"New" Is My Middle Name.

On the daily schedules they print off and post at each station, they've placed "NEW" between my first and last name. So much for keeping that a secret. I'm even used to introducing myself that way, now. I think I'll actually be sad when it disappears, when I turn into just another name.

**********************************

So anyway, here I am, just about three months into the job. We have a lot of catching up to do, don't we? The time has flown by. It feels like I've only been out there for a few days, but maybe that's because I feel like there's still so much for me to see.

It seems like it was just a few days ago that I was showing up for my first shift. I was terrified, nervous and I felt like I had forgotten everything, which was maybe partly true. On that first day as I was checking our truck pre-shift, I realized that as soon as I had finished writing my final exams, and passed my final scenarios, I started forgetting things. As I thought about this, and I as I struggled to remember how to work the monitor, too scared or shy to ask for help, I sat alone in the back of the truck and put my head in my hands wondering what the hell I got myself into. Can I actually do this? Did I get lucky on all of those tests? Will I just embarrass myself? It's made even harder when you're looked at as the one that's just out of school, therefore you should know everything, right?

My head was cleared as soon as we got our first call. A man assaulted at a residence in a lower-income area of town. Don't know the whole story but he had been cut up pretty bad with a broken pool cue. Big lacerations all over his face and head. As soon as we walked in and saw this man lying in a pool of blood on the floor you'd better believe all of the self pity went right out the window. I went from feeling like the rookie didn't know squat about working calls to feeling like I had been doing this for years.

So when I think back to that first day it still seems like it was yesterday, but for some reason I still can't imagine my life before I started this job, and I can't imagine life without it. It's all I know right now and I love every second of it. Can't wait to start it all over again tomorrow.

Take care.

-AM

even walls fall down