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InsomniacMedic: Fringe Benefits
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2013/06/fringe-benefits.html
Thursday, 20 June 2013. First, there was a diary. Yes, I'm serious. I kept a diary for years. I was still intermittently writing in it well into my twenties. Then, in an attempt to join the 21st century, there were a series of blogs. This very blog that you are presently reading is the latest and most successful. It was a natural progression from a hand-written, and now very much destroyed, diary. Anyone who wants to add "of a wimpy kid" to the end of the previous sentence won't be far wrong. As an added...
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InsomniacMedic: Birthdays
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2014/03/birthdays.html
Thursday, 6 March 2014. A tired, but determined voice answered our first knock. "I'm almost there, just give me a minute! We waited, each silently praying for the clock to tick a little faster, for the end of the shift to arrive, for the calls to end so we could go home. As we did so, a shuffling sound from indoors became louder, like a dog scratching on a door trying to get out. Eventually we heard a key turn and the door opened just enough for us to peer in. How long have you been there? When Eva retur...
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InsomniacMedic: Thoughts on a Difficult Week
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2014/01/thoughts-on-difficult-week.html
Friday, 24 January 2014. Thoughts on a Difficult Week. Stay safe and have a good weekend. Thoughts on a Difficult Week. What happened this week? What passed us all by? Who did we see? Where did we go? Was it slow or quite fast? Why did we do it? Will the memories last? Did we take some time out with our families and friends? Did we need to say sorry, to perhaps, make amends? Did we travel a little, did we smile a lot? Did we help someone whose needs they'd felt were long forgot? 24 January 2014 at 14:29.
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InsomniacMedic: Nine Years Ago Today
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2014/07/nine-years-ago-today.html
Monday, 7 July 2014. Nine Years Ago Today. I remember, 9 years ago today, that it was my first day off after thirteen shifts in a row. I remember, 9 years ago today, driving my car to the garage for its annual MOT test. I remember, 9 years ago today, walking the mile or so home to be greeted by a yell from upstairs telling me that there'd been "Some sort of power surge on the London Underground.". I remember, 9 years ago today, driving to work through eerily quiet streets, watching the horror unfold on s...
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InsomniacMedic: Back On The Road
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2015/07/back-on-road.html
Monday, 20 July 2015. Back On The Road. My last post on here, some nine months ago, reads now as both a warning and a reminder. I was. Warning myself, not aware enough at the time that the elephant in the room that I'm ignoring was precisely the thing that should have been uppermost on my mind. It took a couple more months and one critical incident to finally make me heed that warning. Although when I did, it was through necessity, not choice. I have learned that, unlike my thoughts on the previous post,...
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InsomniacMedic: Mood Swings
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2014/04/mood-swings.html
Sunday, 27 April 2014. The gesture is so unexpected, coming from someone clearly suffering as much as Leah is. Lying in her makeshift bed as she has been for two days, a look of pain etched on her face, silently spelling out the words that she refuses to say. Instead, all she does is smile and tell us that everything is alright. It's taken us days to convince her that she needs help! The smile on Leah's face cracks a little, like an ice-cube in a glass of water, still present but a little changed, and th...
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InsomniacMedic: Evidence
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2014/05/evidence.html
Monday, 19 May 2014. We're in the middle. Surrounded on all sides of the open ground by people who could be friends or foe of our patient. They could be idle bystanders too. Some may be able to tell a story, to give us some facts, some history. But none could tell the story as well as the obvious evidence on the ground. Oh Was she shot through the eye? Poor lady, poor you for having to deal with it all :(. 19 May 2014 at 23:43. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). Dr Smith's ECG Blog. Life Under the Lights.
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InsomniacMedic: Perhaps It's Just Me
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2014/10/perhaps-its-just-me.html
Monday, 27 October 2014. Perhaps It's Just Me. Is it really possible to have a career in EMS and be emotionally unaffected by the things we see? This is the question I posed on Twitter a few days ago. Many seemed to think that it's an impossible task, that, after all, we're human too. However, there were some who seemed to think it possible. To work through a career and remain untouched. Unharmed. Are they just burnt out, their hearts and minds numbed after seeing so much, too much? Doing your job withou...
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InsomniacMedic: July 2015
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2015_07_01_archive.html
Monday, 20 July 2015. Back On The Road. My last post on here, some nine months ago, reads now as both a warning and a reminder. I was. Warning myself, not aware enough at the time that the elephant in the room that I'm ignoring was precisely the thing that should have been uppermost on my mind. It took a couple more months and one critical incident to finally make me heed that warning. Although when I did, it was through necessity, not choice. I have learned that, unlike my thoughts on the previous post,...
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InsomniacMedic: Behind Closed Doors
http://www.insomniacmedic.com/2014/10/behind-closed-doors.html
Wednesday, 1 October 2014. Right now, however, we really feel it. Nothing else matters. In that tiny, closed room is the entire universe and all that's important within. We are fighting for a life in one room, as in the other they can only wait. Every few minutes someone goes out to update them on what is happening behind the ominously closed doors. What a privileged place and time to be, makes the idiots almost worth it. 10 October 2014 at 07:06. 12 October 2014 at 03:23. Lynda Halliger Otvos (Lynda M O).
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