Monthly Archives: April 2024

A Certain Kind of Bravery

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One part of my job as a tech is to help with psychiatric patients. They may be checking in for a variety of reasons, but one that stands out are those who are checking in because of what is termed “suicidal ideations”. These are the folks who for whatever reason are having suicidal thoughts and afraid they may act upon them.

For such patients, we get them changed into hospital scrubs and then put them in a room where they can be observed. We’ll keep an eye on them until they are cleared by a psychiatry doctor. Basically we take away anything that they might use to harm themselves (hence no belts, sharp objects in the room, etc) and make sure if they do suddenly try, we can stop them.

The honest truth is, pretty much every patient I’ve had to do a “one to one” sit for has been fairly sedate. Generally by this point they’re calm and simply trying to purge the thoughts and waiting for psychiatry to take a look at them.

So why brave? Because society has a stigma against people committing suicide (a good thing in general I think) and it has a stigma against folks who express suicidal thoughts. This stigma can often reinforce the already negative thoughts in their head.

People with suicidal ideations have them for many different reasons, but often they feel a sense of worthlessness, “the world would be a better place without me” or “No one cares about me”.

And yet, they’re taking a leap of faith. They’ve come to us because they believe that “some cares enough to make sure I’m safe” and “the world is better with me still in it.” That’s brave.

Some sadly can’t find that bravery for a variety of reasons, or they’ve been brave multiple times, but the last time they couldn’t be.

But for those to do end up checking themselves in, I am awed that they are brave enough to make that leap of faith.

I’ll close by saying: if you or a loved one are having suicidal thoughts, please take a leap of faith and trust someone cares.

Call 988 – the national suicide hotline.

Or go to your local hospital and tell them you need help. They’ll help.

The world is a better place because you’re in it. Let’s keep it that way.

Back in the Saddle Again

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With apologies to Gene Autry, I’m back in the saddle again. CASPA, which is the Centralized Application Service for PA programs, opened up for applications for the 2024-25 round of PA school applications. I actually logged in last night, but there were no changes, at least as of 1:45 AM ET. So sometime between then and 10:00 AM today they finally opened things up.

So I’ve officially started the process for the second round of PA school applications. As loyal readers know, last year, my total was all “thanks for applying, but no” except for one school that waitlisted me. For various reasons I didn’t pursue that one very hard. While I had had hopes for being accepted last year (which would have meant I’d be taking classes now, or starting within a few months), the chances honestly where low. It’s actually pretty common for folks to take 2-3 attempts before getting in. There are a variety of reasons. So to play a bit on Arlo Guthrie’s words from Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, “Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?” In other words, what’s different this time?

Well, my overall GPA is still an issue, there’s little I can do to completely fix that short of taking probably another 30-40 credits worth of classes. But my science GPA has improved and I’ve added a few more useful classes to my transcript that will help with a few of the schools I’m applying to.

Of course, as I mentioned some schools tend to want to see repeat applications, so I’ll be checking that box.

My patient contact hours are much higher. For the schools I am most interested in, the minimum number of patient contact hours was 1000 hours, I had barely met that last time I applied. Now I’m at over three times that number, with over 3000 hours under my belt. This also exceeds the mean average for most of the schools I’m applying to. I’m hoping this shows my dedication and interest. And as I’ve said before, the fact that it’s in the ED helps a lot because it shows I have a wide variety of medical experiences (things I’ve assisted in or observed first hand include several spinal taps, a thoracotomy, bone reductions, and more.)

And finally, better references. This isn’t to disparage my previous references; the people I had selected I have a great deal of respect for and I believe they share the same in regards to me (and at least one shared the letter of reference he sent on behalf and I was overwhelmed by his positive words). But this time around, with at least two schools, I will have far more targeted references, for example from graduates of their schools, so that tends to help. In addition, at least one professional reference is one that knows me even better than the reference I used last time. So, I’m hoping these references make an even bigger impact than last time.

I haven’t fully decided which schools I’m applying to this time, nor exactly how many, but the process is moving forward. There’s a few schools that are obvious choices for me, and a few that are on my no list this time around that were on my list last time.

But that said, this weekend (only because I’m starting a 12 hour shift in 2 hours and need to sleep tomorrow) I’ll be moving ahead quickly with the application process.

I’m excited and nervous!

