it would, of course, have to look like an accident

So every semester for the graduating nursing students, we put on a "mock" of things that they might come upon outside of the hospital. The nurses are great in the hospital but they have everything they are doing for patients given to them by the doctor. Out on the streets they don't have that luxury, like when their neighbor calls them because they know they are a nurse and that neighbor thinks they are having an allergic reaction and would like their help. Or they just so happened to be on site of a car accident, they would know more of the emergency aspect of the medical field. I ingeniously thought of asking my former acting teacher if any of his students would be interested in coming and helping, which they did, so there were five of them there. So here are the pictures:

These are the early morning preparations.

You know, psyching up for the coming events...

Here is the make up station for all the injuries we have. Don't worry, I brought my arsonal of makeup...

And I know how to use it! I'm giving this gentleman a black eye, you know, in case you couldn't tell...

He was in a bar fight... and lost... and gets shot...

This is a burn in the process of being made.

Annamarie is so good at her job of "hurting" people.





Don't worry, it's karo syrup with coloring in it.







Station one: Kraig and his buddy Nate were playing and an unfortunate incident occurred. I'm not say Nate pushed poor Kraig off the roof but I am saying that Nate didn't not push Kraig off the roof. Anyway little Kraiglette broke his femer. Ouchies. Don't worry though, even though it's one of the most painful injuries you can sustain, Kraig made it look like it was the most pleasant experience he's ever had. No wonder he's going into paramedicine and not acting.



Oh yeah, they gave him a juice because he was being so good.

Station 2: Students are at a comedy improv show having a rollicking good time when suddenly...

Mr. Front-Row-Center starts having a wild seizure! (Played by Elliot Croft, a real comedy improv actor who so kindly volunteered to play with us)

There was a reporter from the Scroll (the school newspaper) taking pictures and her face when he went down was hi-larious. She was definitely not expecting that.

Station 3: Three buddies decide that they want their names to live on through the wonderful website of youtube, so they decide that they are going to light their friend on fire and send him skiing down the mountain.

Well, they found that that was a bad decision and this group of nurses that "just so happened by" helped the stunned boys out.

It was awesome because all the nurses could not hide their disbelief at the boys stupidity of lighting their friend (played by another improv actor Brad Cottle) on fire. In fact, one group kicked them out of the room because they couldn't stand their idiocy.

Station 5: (yeah I somehow skipped station 4 which was a UTI of a newly married girl) The traveling pack of nurses happens on a stabbed hobo in an ally (cleverly disguised as a storage closet)

The hobo (played by Levi, a paramedic student) lived I believe.

Station 6: The nurses are having an impromptu meeting in the handicapped bathroom, oh I mean in one of their living rooms when their frantic neighbor starts pounding on the door and throws his baby at them saying he left the bath tub just for a second to answer the phone.

The father (played by improv actor Aaron Allsop) then freaks out and eventually ends up on the ground while they take care of the baby (played by baby manikin #2).

This is the group getting the lowdown on station 7.

Station 7: Two guys are hanging out when one (Cody from the fire station) starts to go down. He's swelling up and acting weird like he can't breath. Friend two (played by Cody Crockette of the paramedic class) runs and gets help and just so happens upon another group of roaming nurses (super lucky right?).

Friend two thinks his friend is allergic to something and knows he has an epi pen somewhere on his person.

It took the nurses a while to find it.

One nurse not so kindly told friend number two, who was freaking out, to back off which was kind of hilarious.

And after quite some time they finally found the epi pen and delivered it to friend number 1. Cody was exstatic! This is his victory dance for his friend averting death.

They put something on Cody's face to make it look like he was sweating profusely and papertowels were sticking to it.

Station 8: This is Josh (strapping young paramedic student) who is about to age 30 years and have some chest pain. He and his wife were throwing a party when he suddenly felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest.

I think he looks pretty happy for someone in so much pain.

Oh this is better, so his "wife" goes next door and gets the nurses who are again having a meeting. He has pain all up his left arm. And as it progresses I'm pretty sure he codes. I didn't stay for the whole thing so, yeah... I didn't get any pictures of it if he did.

Station 9: A girl (Paramedic student Kailena) calls her nurse friends to come check on her roommate who has been getting more and more sick over the past few days. Roommate (improv student Macy Hammond) has shoulder pain and abdominal pain and is sweaty and weak and feverish and so on. (yeah this picture is before it started so the roommate (macy in the white shirt) is not yet in pain because the nurses haven't arrived)

Ah yes, this is more like it. She was very very good at being sick.

