Week 15

On the first session of this last complete week we worked on our presentation about short American stories due next class. It was really easy to create the presentation because it wasn't really needed. So we only copied a bunch of images and we were done. On Wednesday I wanted to present first because I was afraid that if we were the last ones we will eventually end with nothing new to say. We presented at the middle of the hour. Everything went just fine, neither good nor bad. 

Even though we haven't officially finished our curses I'm already dealing with final exams. My first final exam was last Thursday, so I decided to call that class absent since I'm not short on those. Ir wen very well, I only got three wrong from fifty. That same afternoon I had another exam, this was a partial test of human physiology that I needed to present for my technical degree at Red Cross. It also went well, but I finished the test in 5 minutes because I didn't want to waste time of potential study for my final clinical semiology exam. That night I had my dinner celebration for my 21th birthday at the Arcos, a seafood restaurant in Morones Prieto. It is a good establishment, but I would have enjoyed it better if it wasn't for the intestinal intoxication I got that same afternoon for eating rotten vegetables at the cafeteria of San José Hospital. I will think of it twice after eating there again, even though the complete plate is only $40. After eating there I slept a while and woke up with fever, chills and intestinal colic. That Friday I woke up sicker and I was fortunately able to recover myself from that Saturday morning, so I went with friends to a quinta. 

That Sunday I arrived early to my ambulance and had some free minutes to read and sleep on the back stretcher, I'm already starting to get tired of waking up six out of seven days a week early. I waked up with the sound of the GPS and my partner saying we have a service in the river. I got excited although it didn't turned out to be a service. We arrived to the Santa Catarina River from out base at the Fire department. The partner I had to work with didn't seemed to like a lot sports, so it was going to be difficult to reach the river for her. We arrived and the police was already there, we followed them on foot down the side of the river and crossed to the other side. There was a young man no older than me laying down on the side of the river. He was dead. We got the call just to make sure he was actually dead, he had no vital signs. The cadaver was not in rigor mortis, that means that he had kicked the bucket that same night, few hours ago. His skin was so cold.  It was a mysterious case, this man came from Veracruz and even thought he had a line of blood in his left cheek, we were not sure if it was his. He had no traumatic injury, the river's water was too shallow for drowning, he had no torture marks, and we found it laying down perfectly straight, so there were no indications of a suicidal fall from the street running above the river. The distance of the fall will have damaged his body notably, perhaps it was a simple hipothermal death. We couldn't smell any alcohol or any other drug that could have made him end the night in the river. The work of a paramedic doesn't really include diagnosing the cause of dead, that's a work for a forensic doctor, in this case the SEMEFO, but there is no one out there to do the work so they usually call us. That was a good start, but from there on we were called to attend an event. It was the American Football Pumas Club that was having a game. This only involved the children category so they didn't get hurt. We got bored that evening but I was able to read a lot. We had very few other services during the day, and 15 min before the 12 hour guard finished, we got a call and finished one hour late. 

Week 14

This was a light week, we watched a complete movie on the first two session. That Monday I had only slept 30 min that night to finish studying for the class I was giving that morning to three campus of ITESM about renal physiology. Therefore, I was afraid I might just knock out and sleep through the whole movie so I was deciding weather I should sleep at the library or go to class. At last I drank a soda (because I had already drank too much coffee), and hoping not to sleep I went to class. For my surprise the movie was so interesting I didn't sleep; at the most I yawn a pair of times. So this movie was called The Power of One and talked about racial issues in Africa. During our last session we had a little quiz/activity of the movie and I got a good grade, it was long but not difficult. 

That same week I had received a message notifying me that I was going to assist to an event that Sunday on my guard. This event turned out to be the race "Correkaminis" by Soriana that took place in "Parque Fundidora". Basically this was a race for children with their parents and I covered the medical service. To make things short non of this kids had anything wrong with their bodies. The other private paramedics seemed worried when a kid had a high pulse rate or difficulty to breathe, but come on they had just finished a race. Some of the kids were overreacting after a little abrasion that only needed cleaning. This let me remember when I was a kid and was always running and climbing trees or jumping with my bike until the wheels ripped apart. I usually fell and got injured but I only got up and continued with my life; bleeding, cutting, loosing my breath after falling from the tree were the day to day normal experiences, but perhaps the new generations are not used to playing outside because of all the technological options we've got today. 

