More on the crash

This is the van the boys were riding in on Monday afternoon. Remember, each and every occupant was thrown out of the van. I suppose just looking at it you could say, "no wonder nine died and it's a wonder anybody survived." After a while of seeing these kinds of images though, I can say with certainty...if they had worn seat belts many more would have survived. The seat belts would have kept these young men in the van and, contrary to what it looks like, this van was not so horribly mangled as to cause such destruction. Everybody on board would have been injured and I'm sure some may have perished, but not nine and the survivors wouldn't be hurt near as badly.

I attended a critical incident debriefing last night along with my husband, all that was said in this meeting is confidential so I can't disclose what anybody felt or related. I can say that I left feeling uplifted. However, I woke often last night with nightmares. I realize that sounds like a contradiction, "how could she be uplifted and then come home to have multiple nightmares?" I am telling you, the nightmares are a healing experience. Each one serves a purpose in getting the images out of my head and allows me to focus on the issues my subconscious is dealing with. I appreciate the daze everybody is feeling at the hospital. It too is part of the healing experience. Everybody is eager to talk to one another and nobody feels like they are functioning normally. In fact, I have to stop myself when a patient arrives and wants to dump their stories woes on me. I think to myself, "If you think you have it bad, how do you think these boys and their families feel?" I begin to hate these woeful patients for their lack of sympathy. Then I am reminded, by myself, that they are unaware of the turmoil I and the others I work with are going through.

I have had a stiff neck since last Thursday. I have tried everything to make it go away, nothing works. I spoke with a doctor and he said he'd send me to physical therapy. I can do for myself everything the physical therapist will, so why spend money I don't need to. I comment on my stiff neck only because, since Monday's accident I haven't been as focused on it. It hurts just as badly, but I can't justify feeling pain myself when I know that these boys died in excruciating pain and the survivors are feeling pain unlike any of us will feel in our lifetime.

I know this experience will take a long time to work out of my system. Until then I will continue to work, go to school, be a mother and go about my daily duties. What other choice to I have? Please, friends, keep these boys and their families in your prayers and thoughts. They desperately need the support. Also, love your families! Anyone of theses boys could have been your brother, son, or husband. Let your family know you love them don't let a single day go by without telling them.

Tragedy can strike anywhere

I need to vent, so here goes.

Yesterday there was a horrific accident in my community. I am a member of the trauma team at the hospital and my husband in on the local fire/ambulance department. A van carrying 10 students and an instructor from Utah State University blew a tire on the freeway just outside of town and subsequently rolled four times. All occupants were thrown from the vehicle, none were wearing seatbelts. 6 occupants were pronounced dead on the scene, four were transported to my hospital, and one was "life flighted" from the scene. Of the four transported to my hospital, one died at the hospital (he was breathing at the scene of the accident and crashed enroute to the hospital), the other three were flown from our hospital to other facilities. One of those three died enroute to the larger facility, another died this morning at the other facility, and one is still alive, but extremely critical. Now that the public has been notified I can speak (albeit cautiously) about my involvement.

As the ambulances started arriving at the hospital I was partially responsible for triaging patients. We expected to get so many that we might have to pass one who likely wouldn't survive in order to save one who could. Thankfully it never came to that. Instead we received 4 extremely critical patients and ran a trauma on each one. We were fully staffed to run all 4 traumas such that each patient had 2 nurses, a lab tech, a doc and a nurse assistant to record all vital info. I was intimately involved with three of the patients.

I pulled the first boy out of the back of the ambulance and into the hospital. I asked the EMT if we had a name, I was given the information and asked the boy if he could hear me. He looked straight at me, made eye contact and tried to speak. Later we discovered he had a broken jaw and couldn't speak...but he tried. This is the patient who died later on his way to the larger facility. He crashed twice at our hospital and we were able to get his pulse back each time. I watched this poor kid die twice and come back, although he never responded to me again after he crashed the first time.