Turns out she was pregnant and had an ectopic pregnancy (fetus implantation somewhere other than the uterus usually in the Fallopian tube) that had ruptured her fallopian tube causing pain and massive internal bleeding. This one trips up the nurses a little bit because they go to BYU-I and don't expect a single girl going to school to be pregnant...

Station 10: A concerned neighbor calls a nurse who is again having a meeting (how convenient is that?!) about his wife. She won't answer the phone and was acting a little weird last time he talked to her and wants them to go check on her. She is a known diabetic.

This is Natalie (paramedic student) playing the neighbor wife. She had taken too much insulin and was hypoglycemic so she was acting really weird. That was the best because she was really confusing people.

I'm pretty sure at some point she told them she wasn't married and that she just liked diamonds, yeah it was pretty funny...

Station 11: Called over for an unconscious roommate (Paramedic student Annamarie). She has all kinds of needles around and has track marks up her arm. Yeah pretty obvious it's a drug overdose.

Station 12: Bar fight gone wrong. He was shot. Fix him. Because there is an unafraid group of nurses wandering all by their lonesome past a bar with men who would shoot each other.

But he's ok! for the most part. I think.

The end all be all: A bus on the way to the ski resort crashes right in front of you. Help them.

This is our friendly neighborhood Annamarie. She bloodies everyone up. Because she's so very good at it. It stems from being a zombie for Halloween for the past 12 years straight.

The pow wow afterwords where we tell the nurses everything they did wrong... and right... I guess...

ok from left to right. jessica, michael, michele, jessie, marcus... ok I don't really know who they all are. I was pretending for funsies.

This is celebratory dinner after. Yay. We beat each other up and made the nurses cry... Oh right in this picture is (for realsies) left to right is Natalie's sister, Natalie, and Emily.

Annamarie and Nick.

Elizabeth and Reed.


And that's pretty much it. If you didn't make it all the way through, that's ok. I didn't really either. That's why it took me like the entire semester and all of the descriptions towards the end were kind of crappy. Well, thank you and good night. Or good day. For those of you who prefer to watch That 70's Show. Which I do.

you can't TiVo this, honey

Now that I survived the first semester of the Paramedic program, I'm finally posting a few highlights other than the late night photos I took after a shift was over. But yeah, I most definitely got a 3.7 gpa this past semester. Holla. So here are some pictures of the past....

This is obviously Risi and I.... This was when we celebrated her birthday at Ben and Ashlee's in SLC... Aren't we so cute?

This is not a head wound so don't worry! This is how my fabulously red hair keeps it's luster... and to all those who are wondering, no, I don't wear that shirt in public...

Ok, I am wearing that exact same shirt again in this picture and it is in public so I guess my last comment was a lie.... But I had to wear a shirt that they could put fake blood all over so why not a shirt that looked like it had already been bloodied?

I was going to put all these pictures up with no explanation because I was feeling really lazy today and it took a lot of my limited energy just to upload these photos but then I realized I'm hanging out a window with a cervical collar on so I didn't want to worry anyone.... So to put everyone at ease, these are PRETEND!

We have to put on a mock for the Basic EMT class for their final and I was a patient obviously. Don't worry, I only had to flat line twice. But they brought me back. It was really fun until it was FREEZING in the ambulance bay which is where this was held.

So this is them after they pulled me back into the car. I was hanging out that window for a good 10 minutes and my arm fell asleep for sure and one of the instructors (my old basic teacher) kept poking my nose with his pen. It's hard to pretend to be unconscious when you are being poked and prodded by someone. Not to mention incredibly frustrating because you can't retaliate and he was totally taking advantage of that fact!

This is Jake... He was "driving the car while intoxicated"... And he was acting drunk. I'm pretty sure this group had the officer handcuff him to one of the fire trucks because he kept coming over to me and telling me we had to leave because he didn't want to get in trouble. It was hilarious watching the student's try and deal with him....

This is us coming up on a scenario for the class. We do them every Monday. One group comes up with a scenario that the whole class goes to in groups of three and runs through it. Our teacher watches and then tells us the things we did well and the things we can fix. So it goes Nate (the guy going in the door), me, and then we were short a person on our team so we took one of the Basic students to help us and I don't recall his name (the kid behind me).

That's me checking the patient's heart rate on the monitor. Oh so the call... 22 year old male that hung himself from the outside 2nd floor bannister. He had been cut down but he wasn't breathing and CPR was in progress when we arrived. So yeah, we hooked him up to the monitor to see what was going on electrically in his heart. (and happy to report since he wasn't really dead, just playing, he had a normal rhythm and rate. so... yay for him.... he's ok...)

