How an ambulance is like a canoe

I’ve been back at work for about a month. Already I have witnessed a fair amount of misery, hopelessness, loneliness and pain. A colleague once equated ambulance work to being constantly ‘splashed’ by misery… you usually have time to ‘dry off’ in between waves and go home without your boots squelching. However sometimes the waves are so high, your canoe so low in the water that you become soaked from head to foot. You can’t get dry. The chill starts to seep into your bones.

For a year on maternity leave I was immersed in a cosy world of oxytocin-soaked baby cuddles; play groups where the most serious thing being discussed was usually the consistency of baby poo or weaning recipes. A sleep-deprived haze of breastfeeding, dog walks and reading The Gruffalo.

The last four weeks has brought me into a world of wife beating (splash), a suicidal young mother (splash), numerous alcohol-dependent patients (splash), colleagues who want to quit (splash), stressed nurses (splash) and being hungry all the bloody time. I have had to pump breastmilk while in the back of an empty ambulance on the way to a suicide (which luckily we did not get to) because our break was so late that I was in pain.

And yet.

Part of my job is mentoring new staff, paramedics just starting out in their careers. Most of them are keen, maybe slightly nervous, but also enjoying their work. They want to go to ‘big jobs’ to use their skills, they laugh a lot on station and have been universally friendly and positive towards a shaky paramedic coming back after almost two years off the road. Being around them helps to remind me of why I got into this job – to use my skills, my energy and my time to make a difference to people. To be the reason someone was able to breathe a little easier (sometimes literally).

For the lady in her 90s who has been on the floor with a broken hip all night. For the young man in his 30s having a stroke (yes really) who was trying not to be terrified in front of his wife. For the mum who watched in tears while I held her suicidal daughter in my arms to stop her from jumping.

They are worth getting a little soggy for. Especially when at the end of the day I get to come home and watch my daughter sleeping peacefully in her cot, have a hot meal thrust into my hands and watch stupid TV with my husband and my dogs. I’m not sure I’d be able to stay warm without them.

Keep paddling everyone and make sure to look after those parts of your life that help keep the cold at bay.