Week 13

This Monday we had our quiz on English speaking countries, I think it was a little too specific. I didn't studied enough (only one hour), and if the teacher hadn't changed the amount of points that each wrong answer worth I would've failed the test. On Wednesday we had a small task about plagiarism that was easy, but for homework we had to read three short stories that were difficult to understand so it took me about an hour of reading. This Sunday was a little busy one. The first service was a man that had crushed and fell off his motorcycle. When we arrived he had already received first aid from "Protección Civil", they did almost everything right. He had an exposed bone fracture of his left tibia. That same day it seemed that the population wanted to traumatize; at the end of the day IMSS's #21 Trauma Hospital was fool of patients, only ourselves were responsible of transporting 4 patients there. We also receive a call from a lady that was going to abort her baby, she was in paint and starting labor work after only 6 months of gestation. Finally, that day we attended a call inside a Walmart of a lady that fell down and injured her hip. After the physical exploration we knew she was completely faking, perhaps she was tired of working there and wanted some vacations. We realized that because she said that different parts of her body hurt and the trauma kinematics didn't match quite well. When we were transporting her to the hospital we discovered with our interrogation questions that she was taking antidepressants and anxiolytics. Just 5 minutes before my 12 hour guard was going to finish the GPS got a notification from a call, we were really tired and thanks god we got covered by the new guard. A service can entertain us even 3 hours, and I needed to read enough to be able to respond to any question my physiology teacher would like to ask next day in the morning while a give the class, so I decided not to sleep. 

Week 12

For this first week after our short but worthy spring break we worked on our country cultural presentations. It was an easy and entertaining task as it was getting to present it to the class. This was a relaxed week for me because I still felt as in vacations in most of my classes, even though my last partial exam approached quickly enough. Last Saturday I took my pharmacology test, and it wasn't as difficult as I imagine; I really studied hard for that one. Now all my courses' grades are safe, but that doesn't mean I should relax. Sunday was a nice day, the climate was perfect for the ambulance guard, when the climate is too hot it become an oven. I attended that morning a patient that lived near ITESM in the street Rio Nasas. He wasn't a part of a high sociocultural class, he had had a kind of fight last night while he ran from someone who eventually got to him and stab him in the back; the wound was big but not that deep. He didn't wanted to get hospital attention even though we told him he obviously needed to be check, he was still bleeding while drinking from his "caguama" beer s bit drunk. We cleaned his wound and applied a bandage and leave, there is nothing else we can do if someone refuses to get free health attention.  It is somehow disappointing to know there are this kind of people who are used to be in trouble and don't seem to be worried about their future and health. People like this end up with a chronic diseases of infections that are really disturbing and difficult to treat. On another service I attended a hypoglycemic diabetic patient, he had injected his insulin and forgot to eat last night. He was just laying down with his eyes opened and without any other response; his glycemia was 30mg/dL which totally explained his symptoms. We canalized him with a a solution of 5% glucose and in five minutes he was already standing up and talking, This type of emergencies are really common in Mexico. 

Week 11

This week seemed eternal because it was the last before our spring break week off. We started the week working in teams and trying to give our analysis or interpretation about a short poem and a painting. I shall thank the effects of coffee to the accomplishment of that task. I really enjoy art and culture but never dedicated enough time to it, so observing paintings, and going to museums is something I enjoy. 

On Wednesday we worked on a country powerpoint presentation due on April. The task included choosing an English speaking country and we chose Fiji. In part it was a bad idea because that is the happiest country of the world and the beach seemed just beautiful, Monterrey seemed a bit depressing just by comparing the landscapes. Now I really need to visit Fiji before dying. Next day we decided to do our final project on the influence of Shakespeare in English language. 

On Sunday I went to the guard on ambulance and the day included three services of broken hips of geriatric patients, it seem that everyone had chosen that day to fall. We had a pair of other services, and we were not able to arrive to a scene on time, so there was nothing we could do to save a patients life after his heart attack.

Week 10

This week we had a long weekend to study for our partial tests. We had on Wednesday a quiz about the book we read, it was more or less difficult, I forgot a pair of facts and end getting a 90. On Thursday we had the option to work on our own without going to the classroom. I text a friend to pair up for the homework, I preferred to stay in the library studying for the pharmacology test that I was going to have that Saturday. That Sunday I was sent to an event on Cintermex where I went as a Red Cross paramedic to show what we do and the ambulances we work with. That way we can promote our work and make it easier to gain more donations. It was a lazy day, but I had a restroom just five meters away which feels relaxing (as there's no restroom in the ambulance were we spend the day). We took several pictures with children wearing our helmets. There were a lot of children since the Chicharines came to the event to give their show. 

Week 9

In this week we had a graded translation activity. I forgot to look for a dictionary and the ones in the library are not lend to take out of the building so they are kind of useless. Even though, the translation didn't went that bad. The story was written by Rulfo and it contained a lot of popular words that make a translation difficult. We saw a video about history of English and I preferred to see it at my home and do the task because I needed to study for my immunology test that I took on Saturday. It went regular. Ont he third session we made a summary of all the presentations about the book we are reading and with that we finished the book. This Sunday was a little more interesting that last one; I attended a crash, nothing serious. I got excited because I had the opportunity to get on the "libra" which is an automobile with all the hydraulic tools to destroy cars and opened them to extract people after a crush, but the service got canceled on our way to the site of the accident. This accidents are really common on rainy days like this one. I was able to attend another drunk fallen guy on the mud, its incredible the amount of people that end up seriously harmed just because of drinking excessively.