Prelude

"No one knows what he can do until he tries"

Tomorrow begins the start of an adventure I thought would never occur. I have often said that whatever I am adamant about not doing one day, it turns into something I actually do (and love) the next.

I've loved anything emergency and medical related since I was a child. From my early years I pretended I was a doctor, saving lives left and right. Only I had the knowledge and expertise to do so. But the dreams of a child are often left in the past and forgotten.

As I grew up, I found that I had no idea what I wanted to do career wise. Sure, being a doctor sounded grand, but I lacked in math and science and so, I gave up that dream. I graduated high school, went to a two year Bible college, and left still not knowing what to study. I went to a Community College and studied business, and it was okay, nothing spectacular, and I couldn't help but feel that I was wasting my time studying things that I really couldn't care less about.

Spring semester of 2009, I was stuck in a college Biology class that I didn't get, and reached a new point of frustration. I hated studying business, I hated being 22 and stuck at Community College, and I hated having no direction.

That is, until friends, family, and my boss all told me on separate occasions that I was studying the wrong thing, and that I need to study something that I love.

And so one day, scanning the school catalog, my eyes fell upon Emergency Medical Services. With thorough research and much fear, I enrolled into the program, and quite simply, I fell in love. Everything about the program I adored, even the frustrating parts when I couldn't put the regulator on the tank of oxygen correctly, or couldn't figure out the difference between a pneumothorax and hemopneumothorax....I was indeed in love.

My first time in an Emergency Department, I knew I had found my niche. I walked in, got acclimated, and felt that I was home. The frustration, the confusion, the fear all vanished. Everything clicked, and I was happy. Some of the patients I assisted will stay in my mind forever--the little boy with the broken arm, the man having the heart attack, the woman with the pulmonary embolism...they all taught me the valuble skills that cannot be learned about in a classroom.

I got my EMT certification officially in January of 2010.

I'm now enrolled in an Internship where I spend time in Emergeny Departments, ambulances and who knows what else as an introduction to the medical field without being a "EMT student". Though I'm a rookie, I now have the letters EMT after my name, I have the education, and I have the desire to learn---so whatever this Internship throws at me, I believe (with some hesitancy) that I am ready for this new journey. I know that there will be shortcomings, I'll come across as a dork, and some days will be horrible. That's okay. I didn't go to school thinking that I'd be a life saver. I went because this is my passion. This is where God has called me.