It's a good summer

I am thoroughly enjoying the break from full-time college, and getting a lot done. I'm finishing a project that I started last year, but didn't get finished with. I had bought two Chevy S-10 Blazers and was going to use one for a tuff truck, and was going to try to fix up the other one to drive on the road. I pulled the motor out of the red & black Blazer and put it in my lowrider, and it has been running good ever since. I took an old beat up motor and put it in the red & black blazer and used it for a tuff truck, as planned. But I didn't get the grey Blazer going. Ran out of time and money last summer. Now I'm trying again to get it accomplished. I pulled the motor out of the grey Blazer last week and made some startling discoveries. They guy that sold the Blazers to me said that he thought the motor had a blown head gasket or something. Uhhhh......it was a little bit worse than that. Let's just say that when you are hoisting the motor out of the vehicle, the antifreeze isn't supposed to pour out of the big hole in the oil pan. Come to think of it, there isn't supposed to be a big hole in the oil pan either. I put the motor on an engine stand and we turned it upside down and pulled off the oil pan. It appears there are two broken connecting rods, a broken crankshaft, and a handfull or two of metal shavings that look something like Wheaties or Corn Flakes. Won't be fixing that motor!

Do you want a bowl full of these crispy pieces for breakfast? Looks like somebody else already munched on it a little bit.

I'll be putting a different engine in the grey Blazer anyway so this doesn't matter too much to me. It's just one less spare motor for the tuff truck.

Anyway, that project is well under way now, and I'm getting other things done too. Yeah, I have to take a summer class, but it will only be 5 weeks long. I'm getting to spend some good times with friends, and have been seeing some pretty cool stuff in the Emergency Department. I'm glad to have that job, even though I didn't get the externship I was hoping for.

The other day I saw and learned first-hand about something that really got me going. It's a certain cardiac dysrythmia called "torsade de pointes" (French) which means "twisting of the points." I could go into a great big long explanation of what it is, but for the purpose of most readers of my blog, basically it's a very unstable, and therefore dangerous kind of fast heart beat, or attempt of the heart to beat incorrectly, that if left untreated can rapidly become lethal, and it is identified by reading the patient's electrocardiogram. I learned that it is treated with Magnesium Sulfate, the same drug that is used to treat pre-eclampsia in pregnant women. It's one thing to read about it and not realize the seriousness of the condition, or how quickly and aggressively it needs to be treated, but it's another thing to be part of the team that helps treat conditions like this one when it has already progressed to a very very close scrape with death. Let's just say that any attempt of the heart to beat in such a way that it does not actually pump blood is lethal. The brain can only go a few minutes without a continuous supply of oxygen brought to it by the circulation of blood. Torsades can quickly convert to fibrilation and will then need cardiac resucitation or will cause death.

There are two things to witness in healthcare that in my mind give no greater satisfaction and excitement to the job; they are childbirth and a successfull emergent resucitation. To me those are special, and maybe I'll add to that list some day, but for now those are the two greatest miracles I know of in healthcare.

There's something else that's pretty cool to see in healthcare, at least where I work. That is, helicopters!!!!!! I remember telling my uncle many years ago that I wanted to get higher off the ground than I could jump - more than just 2 or 3 feet. Hey Merle, I'm getting closer to that goal. Eh...maybe a little too close. So close that I bonked my head on one of those whirlybirds the other week. Found out that's why the flight nurses and medics wear helmets. Those big bumblebees aren't so big inside. Yes, I still want to be a flight nurse, even if they bonk their heads. Life if rough - wear a helmet. It wouldn't have hurt so bad if my head hadn't already been sunburned. And I guess it probably wouldn't have been sun burned if I hadn't shaved it. Oooops. One of my responsibilities at the Emergency Department is to take a litter and oxygen tank out to the landing pad and assist the flight crew with bringing the patients into the hospital. Before I was allowed to do that though, I had to get oriented and get signatures on a safety checklist. So one day after one of the helicopters had landed and they had transferred their patient into the ER, the crew took me out there and gave me the orientation and signatures I needed. I go to gawk in the back door of the helicopter and bonked my head on something on the ceiling. Pretended it didn't hurt.

Here is one of Lehigh Valley Hospital Medevac's new EC-135 choppers parked on the helipad. I think this one is less than a year old, but I would have to double check that.



When they come in for a landing, and we walk up to the back doors to help unload the patient, I learned that you need to duck your head down, because the exhaust from the turbines shoots back at you, and it's sort of hot and smells like kerosene, only stronger. This model of helicopter goes about 140 mph.