sunshine and lollypops

This weather is nice! Took the top off the jeep and drove with the sun in my face and the wind in my hair, and I was happy. Then spent the night at a fun birthday where I got to know some of my classmates a bit better. I'm finally starting to realise a balance between work and recreation is probably healthier than a balance between work and contemplation (about work).

But because this is a medical themed blog, supposedly, I should at least drop a bit of medicine in. You might remember some time ago I talked about my first experience with CPR. Essentially they threw me in to the deep end, and let me push on a dummy's chest for a bit. I felt awful afterward, and would later find out that I had succeeded in pushing on my mans chest sufficiently just once, out of my 120 times. I'd also been unable to get any reasonable puffs of air in to him! All in all it was a disaster, but a really good learning experience.

On Thursday I had my final basic life support assessment - a virtual rerun of the original scenario (with a few changes for spice!) Except this time I had skills! It was really nice to feel confident about some life saving skills, and rather happily I passed. They give you a little picture of how you performed, which I find the most interesting part of all.

Basically, it's just craziness. The top waveforms are the ventilations, the bottom is the compressions. You have to get each one in to the right volume or depth for it to be successful, and you have to be pushing on the chest at a rate of 100 compressions per minute. So if you're doing CPR, go hard and fast, and forget being gentle.

Suffice to say, I'm really looking forward to doing some more advanced life support stuff in the future!