But he wasn't breathing so we were going to intubate him. And by we, I mean me. So that's a laryngoscope in my hand and my teacher is telling me that they have an intubation manikin for me to do it on. (don't worry, I was really not excited to do it on a manikin because they are really hard to intubate... in case you were wondering)

But you can see that his lips are blue because he is cyanotic (not enough oxygenation to the cells that are blue, that's why they turn blue) and you can kind of see the rope around his neck. And one person is "bagging" him (squeeaing the blue bag attached to the mask in order to get oxygen down into his lungs since he stopped breathing) and there is a girl doing fakesies CPR. (because CPR when you are actually alive is not the most pleasant experience... Trust me...)

So I'm over in the corner intubating the manikin when the guy starts to "wake up"...

And don't worry, since he was "suicidal" he definitely had a gun and was incredibly angry that we had helped him out. Definitely a "you didn't save my life, you ruined my death! That's what you did!" kind of situation. He definitely wanted us to go and we most definitely didn't want to stay. BTW if a situation ever becomes unstable or dangerous, paramedics have to leave. In fact we aren't supposed to ever go on scene if we don't know it's safe. So if we're called on a domestic disturbance call and police aren't there yet, we are not allowed to go in for our own safety.

So that's all for tonight.... Because my severe ADD is calling my attention to other, more shiny things.... Oooh pretty....

it's so involved being me

Sup guys.... I'm once again avoiding the inevitable by making a new post.... So, yeah.... here are some pictures for kicks and giggles....
This is me right after or possibly before a ride-along shift in Idaho Falls....

Oh yeah, definitely after because I was in a really weird mood. 14.5 hour shifts are tiresome, and make me weirdsome....

This is when I was sick.... Don't worry, not the swine flu, just regular cold. Thank you Risi.

Oh this? It's just an IV....

It's making me feel better and freaking my roommates out at the same time so it's doubly awesome.

This is a fake bruise and bloody nose from the nursing mock we put on for the nursing students. First I was an anaphlaxic neighbor that called them over because I didn't know what was going on.... I had to die several times.... But then we were in a "mass casualty" incident where the nurses had to triage. I was found under a chair with a broken leg and arm. It was fun! Oh yeah and there is blood coming out of my ear too but it kind of rubbed off while I was waiting to be found....

This is one of the many bruises received during IV certification lab... They didn't miss the vein but didn't get it in either....

Here is the biggest one I got, too bad you can't really see exactly how awesome it is. This one she got the vein but then went through it. Too bad because it was her certifying one and obviously she was failed and had to do it again....

I just realized that this might gross some people out and I apologize.... But not really.

Ok, loves and kisses. I'm going to do something else to distract me from homework....

the excitment never ends

So, I did go on my first run with the ambulance and guess who didn't wet themself? Uh.... Me. It shouldn't have taken you that long to guess.... anyhow... It is actually pretty hilarious because you arrive at 7:30 and the first order of business is the morning poker game that decides who is going to cook for the day. Yeah, I'd never played poker before so you can only imagine how that turned out.... and if you guessed that one of the other paramedics helped me win, you'd be right. The next order of business after breakfast is the poker game that decides who does the dishes... Yeah, I lost that one... But they all did the dishes anyway because they felt bad for me and all.... They pretty much play cards to decide of everything which I find highly enjoyable. Except for the times I lose. Which is a lot. So I guess I don't really like it. Anywho.... We went out on three calls. Pulled some tazer prongs out of a guy, took a woman to the hospital who accidentally fell down the stairs (that one was sad because she was pretty embarrassed and full on super-manned it down to the basement), and an older gentleman who someone wanted checked up on. Then later that night we were called to a fire so I got to stand around in the cold outside by myself.... while they were all inside in their fire gear looking for the fire.... and everyone kept asking me questions for which I had no answers.... Don't worry though, there wasn't really a fire, just a space heater that over heated. And then, half an hour before I was supposed to leave, we got called to a car accident scene. And while a couple had some bleeding face wounds, they were superficial so we didn't do anything for them. A pretty exciting first day.... Then at the hospital I worked in the ICU. I learned a lot and I don't want anyone to have to live there. Even if it is for a short time. I don't like it. I almost got to watch a trach tube switched out but last minute the nurse I was following needed my help. Oh well, maybe next time.... So here are some pictures of me fresh back from the hospital. I'm super tired and fell asleep at my desk for a second. I know embarrassing right?