The other boy I was involved with arrived last. He at last check was still clinging to life. He recently was married and his poor bride is standing vigil at his side hoping her eternal partner will remember her, if he wakes up.

The third person I was involved with didn't actually come to my hospital because he was flown straight from the scene to the a larger facility, however his story is the hardest for me to relate. His mother works with me in the laboratory and she was by my side working the trauma when she got an emergency phone call from a hospital in Ogden. Her son had been in an accident and she needed to get there as soon as possible. We hadn't connected that her son was in the same accident we were working, but at that moment everything hit home. Because of certain regulations I am unable to disclose much more information, but this boy is still alive and in better condition than any of the others. I believe two blessings came to this family yesterday. First, their boy survived and will likely be the only one who walks away (although that won't be happening any time soon). Second, the boy didn't come to our hospital. Not that we couldn't have treated him, but his mother would not have survived seeing her boy in that condition. At least by the time she got to him he was cleaned up, and all his twisted body parts were somewhat back in order.

I realize this post lacks the emotion I sometimes have, but these thoughts and feelings are still so raw I am having a difficult time voicing them. Perhaps tomorrow after the "debriefing" I will be able to put the words on the screen more eloquently. But until then, here's a recap. Of the 11 total occupants 9 are dead. One is clinging to life and one will likely survive. What a terrible tragedy. Each of the boys had served a mission for their church and was on there way to a successful life. Why do these things not happen to a bunch of gang banger, drug seeker, delinquents who need a rude awakening?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS!

So, here it is, the birthday of the sis which we love. She turns 29 today, just one more year and you'll be as old as me. You are a brilliant, brave, hilarious, honest, and yes you are even beautiful.

A person might ask, how much does it cost to have such a wonderful, all in one package of a woman in ones life? Well first, you must be honest and willing to share that honesty. Second, you have to appreciate her humor, which is unending. I often tell her she would have done well in life as a stand up comic because she always keeps me laughing. You must love and at the same time put up with her kids. As depicted above and in her own blog, she is an amazing mom. You must have a patience level which unending because, as visualized in the picture below, she obviously possesses this important motherly trait.
Sis, you are in so many ways my hero! As I sit here writing this inadequate tribute to you I am flooded with memories of the times you saved my ass. Remember that time in high school when I lied to the guy I was dating. I told him I was 18 and even gave him a bogus birthday (which happened to be the same as our mother's, the day not the year). You backed me up and didn't divulge my secret. Or when I was in labor with my last child and you were the first to arrive at the hospital, you took it quite well when I screamed at you to get out. Of course you took a little too much pleasure in returning the favor while you were laboring with your first. Or the times when my marriage was seriously falling apart and you were there to help boost me, I am forever in debt to you for love you offered me in my time of greatest need. Or the time when I was convinced my world had just ended because the dream I had of going to a certain college had just crashed down around me when they told me they wanted $25,000 of my own money, and you encouraged me to continue searching. Because of the encouragement I am now in the career of my dreams. You have always been there just when I needed you most with unwavering love and compassion. You, sis, are the closest and best friend I've ever had and I miss you daily. Although you aren't nearly as innocent as the following picture depicts, you are still just as sweet and adorable. Enjoy your 29th, "butch", it's the last year you can refer to yourself as twenty something.
As a special token please visit her blog and wish her the happiest birthday ever! http://www.issheinacoma.blogspot.com/

yesterday pickles...tomorrow carrots

So, I go to my garden to check the production level today and notice the carrots (which weren't cooperating well at the beginning of the season) have exploded in size. So, now I have a bushel of carrots sitting waiting for my attention. What to do? Shall I farm them out to friends and neighbors or be the good Martha type (thanks jo-dee for the tag) and process them for preservation too?

Hubby thinks that if I went to the work to plant, feed, water, grow, and harvest I can surely finish the job. Therefore, as a final stunt, I will blanch and freeze a gazillion carrots tomorrow. Fun, Fun, Fun!

