I have spent 4th grade through a month or so ago, my lifetime, learning to control my emotions and behavior. I wish I had the psychological knowledge to fully describe my conditions.
One of my biggest complaints with professionals is the regurgitation or application of knowledge or credentials without the simultaneous application of the full context of a situation and within the full role of the profession sought. Often some seek to be faster and develop routines to repeat the same techniques that always work – in some way lacking the full context or performing their full role. Whether for the sake of efficiency or profit, more is expected.
Is more possible? Is the system designed for most yet not all patients, are they not prepared?
Usually, that is why most professions have a set training and testing regiment to earn their credentials. I will not speak to the training of doctors and nurses. I have listened to so many stories in the last year, and in years past from my ex step sister, that I know it is detailed, rigorous, extensive, and goes on for years! God bless you all for what you do every day.
I have, would and will help as needed any person I can: twice when I worked at West Avenue Ponderosa (now Los Tres Amigos) in 2001/2002 I was able to apply the basic first aid techniques I’d first learned as a youth at the Jackson YMCA and later refreshed as a teen with a full CPR class and license (that I never did renew officially, yet I have kept up with the times of staying alive, staying alive, staying alive!)
An elderly man that had gone unconscious and unresponsive after his family left him in the car during dinner when he complained of being tired and not having the breathe to walk inside. At the end of dinner when his family went out and found him in that state, they came back in and politely asked at the hostess stand to use a phone, without giving the reason or urgency.
Managing at the time, I was in the back office when the hostess came to retrieve our cordless.
Walking with her to the front I met with the woman to present the phone at which time she told me she intended to call 911 for the situation unfolding. I gave them the phone and ran out to assist. The gentleman was in a car parked on the north side of the building seated on the passenger side, slumped forward with his head on the dash.
With help of her husband, we pulled the man out and laid him flat on the asphalt. Not being able to detect a heartbeat or any signs of breathing I immediately began CPR with compressions alternating with breathing (as best I knew at the time.) This continued until the trained EMT’s arrived and relieved me. We did get a call a few days later that the man was well.
A few months after that, my staff now knowing I was somewhat trained, I was called again to action one night in the dinning room by our server Maria. Maria was mature hispanic woman that was not typical of our wait staff, usually high school girls waiting to be old enough to work at an establishment that sold alcohol.
As a calm woman I knew from the shrill of her voice screaming “Jeromy” in the middle of crowded Friday night dining room that there was a problem and I came running. From the north side of the dining room I came around to the front, rounding the hostess stand and saw Maria standing over a young boy with a deep blue face.
Not needing a word I slid onto my knees to take her place behind the child, her moving right out of my way as I do to let me do what she had called me for.
Putting my arms around him, my fist balled tightly just below his ribs wrapped with my other hand, I whispered calmly into his ear asking if he could breathe and he responded with a quake of his body that fully expressed he could not and I had his consent. It only took a few pumps to launch half a chicken finger from his throat clearing the next three booths.
Moments later rather his life depending on a flow of Oxygen, he only needed more ice cream at the Sundae Bar.
Where was I? Doctors and Nurses? Psychology? Mostly, I know I wanted to write an article to post in the new healthcare category I’ve added to the site. Hopefully this will let me reorganize my doctor notes and such, as separate from my recover process, as it sadly seems to be.
Oh!
I’m told I have ADHD (maybe now ADD,) beginning treatment with Vyvanse in November, after a diagnosis and four month treatment in the fourth grade with Ritalin. I knew I had a catastrophic incident on January 8, 2021 with physical damages, yet I’ve also been told I have developed an Adjustment Disorder being treated with Duloxetine since this June, and recently I was given information that I also incurred a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury,) with has gone unreviewed and untreated to this time.
The short story to all this is simple: I hit my head real hard.
Right now, perhaps all of this writing is my attempt to get to know myself again, with whatever changes have or haven’t happened, and with whatever new baseline I have in life from the prescribed chemical drugs I’m choosing to take (under my doctors instructions.)
Perhaps, I want to make sure my friends know what is in my mind right now, or isn’t, in case any one feels the need to stop over and visit. Maybe I know untested thoughts and unspoken words will always spiral in my mind until I let them out. Maybe I hit my head so hard that now I’m a right brained person? My old left side did take the brunt of my impact…
Maybe I need to finally read that textbook Psychology that I have upstairs on my shelf.