Still alive...

Even though the blog has stalled, we haven't! None of us has taken the time to sit
and write a little babble for you guys! We have been keeping ourselves pretty busy. Our work schedules have been pretty similar and it has been so fun to get 3-4 days off a week to go play together! We have been working Wednesday thru Friday or Saturday, and going to Rifle every Monday and Tuesday for the last month. Sunday night we live it up, go out or cook an awesome meal, do the movie thing, do whatever we want after 4 days of no time for oursleves! Then we leave Boulder early morning to get to Rifle sometime around 10am, which leaves us most of the day to climb. We have the camping in Rifle down to a science by now! The flip-pac is getting more and more customized, the next coming feature is a wine bottle holder!

We have both been getting some awesome experience at work. My nights are busy, and I am totally spent after my 12 h shift. They warned me that Denver Health ED (emergency dpt) was the busiest ER in Colorado, and most likely one of the busiest in the States, and it might very well be!!!! All 3 units of the ER (pediatric, trauma, and medicine) are always full if not overfilled. Our charge nurse has been lining up patients in the halls, in beds from other floors. It has been quantity and acuity so far. We get real sick and injured people, as this ER is a Trauma Center level 1, which means there is a neuro surgeon in house, as well as a trauma team ready to take care of the serious cases rolling in the doors. We get several trauma activations per night, sometimes at the same time, which is crazy, "controlled chaos" for the positive of us, insanity for most others! We have had to close our doors a few times, and go on divert, refusing ambulances and diverting them to another ER almost every week... So yeah, it is crazy busy! My goal is to survive for a year, and go from there.

Brendan has been doing really well at Pridemark, and they are going to cut him off orientation much earlier than they thought, because it looks like he is ready to roll on his own already! Tonight is his last night with a preceptor, and after having been closely watched and put under pressure since he started, he made it thru, and they are going to let him work as a full paramedic. It sounds pretty odd to imagine he wouldn't be allowed to work, but Pridemark is super competitive, and they don't hesitate to tell you it's over, send you home, and tell you not to come back. Every day has the potential to put him in front of a new situation with a real sick or injured patient or patients, and if he doesn't make the right judgement calls, that might be the end of the orientation. Making the right decision, and quickly so, is key for paramedics, and being new isn't easy because once you're off orientation, you're the brain and the hands. They need to make sure you can handle most of everything, any patient, before they let you off orientation. So hopefully all goes well for him tonight again, and he will be done! He has to know the city better than a cab driver, and Boulder isn't exactly a squarre street city! The company puts pressure on them to make it to the patient(s) in only a few minutes, so that doesn't allow for much time to get lost!

We have been working the end of the week, and people in the city on Friday and Saturday nights have proven to be wild, which makes patients for both of us! Gunshots, stabbings, assaults, car accidents, motorcycle accidents, you name it, week-end nights are full of it, along with the random heart attacks, asthma attacks, appendicitis, gall stones, wasp stings, overdoses, strokes, and the list goes on and on. We are both learning new tricks of the trade every day at work, and have had to deal with all of the above in the last month already...

Then we get to go climbing! We both have new projects in Rifle, and the weather has been really nice for climbing, sunny and cloudy, and the rock is finally drying from all the rain we've had in the spring, so it is getting good!!! I am attaching a few pics from Rifle. There not high class, but they picture the atmosphere!!

We are also in the process of buying a condo in Boulder, and that has taken a lot of time! Our closing date is at the end of July, so if all goes well, we will move again in a few month!!!! It'll be exciting to stop paying rent every month :) and paint the walls in the color we want :)))))) All these things together have made for a busy schedule this last month! But we're doing good: we're doing it to ourselves, and I think we're ok with it!! Until next time...
-Chloe :)