*I believe this will be the last preserving I do this season. I might try to do a few more bottles of salsa, but that will be IT.

In other news....The middle child, for our purposes we'll refer to her as bbe (big brown eyes), is ill. I pick her up from the sitter yesterday and she informs me that I need to take her to the hospital. She is still standing and talking so I assume, correctly, that it is not an emergency. She says, "we need to do that one thing to my throat"...meaning a Strep test. One of the bonuses to working in the lab is free testing whenever wanted. I take her and do the test, which is negative, but she is still sick tonight. So, I will be spending tomorrow home with the poor child and nursing her better. (wait a gosh darn minute, I'm not a nurse. I guess I'll be loving her better. ) While at the same time peeling, slicing, blanching, bagging and freezing the bajillion carrots I have and catching up on the last two weeks of school, seeing as now I have the books. Guess I'll have to call into work sick.

Ahh the life of a mother/homemaker/lab tech/student.

Trying to be more diligent

I've been picking on my sister, Tina, quite a lot lately about her lack of blogging lately. So, in an effort to not follow her footsteps, I must continue no matter how small the task.

Big news!! My school money finally came. Now I can buy my books and work on catching up.

Hubby started his 7 day long stint at the local steel mill today. The mill shuts down operations twice a year to perform necessary maintenance. They hire people for the shut down only and these people take vacation from their regular jobs to work up there. The big bonus is they pay quite well. The down fall is the work is extremely difficult and specialized and they must work 12 hours each day for 7 days straight. Poor sleepy, achy, meany (lack of sleep combined with long hours will do that to you) hubby.

I make the best of hubby's shutdown stint and try to accomplish things I couldn't otherwise. I spent the day cleaning up and organizing so that I can spend the week moving stuff around, and buying new stuff to fill the voids. I also spent the afternoon canning pickles. My garden (which is new to me this year) has been overflowing with produce and I can't quite keep up. So, here I sit listening to the popping of the lids on the cans as they seal. What a great sound! It's the sound of accomplishment. It's my favorite part of canning.

I'm a slacker....I know

Ok so it's been two weeks since I've blogged. Gimme a break I've been busy. Let me list my perils and pearls of the past two weeks. FYI this will be long...alot can happen in two weeks.

The birthday went off without too many hitches. Hubby got me nothing at my request. All of my family enjoyed giving me crap about the big "30". Mother-in-law (MIL) got me some new scrubs (which I desperately needed) and some living room curtains (also needed). MIL also settled just for a family dinner to celebrate with no cake or candles and obviously few presents. Settling for this small celebration is a huge compromise for her and I really appreciated it.

Monday August 29. Back to School! Kids and mom returned to school. The school was bombarded with so many loan applications this year they are still processing them and my money won't be released for quite a while. Consequently I am currently two weeks behind in three of my classes because I can't afford the books. Hopefully the money will come this weekend so that I can try to catch up next week.

I spent most of Labor Day weekend at the hospital either on call or helping out. Saturday was my actual "on call" day. I arrived at hospital at 7:00 a.m. and didn't return home until 9:00 p.m. only to return to the hospital an hour later for a night of continuing havoc. Some of what Saturday entailed; 7:30 a.m. I walk into a patients room to draw her morning labs and find her unconscious and barely breathing (she had given birth C-section the night before), turns out nobody had checked in on her for two hours. I quickly call for reinforcements and we treat her like a full fledge trauma. Calling out all available resources. 30 minutes later she is breathing on her own and starting to wake up. Thank God! Then following that harrowing experience a leukemia woman arrives with a bloody nose that won't quit. I do my lab part an discover she is lacking platelets (like...she has none), hence no clotting. To top that she also has no white cells (can't fight infections). She is flagging criticals like nobody's business. We quickly sent her to a facility which could treat her problems more efficiently. Between all the normal patients more abnormals keep arriving. At 10:30 a.m. I get a trauma page. "Motor vehicle roll over. Two critical patients." An elderly couple had left Oregon an drove their older model van to Mexico to purchase a years supply of prescription meds. On the way home the male lost control and rolled the van on the freeway. He had massive head trauma. Last I heard the larger facility found multiple head and neck fractures and bleeding on the brain (this last report was the same day as the accident, I suspect he has since passed away). The female although quite beat up eventually only had a lower leg fracture. At 1:00 p.m. a 33 year old male shows up with chest pain. The man is seriously having a heart attack. Anyhow, the day continued like this and went on and on. I thought I'd sleep on Sunday.

