no identity
My wallet disappeared yesterday. Somewhere between the cell phone store, my car in the parking lot, driving home, and home, it disappeared.
I didn’t have anything particularly important in it; nothing sentimental or extra valuable. But I did have my driver’s license, credit cards, my shiny new EMT cards, my CPR/AED and First Aid cards, about $20, a couplea receipts, my student ID, a couplea business cards, my CCW ID, and I’m not sure what else.
My dad used to call the feeling I had last night the “existential heebie jeebies.” I felt groundless, like I had no control over anything, displaced. This feeling wasn’t huge, mind you. I only lost my wallet, not my home. But having the feeling at all was surprising. I expected annoyance, frustration, and finally resignation once I started to go about the process of calling the banks and replacing all my various ID’s and cards. But I also felt this odd feelng of having lost a crucial connection with day to day doings.
You interact with your wallet in a myriad of ways. It’s your connetion to so many things; it’s how you get money from the bank so you can then go get food. You buy gas for the car to get home, to meet with friends. Your identification – driver’s license, school ID, CCW, EMT cards – all tell a little about who you are and what you’ve accomplished. You might have to pull out one of these items any day of the week to show off to friends or prove that you are who you claim. These identification cards have the effect of proving you are who you claim you are. Without my papers, I have no official identity.
What an odd feeling.
It’d be amazing if someone was enough of a decent human being to have put my wallet into a mail box – heck, they could have walked it into the UPS store where I’d just been and handed it over to them; they send things for a living. But I doubt they did. Why couldn’t whomever found my wallet lying in the parking lot (because that’s the most logical place I could have lost it) taken it into one of the two stores that were directly adjacent to the lot? Maybe they put it in the mail – sent to the address on my driver’s license – and I will see it in my mailbox next week. But my faith in people’s willingness to do the right thing, to be kind for no reason, to help a stranger, is low. Very, very low. More likely, someone rifled through it, found my ‘emergency’ twenty tucked away, and threw the rest of it in the garbage.
I woke up this morning feeling better about the whole thing. The existential heebie jeebies have passed, possibly because I know my newly ordered cards are on the way.It’s a hassle but not insurmountable. Soon, I’ll have a new wallet to hold on to like a weird plastic and paper and leather security blanket.
passed!
Whooohooo!
Passed the National Exam!
Got my State ID and I’m ready to roll….
certification
Today I took the NREMT exam – the National Registry exam for EMT’s.
I can’t work as an EMT until I pass this test. It’s a big one. And it’s hard.
I finished top of my class, studied like crazy for this exam, and came out of the testing center today thinking … “well, that was weird.”
It was a difficult exam. There is no set amount of questions and the questions you are given are pulled from a huge data bank, based on your knowledge. “Adaptive testing:” If you answer a question correctly, it will give you a harder one until you miss a question, then it will give you an easier one. The idea is to test your level of knowledge. And you feel it. Geez. It’s a good test to make you feel like a dummy quickly. It’s pass/fail and I’ll know “within two business days.”
Well, if I failed this time, at least I know what to expect when I take it again.
If I passed, then I get to write “EMT” after my name (and look for a job.)
Crossing fingers….
almost there
I can taste it. The end. Graduation. Certification. Work.
Finals are separated into two sections: Practicals and Exam.
The Practicals are hands-on testing. We enter a room with equipment and a tester person. We have ten minutes to complete the exam which will consist of a scenario. There are six stations with six different objectives; Medical Assessment, Trauma Assessment, Bag Valve Mask, Spine Immobilization, AED/Cardiac Arrest, and a random one.
Nerve wracking but doable. I hope I am ready and I’m glad I have a few more days to practice. I still have a cold, but I figure if I can get this stuff down when I’m foggy headed and feeling crappy, then I’ve got it.
The multiple choice exam is next week. The last day of class, provided you pass the exam. This will be 150 questions covering the entire book. All 1068 pages. That’s a lot of reviewing to cover.
After all this, I will head to the National Registry Exam. This is The Big One. I can pass the class, but if I don’t pass this exam, I don’t become an EMT. I’m signed up for it already and once I complete the class I can pick out a date. I’ll take it as soon as possible so that I have the information fresh in my head.
I’m excited! After doing my clinical rotation at Scottsdale’s Osborn Hospital ER I was even more excited. This is an honorable, thrilling job – even if it’s just helping an 86 year old woman feel more comfortable. EMT isn’t really all about “saving lives,” it’s about helping people.
One of my favorite jobs was in high school when I worked at an ice cream place. People don’t get ice cream when they are cranky and tired. They get it as a treat, kids aren’t complainy they are on best behaviour hoping this will garner them a larger scoop. People have already eaten so are content. They are always pleased when you hand them their cone.
Working as an EMT won’t be like that. A lot of folks won’t be happy to see us, there will be combative people, people with mental disorders and lots of truly disgusting smells and fluids. But there will be people who are scared, and people who called us and hope we can help. There will be people who understand our role is to attempt to be of service to them.
The countdown has begun.
Here I come!
