Things Sue taught me

In honor of losing a dear member of THRS, I feel the need to share things Sue taught me.
Many moons ago, when I got the idea of minors working rescue (think 1999) not only did I have to work with the townships attorneys, committee members,  insurance people, human resources, and voters....I also had to sell the squad members on the junior program, since they were the ones absorbing the responsibility of keeping us alive.  After jumping thru a million hoops (at the age of 16) I was faced with the squadies, and told "if you sell them, it's a done deal".

I met with most privately so we could hash out their real thoughts.  My conversation with Sue was pretty clear...
"Are you going to date cops??"  Um...we'll I'm 16 so I'm guessing no, that's sort of creepy (we laugh at this now)
"Will you listen to me when I hold you back?"  Not happily...but yes.
"What are you bringing to the table?"  We'll...we'll carry all the heavy stuff, listen, do paperwork...and we can't drive.

It seemed like a simple deal, but what I really learned from Sue, non-squadies won't get.  For instance, one day, someone was working to fix a garage door...they got tangled in the door pulley and basically were almost strangled in front of me and 2 others while we panicked. After the situation, there was a huge screaming match....and while I wasn't involved, I cried because adults yelling was so scary to me.   A week later, Sue pulled me aside, reminded me "it's done, were family here kiddo....I love him so much and was angry he thought we didn't care....but we've yelled and screamed and were over it....so let's move on"
That was a true sign of unconditional love.

A few years later, the tropicana collapse happened.  I was there and offered to go with her. She said "baby girl, I just don't have it in me after 9/11....if you NEED me, I'll go....but I'd rather stay and support you in any way" I grabbed a partner and we were gone 12 hours.
And she did support us. She called me 3 days in a row, afterwards to check on me.

Sue taught me unconditional love among this family.
She taught me to cry outside your patients house.
She taught me how to humbly say "you're welcome" when a patient came to thank me.
She taught me how to accept criticism from our elders when we weren't exactly right.
She also taught me how to stand up to someone when we were right.
She taught me how to stay safe.
And she loved me and every other junior, when everyone else saw us as a pain in the ass....she let us on her truck, let us carry those bags and let us treat critical patients, giving us confidence.

I learned a lot from Sue as an EMT, but I really feel like I learned so much more from her as a person.

Tell me what you learned from Sue.

Awesome day

Last week was pretty rough for the Paloff family.  Hearing a dear friend had lost her battle with cancer and knowing we wouldn't be able to get up to NJ to be there with our friends and EMS family, we were both pretty bummed, grumpy and just  generally miserable.  

Dave knew his sister and her family were coming down for an Easter Disney trip, their first ever.  So Dave worked out a little plan with his sister to surprise the girls.

We started Sunday with an early mass at 8:30 at a local Catholic Church.  All three of us really enjoyed it.  It was an odd blend of contemporary music and traditional mass mixed with a really relatable homily.  Just a great Easter service.

After a little breakfast and hot tub action, we got the kid ready for dinner and told her we had a 90 minute ride to dinner.  This kid had no question about driving an hour and a half for a meal.  When we finally got there and Isabella and Katrina walked into the restaurant the little girls instantly started shrieking and crying and Katrina just stood speechless.  It was such a sweet emotional moment for kids.  OK it's possible all four adults teared up too...

Easter 2014 - Kissimmee, FL

These girls hadn't seen each other in 5 months!

While the girls were sad to leave each other, their smiles were worth the few tears when we left.  Thanks to Andi and June for sharing a few hours of your family vacation with us.  We were so grateful!

Next up, David and EJ and Joey!

So...that didn't take long.

Saturday morning, while I was working at my desk at home, I *thought* I heard Faith crying hysterical.  I put myself on break to see what was happening and Dave said "Pretty sure she broke her nose."  I panicked, thinking "must get her to hospital...I have 8 hours of sick time...but have 9 hours left...."  Dave talked me off the ledge, brought her to me and I saw a very puffy nose and eyes.  She ran into the sliding glass door at her friends house.  Thank GOD she didn't go through the very strong double paned sliding door or we'd have been in real trouble.  Dave said he'd take care of her, I should get back to work and we'd wait a few hours to see if she needed a doctor.

Thankfully, work had some technical issues which pulled me off the phones for a bit, allowing me to get myself together, calm down.

By the time I logged off at 9:30pm, she looked better.  

She said it hurt but she was ok.  Fast forward to Sunday, it looked HORRIBLE.  Her eyebrows weren't even because of the swelling.  Her nose looked crooked too.  So off to Trinity Medical Center we went.  

Trinity is a pretty nice hospital.  They have this thing called "immediate bedding" where you walk in and they take you RIGHT to a bed (It was like Kessler my NJ peopes).  We waited about an hour to see the pediatric NP to come down and he was amazing.  He gave her a full neuro and head trauma assessment and since she passed with flying colors we needed no imaging.  He explained everything to her, that her nose was certainly broken but her orbital was fine, despite the raccoon look on the one side.  Luckily she broke it straight on so she shouldn't need to see an ENT, provided nothing else hits her in the face while it heals.

Once that was situated, we had to wait for AAA to come get my keys out of my car.  (Yes I know).  Shout-out to my husband for getting us the "AAA Plus" plan which covers something like 6 lockouts a year.

All in all, the hospital staff was awesome.  From security, who helped watch for AAA while we were discharging, to the nurses, doc and registration.  

Poor kid headed to school this morning, mortified and asking if she can refuse to tell anyone what happened.  At first her teacher was nervous about her being in class and made us see the nurse.  Once we talked to the nurse and someone in the office, everyone agreed she could be in school, provided she skips recess and gym, and goes to nurse immediately if she has a headache, blurred vision, nosebleed, etc.  Good thing I didn't just drop her off. 

It doesn't look too terrible, but it's definitely startling.  And apparently it may get worse before better.

But hey, at least we made it 4 months here before meeting our friendly neighborhood ER staff.