brick walls

The brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. 

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture. 2008

I don't tear up or cry very often, but Randy Pausch's story is one of those times.  One of the best lessons from him is about how "stuff" isn't as important as people. 

Once, about a dozen years ago, when Chris was seven years old and Laura was nine, I picked them up in my brand-new Volkswagen Cabrio convertible. "Be careful in Uncle Randy's new car," my sister told them. "Wipe your feet before you get in it. Don't mess anything up. Don't get it dirty."

I listened to her, and thought, as only a bachelor uncle can: "That's just the sort of admonition that sets kids up for failure. Of course they'd eventually get my car dirty. Kids can't help it." So I made things easy. While my sister was outlining the rules, I slowly and deliberately opened a can of soda, turned it over, and poured it on the cloth seats in the back of the convertible. My message: People are more important than things. A car, even a pristine gem like my new convertible, was just a thing.

As I poured out that Coke, I watched Chris and Laura, mouths open, eyes widening. Here was crazy Uncle Randy completely rejecting adult rules.

I ended up being so glad I'd spilled that soda. Because later in the weekend, little Chris got the flu and threw up all over the backseat. He didn't feel guilty. He was relieved; he had already watched me christen the car. He knew it would be OK. 

a couple inspirational quotes

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity -- Louis Pasteur



Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt. — Special Olympics Oath

What we learn with pleasure we never forget.  -- Alfred Mercier

a million articles on your ipod touch

So, I'm late to the blogging (and reading others blogs) game with EMS.  I've been in the bicycling blogging community in my fair city, and before that myspace (eww, we could just forget about that).  I spend a lot of time reading the back posts.

I've been trying to catch up, because I truly love all of the medical knowledge contained in the stories of the bloggers I follow.  I love reading Peter Canning's stories about naloxone, adenosine, epi and other drugs.  When I'm in class and my instructor starts to talk about it -- I've got a leg up.  I think about the patient in his story "That Narcan Shit" and have a vivid reminder of the effects and side effects, and why it should be titrated to bring the breathing up (so they live) but not to slam it in full dose.

So there's this great app/website called Instapaper.  It's really genious.  You add a little bookmark to your list of bookmarks.  Then, whenever you get to a really awesome article/blogpost but think "darn, I don't have time to read this right now" you can click your special "Read Later" bookmark.

Through some crazy magical techie wizardry, the Instapaper machine turns that article/post into a nicely formatted, advertisements removed, newspaper-style article for you to read later.  All of these articles get queued up on your iPhone/iPod Touch, or (as of next week), the iPad, or your Kindle, or you can go login on the Instapaper site and see a list of all the article's you've saved.

I guess in the Pro version (which I'm buying next week, since it's got new features etc for the iPad which is already ordered) you can share articles with other people, and it has this really cool looking tilt to scroll.  You just lean your device forward to scroll down the page, or lean it back to scroll back up.  I usually do a ton of article reading on my Blackberry and on my old one I think I wore out the spacebar and trackball from reading so much.

Now, instead of grabbing my blackberry and hoping to find something good to read when I've got time to kill, I can grab my iPod and KNOW that I'll have tons of great articles to read.

great timing

excellent post full of videos over at Life Under the Lights.  It's great timing for me (we started on airway tonight).  One of the videos is embedded below, take a look at Ckemtp's blog for the rest

http://lifeunderthelights.com/2010/03/videos-for-an-airway-management-lecture/

drug testing at paramedic school

Now that the Anatomy and Physiology test  is behind us our paramedic class moved on to the beginnings of pharmacology.  Our teacher grabbed a drug box and let us try the different drugs on each other - then separated us into groups based on the outcome.  All the paralyzed people stayed put, everyone on B1 agonists got to run outside, all the people on Beta Blockers laid down to rest, the one dude on opioids sat there tripping, etc etc.  It was a really good way to learn what the drugs did as well as how to reverse the effects (naloxone is COOL!)

It's too bad the cops came to break up the party before it was my turn :(  I'm sure our new teacher won't be as fun

In other news, the book to the left (Dr. Jeffrey Guy's Pharmacology for Prehospital Professional) is great.  I bought it a few months ago to study from and took it along to study group the other night.  We sat around doing all the drug calcs from the book so we'd have a leg up on class.  It made the drug calc worksheet our teacher gave us really easy :)

Medical Terminology

I bought these flashcards (see left) a few months ago and started flipping through them whenever I had time to kill but didn't want to open up a textbook for serious studying.  To be honest, all of the diagrams and picture seemed a bit goofy.  Tonight all the terminology studying paid off being able to deconstruct words on the quiz like

gluconeogenesis
glycogenolysis
glycolysis
glycogenesis


(the questions was something about what glucagon does).  All the words were close enough that without the ability to break the word down into its components they'd be really hard to tell apart.  I'm glad medical terminology (now that I'm starting to understand it) means that I won't need to memorize everything :)

Return on Investment (or, studying gets rewarded)

Yesterday was the big test.  3 chapters of Anatomy, Physiology, Pathophysiology and aging/development.    I spent 2 weekends studying, plus nights, class, and listened to podcasts about anatomy (thanks iTunesU East Tennessee State for posting the lectures.)  We got together Friday night for 6 hours and studied the book, workbook and all the class lectures they put online for us.

(Side note. Did you know that the hyoid bone is the only bone in the body not connected to any other bones. Fascinating bit of trivia that's worth 1 point)

Fast forward to the end of the test (about 11am).  I always have this moment of nervousness when I turn in the test and we go outside to talk about it.  A classmate asked me how I thought I did, and I said 95, but felt bad, like I was bragging.  Turns out I underestimated myself and ended up with a 98 before arguing for more points with the teacher (I think I got one more).  

At lunch today with the munchkin I got a fortune which confirmed I'm on the right path.

  

I eat enough fortune cookies that I can just wait until I get the perfect fortune that confirms what I already believe, then post it and point everyone to it :)

new anatomy drawings

I downloaded Brushes on my iPod Touch and started painting pictures from paramedic class.  

I love this program, I'm not exaggerating when I say it's one of the coolest programs I've ever used.

I can't wait to try this on the Apple iPad.  

diagramming the heart

I'm trying to figure out a cool way to draw out the various body parts we're learning in paramedic class.  I'm a big believer in the learning theory that states the best way to learn is to

read

write

listen

say

draw

teach

My erasable white boards for the EMT-B were covered with drawings like this (sadly not in color).

I did this drawing with the Paint application on Windows 7 using a tablet computer I borrowed from a friend. I think the next thing I'll try is Brushes on the iPod Touch/iPad.  I was checking out some of the brushes pictures on flickr and they look really cool.  It might not measure up to Gray's, but it should be good enough for blog posts and as a learning tool for myself.  Plus, I love drawing and I love tech toys, so this looks like a great $5.  

Oxygenated blood & vessels

de-oxygenated blood & vessels

electrical impulses in the heart

Lung :)