I had all but forgotten that I used to write about my day-to-day life after moving to Hawaii from Seattle in 2013. It has been nearly 6 years since my last post, and a lot has changed. In 2017 my son was born, some stuff happened, some people started getting sick, and during the second day of the “2 week lockdown” my daughter was born in 2020.
I am still an EMT, though I did try my hand at being a firefighter. I was accepted into the academy and made it 3 months before I realized that an overweight, out of shape asthmatic is not a good fit for the fire department. I came crawling back to the ambulance, and they accepted me. I am gearing up and getting ready for Paramedic school, which I will start once my daughter starts preschool. My days off consist of her and I playing dress up, going for walks, having tea parties, making silly faces at each other, and making up songs. I am not willing to give that up to sit in some classroom all day.
In the year and a half in which I have been working as an EMT…..again, I have been on calls which shook me to the core, and possibly changed the way I look at the world. Stuff, which makes me think my therapist starts getting ideas for home renovations every time I call.
I woke up at 08:27, I set my alarm to odd numbers. I made breakfast, got ready for work and headed out the door. I arrived at the station at 11:30 and began checking out the ambulance and equipment. There are two new hires working with us, so I mostly supervised and checked the stuff they missed. Our first call came in at 12:30. We ran some calls and I decided to go for a walk while everyone had dinner. During the walk, a lady who appeared to be a stimulant enthusiast came bumbling towards me, accompanied by two dogs. One of the aforementioned dogs came at me like I was a honey baked ham and I instinctively grabbed my trauma shears from my hip to even the odds. The dog had three legs, and I liked my chances, but before I knew what was happening, the dog sat down at my feet, begging for a scratch and a pat on the head. I stepped around it and kept walking.
I spent the rest of the night teaching the new guys and cleaning the ambulance and station. I arrived home around 1 and found the crew who has been making repairs to the carport in our parking lot added florescent lights to the back of the carport, which point at my children’s bedroom windows with approximately 10 billion lumens. I took a picture of the side of my house and sent off a strongly worded email to the resident manager. After unpacking my lunch bag and taking a shower, I was in bed by 1:30, ready to be up by 6 tomorrow morning to take the guy to kindergarten.
moving to Hawaii 