Altered Mental Status
Forum Crew Member
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I passed Paramedic Registry.
I know this has got to be like, the gazillionth thread like this but y'all have no idea what I did to get here; I had an uphill battle. Both ways. I'm freaking proud of myself and I want to share.
I grew up in NY and joined the Navy. Got out a couple years later with a disability and immediately found work in IT in the private sector, upwardly-mobile, working for an online brokerage firm in Manhattan.
LOOONG story short, after the September 11 attacks, a lot of travel, a marriage, kid and divorce, I found myself a single mom in Mobile, AL with an obsolete skillset, no access to technical positions and working everything from maidservice to waitressing to clerical jobs to stay afloat. Eventually, I met and married a man who worked offshore and promised to facilitate my going back to school. He never did.
Instead, he became increasingly alcoholic and abusive and I became increasingly fearful and dependent on him. I tried several times to leave and ended up back on the same doorstep. Cops were called. Charges were filed. We stayed in DomVi shelters. No where else to go, I'd find myself going back. Charges were dropped. It continued on and on like that for years, progressively getting worse.
I found EMS because I'd waited too long to use my GI Bill and I was looking for something I could do to increase my employability immediately with the quickest education but with still room for growth and upward mobility. I needed to escape my bad marriage but I needed a PLAN if I was going to avoid ending up back. I fell in love with the field after my first ambulance rotation. I felt like I had a small crumb that was mine; a corner of the world where I had value and I could make a difference to other people: one patient at a time.
Cut to one year later: EMT and AEMT under my belt, still not making enough to make it on my own with a child in-tow. I managed to get an education grant from the VA to finish Paramedic. I'd saved up enough money to buy a used car in my own name that he couldn't take from me, secretly made a small network of friends to help me with childcare and enrolled in the only school with an EMS program covered by my grant--1.5 hours away in a neighboring county. Each way. The very next violent confrontation he picked with me, I managed to hit the "record" button on my phone's voice recorder and saved the files to cloud storage. As soon as he tired himself out, I left; stayed on a friend's sofa with my son using a spare bed in their kid's room. Filed charges and a PFA two days later.
In the course of the two years it has taken me to get this patch, we have hit every snag and setback: periods of homelessness, sabotage efforts on behalf of my ex, in our vulnerable state, we've been screwed and taken advantage of and even robbed by a "friend" who agreed to let us store our worldly possessions at her house while I finished my education and got on my feet. I had a crappy Legal Aid attorney. He had a well-connected pricey lawyer who managed to get my recorded evidence omitted from the divorce and make me look like a total C-U-Next-Tuesday, IN SPITE OF my ex's plea-deal-convictions. In spite of the sleazy things he did to regain the marital residence after the PFA ordered him out. In spite of perjury that I could prove with documentation. The judge didn't want to listen and my atty didn't fight for my right to anything but my surname. We lost nearly everything and were granted NOTHING.
But here I am. Here the eff I AM. I have something now that he can't take from me. I have the education and qualifications to work in a field that makes me happy to get up and get dressed.
I didn't get here alone; I had help. I had an entire staff of instructors and mentors at my school who actively participated in ensuring my safety and offering me logistical adjuncts--sometimes on their days off--to ensure I could complete my rotations and coursework despite the 3 hours combined commute time, unstable living status, court dates and drama.
I had one fantastic instructor who loaned or outright gave me almost all the textbooks I needed to complete, allowed me to stay late to build-my-own lab-time so I could save gas, gave me access to training materials that bridged the gaps and even set up a small fund at the school to help me buy my son Christmas gifts when things were really dodgy.
I had friends who watched my kid for free. People who opened their homes and offered me a place (at least for short durations) for little or no rent. I had classmates who saved handouts and filled me in on things I missed and taught me their mnemonics and tricks to help me get the material down. People who bought me cups of coffee. Firemedics who told me they thought I was tougher than the guys they worked with and that they believed in me.
I'm not stopping here. I'm going to keep going. Get my critical care, get some letters after my name and eventually TEACH someday. Pay it forward. Put good medics into the world.
This industry saved *my* life and it means everything to me. I am full. I am whole. I am perfused.
