Couch Surfing Season

The WEMT class is over, and I have left the mountains and returned to the uber stimulation of cities. The conclusion of the class was filled with a lot of studying and scenarios. I led one of our group's testing scenario with an anaphylactic patient who was stung by a bee, went into anaphylaxic shock, collapsed and required CPR. The examiner was very impressed by our group, as was our instructor who was playing the patient in the scenario.
Also in the last week, we were able to learn how to stick IV's into people. Here is a picture of me sticking an IV in one of the EMT guests we had(I will insert the pic soon). After I found the vein and inserted the catheter and was removing the needle, a whole bunch of blood poured out from the site until I was able to properly occlude the vein. oops! We also were able to practice our suturing on pigs feet. I didn't know that I was going to act like such a sissy, but I felt a little feint and grossed out when I first saw all the little pink frozen piggy feet out on plates, though I sutured away anyway.

All of that feels like so long ago. I am now at NCNM, post school interview. I spent this past weekend at my friend Rebecca's house. She lives outside of Mount Vernon, Wa with 4 beautiful farm acres, two alpaca's, 3 feisty chickens, and one intelligent cat. It was sunny and we dug holes for her to plant her new fruit trees that were to be delivered on Monday. I was able to get some solitude, manual labor, outside time, a bike ride, and delicious fresh bread and pie with her and her friend who was also visiting.

I made it to Seattle on Sunday, rented a car and stayed at Addie and Justin's house for two nights and had good food, friends and yoga. I had my interview at Bastyr University which went really well, sat in on a class, had a clinic appointment, and then shadowed some student interns at their teaching clinic. At my clinic appointment, I received a craniosacral therapy treatment, which was wonderfully centering and may have helped my sacrum as well.

Ok, enough details for now, suffice to say the last few days have been a whirlwind of important and interesting moments. I am spending the day in Portland, at NCNM and then tomorrow I am in Olympia before I fly out red eye back to Philadelphia.