Close Encounters of the Eclipse Kind

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One of the clips of a movie I like is from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, just before the alien mothership arrives at Bear’s Lodge (aka Devil’s Tower). “Is everything ready here at the Dark Side of the Moon?“

Well, yesterday everything was ready. In 2017 I had taken a bit of a leap of faith and driven all the way to my uncle’s place in South Carolina in order to observe totality. Despite thirteen hours driving southbound and I think close to twenty driving northbound (due to traffic and a nap) I decided it was totally worth it. Totality was unlike anything I had ever experienced before in my life. If you didn’t get to see it then or in 2024 (or any other time) let me tell you that there is a 100% difference between 99.9% coverage and totality.

So, with some last minute planning, Randi, Ian, and I were aboard Amtrak’s Adirondack yesterday, bound for Port Henry, NY. It appears we were far from the only ones who had decided to forgo driving and to risk potential tardiness (though we had a buffer of over an hour) and cloud cover (mitigated by fully refundable tickets). According to the conductor, 130 people were scheduled to get off Port Henry that day. In contrast, it appears on average, Port Henry has 3-4 people get off or on the train day. Amtrak apparently called the town supervisor a few days previous to let them know 150 people were bound there. Suddenly they were planning to do some stuff right near the train station, something they hadn’t planned on before.

Image of Amfleet Cafe car at concrete platform for Port Henry, NY train station.
The Adirondack, preparing to depart Port Henry, NY after dropping us off.

Like last time, the build-up was interesting, but also a bit boring. It’s not until you’re at over 50% coverage or so do you start to notice a dullness start to cover the land. It’s sort of like a cloudy day, but different in a way I can’t necessarily describe other than muted. This grows as coverage increase. We spent our time walking around, buying and consuming a pizza made in portable trailer based pizza oven (not bad, but I normally wouldn’t have paid as much for it as I did, but hey, I was hungry and it was supporting local business).

As 99% approached, we could definitely feel the temperature drop and now everything was really simply in dull colors. At that point, my eclipse glasses were basically glued to my eyes (with an occasional peak at the landscape around me).

White plate with a colander held above it, showing the Moon's shadow.

Then 100%: Totality. Glasses came off. People cheered and shouted. There was a hole in the sky where the Sun should have been. If you’ve never seen it, it’s bizarre. Literally where the Sun should be, is a dark black dot. It’s the darkest thing in the sky. It’s a bit unsettling.

I can’t recall if I saw it last time, but this time I definitely saw the Sun’s corona. When one considers who big the Sun really is, the eclipse drove home how far from it the corona can extend. I also saw, and confirmed with others, that I saw what apparently was a solar prominence. It had a very distinctive red color and for me appeared at about the 7 o’clock position on the Sun.

Then, just minutes after beginning I saw a flash of the “diamond ring” and put my glasses back on. It was over. We waited for our train, boarded, and once my ticket was scanned, I fell asleep. It wasn’t so much because it was anti-climatic as much as because I had just worked my standard 12 hour shift, plus 3 more the night before. (I literally went from work, straight to the train station).

I still can’t really put to words the experience, but I do know Randi and Ian also came away with the belief that the trip was well worth it.

I will just say this, if you ever get the chance to be in totality, do it. This is especially true for the folks I’ve heard about and say things like “well I was at 99.9%, that’s good enough”. No, it’s not. So, if you make plans to see an eclipse, get into totality. Yes, I get it, you might live or work at say 90% and decide “that’s good enough” and logistically it may be, but honestly, the closer you are to totality, the more worth the effort it is to get all the way. It’s not worth travelling from 40% to 60% but it is for 99% to 100%.

And here’s looking forward to the next North American eclipse in 2044, and perhaps ones elsewhere sooner!

Randi overlooking Lake Champlain
Randi overlooking Lake Champlain

My Inbox Today

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I posted Tuesday about the end of my contract with my largest client. One of the last set of steps I took was to take my email address off many jobs and alerts. The difference has been stunning and well worth it.

My inbox for my main business account is now down to fewer than a dozen emails a day. I apparently missed 4-5 alerts from my client that I’m getting cleared up, but other than that, now it’s emails related to other items.

Not only has this made my email box reading a lot easier and faster, it honestly has given me a lot of relief. For example, for the last few months of 2023 and the first two of 2024, there was an important job that started to randomly fail around 4:00 AM. If I was at work in the ED, I’d be stressed about getting home in time to rerun it (and to try to debug it). Fortunately I finally resolved that about a month ago, but still kept my eye on it.