And I am grateful.
I know this has got to be like, the gazillionth thread like this but y'all have no idea what I did to get here; I had an uphill battle. Both ways. I'm freaking proud of myself and I want to share.
I grew up in NY and joined the Navy. Got out a couple years later with a disability and immediately found work in IT in the private sector, upwardly-mobile, working for an online brokerage firm in Manhattan.
LOOONG story short, after the September 11 attacks, a lot of travel, a marriage, kid and divorce, I found myself a single mom in Mobile, AL with an obsolete skillset, no access to technical positions and working everything from maidservice to waitressing to clerical jobs to stay afloat. Eventually, I met and married a man who worked offshore and promised to facilitate my going back to school. He never did.
Instead, he became increasingly alcoholic and abusive and I became increasingly fearful and dependent on him. I tried several times to leave and ended up back on the same doorstep. Cops were called. Charges were filed. We stayed in DomVi shelters. No where else to go, I'd find myself going back. Charges were dropped. It continued on and on like that for years, progressively getting worse.
I found EMS because I'd waited too long to use my GI Bill and I was looking for something I could do to increase my employability immediately with the quickest education but with still room for growth and upward mobility. I needed to escape my bad marriage but I needed a PLAN if I was going to avoid ending up back. I fell in love with the field after my first ambulance rotation. I felt like I had a small crumb that was mine; a corner of the world where I had value and I could make a difference to other people: one patient at a time.
Cut to one year later: EMT and AEMT under my belt, still not making enough to make it on my own with a child in-tow. I managed to get an education grant from the VA to finish Paramedic. I'd saved up enough money to buy a used car in my own name that he couldn't take from me, secretly made a small network of friends to help me with childcare and enrolled in the only school with an EMS program covered by my grant--1.5 hours away in a neighboring county. Each way. The very next violent confrontation he picked with me, I managed to hit the "record" button on my phone's voice recorder and saved the files to cloud storage. As soon as he tired himself out, I left; stayed on a friend's sofa with my son using a spare bed in their kid's room. Filed charges and a PFA two days later.
In the course of the two years it has taken me to get this patch, we have hit every snag and setback: periods of homelessness, sabotage efforts on behalf of my ex, in our vulnerable state, we've been screwed and taken advantage of and even robbed by a "friend" who agreed to let us store our worldly possessions at her house while I finished my education and got on my feet. I had a crappy Legal Aid attorney. He had a well-connected pricey lawyer who managed to get my recorded evidence omitted from the divorce and make me look like a total C-U-Next-Tuesday, IN SPITE OF my ex's plea-deal-convictions. In spite of the sleazy things he did to regain the marital residence after the PFA ordered him out. In spite of perjury that I could prove with documentation. The judge didn't want to listen and my atty didn't fight for my right to anything but my surname. We lost nearly everything and were granted NOTHING.
But here I am. Here the eff I AM. I have something now that he can't take from me. I have the education and qualifications to work in a field that makes me happy to get up and get dressed.
I didn't get here alone; I had help. I had an entire staff of instructors and mentors at my school who actively participated in ensuring my safety and offering me logistical adjuncts--sometimes on their days off--to ensure I could complete my rotations and coursework despite the 3 hours combined commute time, unstable living status, court dates and drama.
I had one fantastic instructor who loaned or outright gave me almost all the textbooks I needed to complete, allowed me to stay late to build-my-own lab-time so I could save gas, gave me access to training materials that bridged the gaps and even set up a small fund at the school to help me buy my son Christmas gifts when things were really dodgy.
I had friends who watched my kid for free. People who opened their homes and offered me a place (at least for short durations) for little or no rent. I had classmates who saved handouts and filled me in on things I missed and taught me their mnemonics and tricks to help me get the material down. People who bought me cups of coffee. Firemedics who told me they thought I was tougher than the guys they worked with and that they believed in me.
I'm not stopping here. I'm going to keep going. Get my critical care, get some letters after my name and eventually TEACH someday. Pay it forward. Put good medics into the world.
This industry saved *my* life and it means everything to me. I am full. I am whole. I am perfused.
And I am grateful.