Sup, just walked in the door.

Yeah, I was just at the hospital for a good 6 hours and feel awesome...

Kind of.....

......

Sorry I just fell asleep!

Here, let me listen to your heart....

Thinking sounds funny....

I don't know if this is working so I sing into it it make sure. Oh yeah, it works, but ear drums didn't for a little while....

Yeah, they shouldn't give me things to play with....

Okay, I really did just fall asleep at my computer so I'm seriously going to bed.

This was fun! Ok loves and kisses until next time. Whenever that is....

thank goodness that's over with!

Guess who definitely passed their EMT-Basic certification practical examination? Yeah, that would be me... And you already know because I sent out a mass text because I was so excited about it. Not that I didn't think I would pass.... Whatever, moving on. I still have to do the written test and don't really know how to sign up for it... I have to have it done by November. I should probably figure it out. So, yeah, that's it... This is why I shouldn't have a blog, my updates are dumb... So here is a random picture:
WALL E

I dreamed my whole house was clean...

So here I am supposed to be cleaning the trash can that is my tiny bedroom floor right now and I decided to post a new, well, post. Because I avoid anything unpleasant... And my ADD meds haven't kicked in yet. Our rounds at the hospital on Wednesday wasn't really exciting because all we did was orientation. We walked through a facility and then sat at computers for 2 hours learning how to update patients charts when we give them medication. So as you can imagine I was totally enthralled. (And if by enthralled you think I mean fighting not to fall asleep, you'd be right) Tomorrow is our Basic EMT certifying test so I'm pretty much dying on the inside. In fact just typing that made my hands sweat and my stomach churn. Or maybe that was the pizza I had for breakfast.... Just kidding, I don't eat pizza for breakfast.... Not at all.... So here are some pictures of various family events for kicks and giggles...

Weren't we all cute when we were younger.... This was right after Andy got home from his mission.

This is all the cousins that were at Uncle Brett, Uncle Brett, B-R-E-T-T's wedding... Good times good times.

This is all the Fam at Ashlee's wedding in Albuquerque. I don't know why it's so small and I'm too lazy to figure it out.

This is at our first annual Glaus Fambly reunion in Hawaii. This is some place up in the mountains where the wind is blowing so hard that you can lean back and not fall down. It also makes you look really stupid while you do it so I say it's a super fun place...

Receiving line in Aubrey's wedding reception. Isn't that cute...

At the temple when Aubrey FINALLY came out... I mean I know that wedding dresses take a long time to get into but Really.... Ha ha, just kidding.... Kind of...

This is us waiting for Aubrey to come out. That's Uncle Bill and Aunt Allison along with Nate, Natalie, me, and Risi.

And that concludes this post. Sorry it's not as entertaining as always but I can't fight the inevitable. I must clean my crap hole, I mean room. And all the meds have kicked in so I need something to do...

stop me before I volunteer again

So today was the first day of paramedic lab. Yeah, lets just say I shouldn't be allowed to pull someone out of an ambulance on a cot unless I lift some major weights for a while and... build up my strength. I almost dropped one of my classmates.... I mean, I didn't do that! Not at all.... But seriously. And my uniform, lets just say it's pretty butch. But I am genuinely excited about this major even though it freaks the bejeebies out of me. (Yeah I'm spelling it that way, bejeebies) We have to do ride-alongs with ambulances and trust me when I say I'm terrified to the point where only "silent pant's-wetting" describes my situation. But mainly only because I haven't done it yet. I'm praying every night that I don't actually wet my pants when we get our first call. Heavenly Father has to be finding my prayers pretty interresting right now. And if by interresting you think I mean ridiculously hilarious, then you'd be right. We start rounds at the hospital on Wednesday. I'm almost positive we are going to be cleaning a lot of bed pans and wiping a lot of old, pardon the word, bottoms. But I did find out that we have to watch a total of 10 live births this semester while at the hospital so.... yay. (if you could hear me say that outloud my sarcastic enthusiasm would bring tears of laughter to your eyes and tears of deep pain to mine) Anyway, here is a picture of me fresh back from class. And yes my hair looks like that because I had to pretend to be a patient and had a cervical collar on while strapped to a long board.

Haha, retarded smile but it's because I'm exhausted!

Yeah, I'm legit with my patch!

Jealous much?

And my badge!

That's what I said. Legit.

Alright, I'm supposed to be reading 200 pages tonight all about how to interprit a 12 lead ECG... If you understood what I just said then you are better off than I my friend...