Some pictures from Yom Ha'atzmaut

I got to celebrate my first independence day here in Israel, and I had an amazing time. I met many people at my friends house, and even worked an event with the ambulance in which I took some nice pictures so here are a few...

Happy Mothers Day!!!

Getting ready for this week's festivities...

As for the weather during Pesach it was very warm out all week. Now we went back to typical Spring weather, but it is still a lot warmer than NY is now. I have not had time to go swimming yet, but I live 5 minutes from the beach so I will get the opportunity all summer. It is so pretty this time of year with this weather though.

Anyway, tonight begins the holiday of Yom Hazikaron which is the memorial for the soldiers, and then tomorrow night as it ends begins Yom Ha'atmaut, the Israeli Independence Day. There are lots of events and programs going on the next day or so, and work is busier because of it as well. It will be interesting to see how they celebrate their independence day compared to how we do July 4th. This is the 60th birthday of Israel though so its even more special this year. I will definitely post all about it after the celebrations are over.

This week at work and last has been going well. Still pretty busy, and learning more and more each day. Monday begins my next course for MDA, and I will be learning how to start a line with IVs as well as many other things. I am really looking forward to that.

Hope everyone at home is doing well. I miss you and love you all!

I know, its been a bit since I updated...sorry!

So, my internet was down for a few days, so I apologize for the delay in updating. Pesach was nice here in Israel. I was at one of my camp friends family's for the seder, and it was very different than I was used to. I had never heard so much Hebrew in a seder in my life, so it was very shocking to hear that. Also being that they eat the Sephardic way, they had certain foods on the table that we dont usually eat on Pesach as Ashkenazi Jews. It was a bit awkward to see that at first, but I got adjusted. The week has gone well, and I have been enjoying the holiday and still was busy working the entire week.

I have decided that I really dont want to go to nursing school. I am going to apply to work for the FDNY as an EMT, and then advance to Paramedic hopefully by taking a course through them. I belong on the ambulance working with patients one on one. This is the job for me and this internship has already shown me that in such a short period of time.

As for the guys here...I have met some nice guys, but recently have been hanging out with one in particular. His name is Oded, and he lives here in Israel, but he is fluent in English. He has never been to NY before, but has lived for 6 months in Canada...and has done some other traveling as well. We have spent a lot of time getting to know each other recently, and really are getting along great. I just was with his family for Shabbat dinner, and it was a really nice evening.

I have to go get ready for my first Friday night shift in Tel Aviv. I will update again soon!

Miss you and love you all!

Get ready for some more crazy stories...

So, this past weekend, I was in Arad, which is actually a development town near Be'er Sheva. We had a dialogue seminar with Israelis, and it was actually really nice to meet other people our age that live here in Israel.

Anyway, after the weekend I came back and had to go straight to work Saturday night for the overnight shift. I was working with another girl from my class, and a senior medic. So we started out the shift being brought to the guy we were working with and he already had a patient in the ambulance. That should have been the sign that a crazy night was about to begin, but its okay. So then after that, we got 2 calls in which there was nothing found when we arrived there, so we left the scene. After that we get called for a drunk in a hotel. It seemed like the hotel room was decorated for a special reason, and she got sick from drinking during the celebration. Then, we had a homeless guy who had called with shortness of breath. After that guy we got called to a bar, and when we arrived a girl gets in with blood soaking her hand. She had been dancing on a chair, and decided it was smart to put her hands up while dancing. The only thing she forgot to look at was the fan above her, and so she cut her fingers on the moving fan and had to have surgery and stitches. After that we tried to go to sleep for a bit but not even one hour later we got called again to another drunk and found her on the ground outside a car. We got her to the hospital and now it was six in the morning and at 645 we usually head back to the main station, but we decided to try to lay down anyway.

The story of the night gets even more intense now...we got another call. We were told by our driver it was a post CPR call, so we were a bit confused. We got there and I checked his pulse and found that he had none, and he felt very cold already as if he had been there like that for a while. So the medic told me to begin compressions and start CPR. This is the gross part, when I started doing them, I actually heard and felt myself break some of the guys ribs from doing the compressions correctly. That felt so strange, but I knew that it is something that happens on occasion when doing CPR. So then we called for the Intensive Care Unit that has a doctor on it, and he arrived, and pronounced the guy dead as soon as he felt him and looked in the guys eyes. So I had another death. By then it was almost 7am and it was time for the shift to end. So overall, it was an extremely busy and eventful shift, and we ended up not getting any sleep.

I hope this was interesting for all of you, even though its a but gory. I work again today at 3pm so I will let you know if anything else crazy occurs.

Miss you and love you all!

another interesting day...

So on April 7th, I had another eventful day with the ambulance. I started my day off with getting called to something about a person hitting their head. When we arrived I heard the people explaining to the medic with me something about upstairs, and downstairs, and then we began to go downstairs. As we get near the bottom level we learn that a person is laying there motionless. I soon find out he jumped from the 5th floor down and hit his head on the steps, cracking open his skull, and bled out a lot. The patient committed suicide, and it was not a pleasant site. It sucks knowing we couldnt do anything to help him anymore at this point. He lost too much blood and was already going pale, even though he was still warm considering he had just died. Yes, these things arent necessarily good, but it happens, and thats part of my job. It just is sad to see someone take their own life.

Later that day, I got called to a CVA. It turned out the patients sugar was very low, and we had trouble finding a vein for the iv and finally the paramedic found a spot. Once we increased his sugar, we saw a very huge difference in his behaviors. The intensive care ambulance then took him to the hospital.

So this week is not over yet and already I have seen so much, and I only told about 2 of the calls...everyone please respond so I know you are reading this. Miss and love you all!

rough night at work...

So I worked Monday 3pm, then Tuesday 7am, and then again Tuesday night at 11pm for 8 hour shifts each time. Obviously I was exhausted by the last shift, but it was also the most interesting. Not long after the shift started we got our first call of the night. It was a patient in cardiac arrest. We arrived at the scene and someone had already started cpr, so we set up the ekg monitor, and continued compressions and started using the bvm to breathe for the patient. We inserted an airway, used suction and everything. The cpr went on for 20 minutes, and we could not get the patient to a shockable heart rhythm. We tried our best, but after 20 minutes the other intensive care ambulance that has a doctor on it came, and declared the time of death, and took the guys id card. We had to come out and talk to the family after, then lift the patient back into his bed and cover him until he was taken out of the home by a private ambulance. This was my first cpr ever, and although I stayed strong obviously it did shake me up a little. We found out after that when the family came home they found him curled up unconscious and thats when cpr was started and we were called...so he may have been dead for a while already considering how low his body temperature was already. This was probably the toughest call yet because of the emotional aspect of it all, but luckily I was working with one of my instructors from my course so I had someone there with me to make sure I was ok. Yes, it sucks to have to tell the family the patient is dead, but thats part of my job now...I learn more and more each shift I work. I am going to sleep now since I just got home from work, but I wanted to tell everyone about this experience...miss you and love you all!

updates and more updates...

Things are okay here. I still love Israel. The station in Tel Aviv is very different from when I worked in Jerusalem. I will be taking more courses most likely while I am here where I will learn how to start an IV line, and be able to teach courses for overseas volunteers in the future. It is all so interesting, and each day I learn more and more. Gary, I hope you had a good birthday. Miss and love everyone lots!

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