In addition, there was another major server issue that would randomly occur with one of the VPNs. We hadn’t seen the issue in months, but I had been paranoid about it failing. Sure enough, I found out from a former coworker that it failed Sunday night for the first time since December. And my first thought was “well thank god it’s no longer my problem.” I mean I felt for them that they had to deal with it again, but it wasn’t anything I had to worry about. That was refreshing.

This morning, after a 12 hour shift in the ER, a bunch of us went out to breakfast. It’s the first time I could do that and not worry about having to get home in time for a meeting or needing to check email. Again, it was refreshing and relaxing.

I think I’m enjoying this so far.

A Door Closing

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So I’ve hinted a bit on some social media about a change. The change has come. I would have posted more details yesterday, but given that particular date, I didn’t want anyone thinking I was trying to do an April Fool’s Joke.

So the door closing is that as of March 31st, my contract with my largest client is over. This was actually a mutually agreed upon date. In fact, when my manager scheduled a meeting with me in December, I knew it was coming and expected he would want to end things in January or even perhaps December, so honestly, I was quite pleased to have the extra time.

That said, it was obvious to both parties that this was coming. I was spending less and less time on projects for them. This was due to actually a variety of factors. Strangely, a huge part of it was something that I hadn’t planned on: Grand Jury Duty. During the weeks I was on the Grand Jury, between that, the class I was taking and my ED Tech work, I had very little time left over to spend with this client, so they didn’t assign me any real projects at that time. But even besides that they had been using my skills less and less and I had been allocating less time to them. So, the end was inevitable.

And to be honest, I’m actually very excited about this. When I made the decision over two years ago to apply to PA School, it was driven in a huge part because I was tired of IT. I was also tired in part of having to learn new things in IT. Specifically, I didn’t want to learn who to do what I was doing in new ways. For example, the SQL Server world is moving more and more to Azure and other cloud providers. I’m actually in favor of this. But it’s really simply doing much of what I do in a new way. That’s not a challenge that excited me.

If I am to learn new things, I want to learn them in a new domain of knowledge. Becoming an ED Tech and eventually a PA is just that, learning new things in a completely new field. Some of my skills remain the same. One of them is my ability to solve problems. I’m just applying that skill in a new arena. This is exciting.

What’s also exciting is for the first time in over a decade, and ignoring two breaks, really since before the turn of the millennium, that I don’t need to be checking my email almost constantly. For a variety of reasons, most of my IT jobs over the past 3 decades have, if not required me to be available 24/7, at least highly encouraged me to be available 24/7. With my ED work, when I’m done with a shift, I’m truly done. No one is going to call me at home and ask me to log in and do an EKG on a patient. Right now my ED work is officially only part time, but I can pick up shifts, something I’ve been doing a lot. But on the flip side, I’m under zero obligation to pick up shifts if I don’t want to. The fact that I’m not on call and that I can pick up or not pick up when I want to is very liberating. I’ve been looking forward to this for awhile.

Another short-term change is that I don’t have to worry about trying to fit in client meetings with my currently highly variable sleep patterns. Last week for example, because of the shifts I picked up and one regular shift and my client needing meetings, I basically only got about 8 hours of sleep in a 56 hour period. I couldn’t get a solid “night’s” (since I generally sleep during the day because of the ED night shifts I work) sleep. I had to wake up and attend meetings. That’s over with.

And in some ways, there’s no going back. That’s not strictly true. My IT skills are still fresh and relevant and I have enough industry contacts that if I wanted to change course back, I could. But I don’t see happening.

Really the only downside is the change in income. Trust me, IT work pays a lot better than ED Tech work. However, fortunately we’re the point where total income isn’t as big as factor as it once was. Basically I can afford to “follow my dream” and we can still maintain our lifestyle. We’re fortunate that way.

So what’s next? Well later this month the application process for my second round of PA School applications begins. I’m much more hopeful this time around, though we’ll still have to wait and see. Assuming that’s successful, sometime in 2025, I’ll start a two plus year journey of again diving deep into learning with very little free time and I’m looking forward to that.

But in the meantime, I expect to travel a bit more, relax a bit more, work on some more projects around the house. Overall, I expect to simply enjoy life more.

And perhaps even blog a bit more than I have been.