Recuperating

Since I last wrote, I resuscitated a dummy while nearly choking it, nearly lost my hearing due to shock, and had thoughts about breaking up with my liver for good. Not bad for a week’s work.

I did make it to the Emergency First Aid/CPR class despite how sick I've been feeling. Turns out it was a lot of fun, but I’m not so great at actually performing CPR, so I would not recommend anyone going into respiratory arrest if I’m the only one present in the room.

A certified germaphobe, I was greatly relieved to know that like neon leggings, giving mouth to mouth is très passé  .  The explanation for that was rather logical really. The instructor explained that the last thing you want to do is pump carbon dioxide into someone’s mouth (because that’s what we breathe out). 

Following this logic, I tried to think of things that give out oxygen that one might have handy in the event of an emergency, but all I could think of was a potted plant.  Apparently, it is a faux pas to shove foliage down the patient’s mouth (especially since in my apartment, the closest thing to green is a cactus).

The correct procedure is to keep giving CPR until you have to put some sort of gadget on the mouth of the person in distress. I figured that if I was around such a device, it would originate from someone who actually knew how to use it, so I let that one slide by me. What I did learn was that you should do CPR to the rhythm of 'Staying Alive'. Seriously. No irony wasted there either.

Luckily for me, the guy teaching the class had a sense of humor. Apparently, he has never met anyone like me and he encouraged me not use 'CSI' as a reference for administering emergency first aid.  It’s a wonder I made it through this class with a certificate.

I thought I should just relax the next day. I had to run out to get a gift for a friend who was visiting and I hopped the bus to the mall. I did a quick dash because I didn’t want my bus ticket to expire. Plus, I was dreaming of taking that thing people call a nap before my spouse and spawn came home for the day.

As I dashed to the bus, the driver got out, locked her vehicle and ran to the loo. The other passengers and I were waiting so long that my bus ticket expired! Three other bus drivers trying to go into that bathroom were locked out. One fellow looked almost blue and we felt sorry for him because he gave up and went back to his bus to do his route.

When the driver eventually came out of the bathroom, she had no choice but to accept my ticket because I was there on time. So I filed into the bus with a slightly vexed lady who had explained to me that this was not the first time this particular bus driver had made her wait, a very timid looking elderly couple, another older lady with a cat tapestry bag, and a young guy with headphones who was amused because I was holding my umbrella over an old lady to protect her from the pouring rain and she had no idea.

As we did the first turn onto the main road, the bus driver opened her window and started yelling at an old man crossing the road. I mean that guy must have been 80 years old at least. She shouted at him, calling him an ‘old goat’.  She referred to him as either stupid or stubborn, I can't remember which, because I was wondering if something was wrong with my hearing.

The older couple blanched, the lady who was talking to me earlier nearly popped her eyes out, and my jaw was almost to the floor. Who yells at senior citizens? What if he had a heart attack? What if I had to leap out of the bus and do my CPR routine on him?

Apparently, he gave her the finger. Good for him, I say. Then again, I’m not sure if it was after she yelled at him or if it was the reason she yelled at him. Either way, give some allowances, I say.  I think old folks need a little bit of a creative license.

The bus driver then hollered out to us (since the majority of the passengers qualified for the AARP), that that said old goat, was giving them a bad name. The other two ladies gave me shocked smiles because I appeared highly thunderstruck by this whole drama unfolding around me, and the older couple looked like they wished teleportation was an option.

After all that excitement, I needed a good rest. Over the weekend, I met up with some friends and ate way too many bad things. After two months of fried foods and sugar coated goodness, my liver finally decided to have a hisy fit.

I was almost doubled over in pain by 8pm on Saturday and wound up having to up chuck my dinner by midnight. I crawled into bed at 2.30am thinking it’s a good thing it was a weekend, when at that very moment, our five year old, Lanes woke up screaming and crying hysterically saying her ear was hurting.

P dashed to our medicine cabinet, which is really a couple of boxes in our coat cupboard, to get the ‘new’ bottles of her children’s Tylenol we keep handy. Horror of horrors, they had expired. Don't things always go down this way in the wee hours of the morning?

I could hear the voice of the instructor from my CPR class 'there are only one or two ambulances for all of Burnaby after midnight'.  I don't know why.  I was comforting and distracting Lanes and P had to drive around the greater Burnaby area at 3am looking for a pharmacy that was open. It was 4am by the time we all got to bed.

Needless to say, it’s been a long week! I’m still hoping someone will hire me—I’m still feeling a little like the last puppy in the litter, waiting for someone to adopt me. With that I guess my liver and I (we are seperate and unequal entities now) better sign off and practice interview questions or better yet, figure out what’s for dinner! More musings from BC next week…