It feels a little weird that the sun is back when I thought the dark was supposed to stay a little longer. My dreams and reality have interweaved themselves into a flurry of EMT faces and the intoxicated limbo of whether that was an actual radio tone or not. My legs murmur a slight ache from the vigorous pedalling uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill -- so maybe my muscles have not stopped contracting, releasing, contracting, releasing. That rhythmic beat seems to have pervaded my night--I mean, day. The thumping heart inside my rib cage reverberating on the floor I slept on, the pulsing of an artery from the twitch of the needle on the blood pressure cuff looming in my head, and the rhythmic gasps of breaths I take as I emblazon a path to where someone needs me, a path that becomes more tiresome as the night-day continues but my stubborn determination kicks it out to the periphery. My hair hangs loose but the long strands meet in a braid that flies in the hard crisp wind. The epi-pens rattle in my pack as I hit a bump in the road but the adrenaline that imaginarily spikes in me upon every call never waivers--it has lived on in the two-hour sleepless, restless phases after every call, smirking and claiming it will go down. But I doubt it ever does.
Last night was a roller coaster of One coming before I thought we'd started, another One that came after we'd ended, and a surprising third One that thrust me back into the wispy Hampshire air that turned into morning. Yet, I wake up today, ever equipped with the same adrenaline (that never left) and a sense of relief or content. A kind of softening around the edges of this uptight worker as I remember off-tangent conversations of "you have a pretty face," something about Asians, and being a doctor in Thailand, fueled by alcohol of course (no drugs they said), the glassy demeanour convincing you they're completely fine before doubling over the bed and giving me a heart attack, the fourth time a patient asks for my name within the span of 5 minutes determined to remember it, the cathartic but one-second nods to my fellow officers and medics exchanged along corridors, the lingering but unexplainable ache in my body waking up the next day, and the incessant and apologetic "thank you guys for coming out" and "sorry for troubling you."
No, don't be.
This is our job.
As we wheel our bikes to the infamous office, my guard is slightly lower than it was before. In the state of possible semi-consciousness, I am flanked by the two people who have just been through everything I have. Sometimes, I don't say thank you enough to you guys just for being there with me, for doing the work that we do, and for being the two people I trust the most with our patients' lives in those 20, 30, or 40 minutes of a call. And sometimes I forget the courage of those who call too--for taking that leap and asking for help, whether that be for themselves or the people around them.
Thank you, all my loves, for all the trust--the trust you give yourself and the trust we give each other. This is a candid, slightly incoherent but heartful letter on a hazy morning in the last few hours of a long shift.
Your EMT last night that you may never meet again,
Your partner in crime last night--what a team we were,
Andrea.
It's been a pleasure. Always.