Sunday September 4. I did sleep quite a bit (gimme a break didn't you see what my Saturday was like?). 7:00 p.m. the phone rings. It's Co-worker who sucks (refer to post a couple months ago). She starts conversation by saying her day has been a continuation of my Saturday. Later I discover she had spent 4, count them, 4 hours at the hospital and had cared for 12, count them, 12 patients. I had seen and cared for over 50 on Saturday, three of which were traumas while her patients consisted of strep throats and general fatigue. That is until the patient which prompted the 7 o'clock phone call. This patient's CBC is so jacked it is freaking out the machine.
Co-worker-"Please very, come help me figure it out."
Me-"k, I'll be there in a few minutes."
I Arrive at hospital 2 minutes later.
Co-worker-"I've already released the machines count and now I'm looking at the slide."
Me-"Let me see it." (thinking I hope she doesn't screw it up)
Co-worker-"k, let me finish" (acting all put out that I wanted to second guess her)
She finishes what she intends to and informs me that she has extended family at her house, and could she just leave for a few minutes. I agree to let her go (what was I suppose to say?) . I review what she had resulted and discover she screwed the whole thing up! Turns out the patient has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Yes, I said Leukemia! She, up until this night, had not been diagnosed. There I was, the one making the decision to diagnose her. Two hours later I had fixed all the mistakes and Co-worker is still not back. Hubby is calling begging me to come home because the storm which just blew through has started tons of fires and he needs to go. I finish cleaning up the mess I had just fixed at which point Co-worker finally returns. I say, "it's done and I'm outta here." The biggest problem I have with the situation is that she was unwilling to stick around and learn from the harrowing experience. When she called for help what she really wanted was a fixer not a helper. Side note: the patient will likely die in a few weeks from the leukemia, it was quite advanced.

Monday, Labor Day. I spent the day cleaning house and preparing for my ultra canning experience. Each year I go ballistic and can various fresh produce.

Tuesday and Wednesday... school, nothing too exciting. However, I am getting more and more frustrated that I still don't have any money to buy books or paper or supplies or pay for the baby sitter or put gas in my car (which is becoming a joke).

Wednesday evening. I start my canning rampage. Twelve jars of homemade salsa. This is the most time consuming product I can. I finished around midnight.

Thursday, today. This is the highlight of the last two weeks. (although the money still isn't here dangit). The undergraduate research project I am doing this year just took a step in the right direction. The company we are working with agreed to install some software into the instrument we will be using for free. This software alone is over 10 grand if we wanted to purchase it. What a huge deal! Second major big deal of the day. Let me offer a little background first...My hubby works full time as a State road maintenance worker. He also is a part time EMT/firefighter on the local fire department. This disaster in the Gulf States has really been weighing heavily on him. We are the type who live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to donate money nor can we afford for him to take vacation to offer his fire and rescue skills, although a group of his colleagues have joined a larger organization and are currently there. That said, today he gets a call that the Utah Governor has asked to Department of Transportation to build some teams to go down and do what they can to clear, rebuild and repair the road system. What a great opportunity. He can offer his skills and feel like he is making a difference, all the while he will continue to draw his paycheck and not need to take vacation time. We are quite excited at this possibility.

Anyhoo. That is my last two weeks in a handbasket. So Sorry for the delay in posting. Hopefully I haven't lost the attention I was receiving earlier. I will try to be more diligent in my future postings.