opposed to a C-?! You should just be happy that you got a C- considering you got F's on two out of the three exams! And here I am, crying because I let someone bleed a few seconds longer than he should have, when in reality I should be rejoicing over the fact that I managed to administer oxygen to a patient without turning the oxygen tank into a bomb. I should just be happy I managed to pass SOMETHING!

I'm honestly not sure if I was so upset because I was truly upset over the stupid freaking exam (which I will have the opportunity to retake on Saturday), or if it was just all of the emotions of the past few weeks pouring out, along with the unexpected stress of having exams tonight. People tell me that I seem very calm and unemotional about things, but the reality is that could not be farther from the truth. I held it together in the classroom, but immediately started to cry when I left, and have pretty much been crying ever since (and it is almost 2 AM, so clearly I need to go to bed).

I hate crying, but what I hate even more is crying for a reason I don't understand. If I'm crying over the practical, then I'm pissed with myself for letting that get to me, but at the same time, if I'm crying for another reason, that's pretty fucking stupid, too. Whatever it is, I just have to get over it. Because if I am crying now, what lies ahead is going to be really super pathetic. And being really super pathetic, well... makes me want to cry.