Remember that physics class in college with the really cool machine that would stretch the metal rods until the deformed and snapped. Yup. I’m the rod.
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
Rainy Days And Mondays
Rainy days mean wife with migraine. One child home sick. I suspect the plague is about to run through our house. The rain is cold but peaceful. I’m happy (struggling to keep the seasonal stress from pulling me down), albeit tired, and looking forward to this day but I had to include this song.
Lessons from last night
Having now experienced someone having cardiac arrest in a restaurant, here’s what they don’t tell you in the training:
- You will forget your training (you aren’t a professional) so just do compressions and don’t worry about the rest
- The crowd will be an obstacle. Managing the crowd is as important as managing the victim. If you have a leadership skillset and can issue instructions instead of doing the CPR yourself, focus on managing the crowd. Get them to shut up so the caregivers can focus on the victim.
- If you aren’t doing the CPR, the caregiver giving the CPR is probably having a lot of self-doubt. Reassure them that they are doing it correctly. And by correctly, I mean doing compressions.
- No one knows what an AED is (see also). And despite your training, you will forget to ask for one but that’s okay because it turns out most restaurants and businesses do not have one (which is not okay).
Get trained in CPR (see also) and review your training regularly. Remember, it is the victim’s emergency and not yours. Stay calm and take action.
Last night a man died
[n.b. This is the event as I remember it. I tried not to add embellishments. I have no idea how others saw this play out.]
Cathy had a beginning of a migraine and our Saturday go to place, Stirfry Cafe, had a private event for another hour. I took Cathy to Surin. It’s a quiet restaurant with a large Budda and a fountain in the main seating area and is generally serene. I was under-dressed which may or may not have been the reason we were seated in the lounge area. In hindsight, their seating was unbalanced so the tshirt and jeans probably had little to do with the seating location.
We joked with the waiter. Our food came. Then there was a commotion which we presumed was the wait staff singing happy birthday to a patron. Then a waitress ran into the back yelling, "does anyone know CPR?"
I was on my feet before thinking. As I raced through the lounge to the main room, my first thought was "what about liability?" I know about the good Samaritan law and the thought almost didn’t complete as it was interrupted with a rush of memories of my CPR training. Then I exited the lounge and entered the main dining area and the scene made me freeze. The victim, a larger man probably in his mid-60s, lay on the floor pale white. Eight to a dozen people surrounded the victim. A person on the phone, apparently with 9-1-1, tried yelling instructions. Someone pumped on the victim’s chest while others cried, "is he breathing?" A relative cried hysterically and was eventually carried away by the wait staff. There were too many people. I blanked. Surely someone more knowledgeable than me would take control. I’m an authoritarian leader with a loud voice but I could not get myself to utter the words, "I’m trained. Everyone be quiet and let me help." The person giving compressions walked away. I recognized my gloves and breathing mask were in the car. I failed to ask the manager if they had an AED. The victim made a noise and someone declared, "He’s breathing." He wasn’t. His mouth foamed with a sticky white grossness. I recognized another man going through my same hesitation. He and I both knew what to do and were hesitating. A man yelled, "move, I’m with the sheriff’s department." He was as uncertain as the other guy and me. He kneeled beside the victim and I could see him going through the steps we’ve all been taught but not doing compressions. I started to push him aside to begin compressions myself but he finally began pumping the victims chest. The crowd continued to scream mixed instructions like the audience at a boxing match.
I heard instructions of CPR trainings that the Red Cross had altered for so many years. I heard "he’s choking" "clear his airway" "Roll him on his side" "Turn his head" "Push on his stomach" To that one I loudly refuted, "No! Do not push on his stomach. Keep your compressions on his sternum." I felt like I was screaming at the ocean and my words were quashed by the crowd. I should have announced, "if you aren’t giving CPR, please back up and be quiet so we can save this man." I couldn’t. My mind was too busy trying to figure out what I should be doing to help. I considered giving the victim mouth to mouth but I didn’t have protection and my last trainer really implored us to always use a mouth guard and gloves. Plus I know that the current philosophy is that breathing for the victim does little to help and that chest compressions move oxygen to the brain and dislodge blocked airways. Compressions. Compressions. Compressions. Besides, in my heart of hearts, I knew this guy was gone. He’d died before he hit the floor. I chose not to do mouth to mouth.
The guy from the sheriff’s department stopped compressions. I could read in his face that he was questioning whether or not he was forgetting something. I shouted, "Keep doing compressions. Staying alive!" Anyone with recent CPR training has been taught that the Bee Gees song Staying Alive is the correct tempo for chest compressions. Coincidentally, I was reminded of this fact this morning while reading Life Pro Tips on Reddit.
LPT: If you have to do CPR, keep the beat by singing “Stayin’ Alive” (exact rhythm of CPR) (self.LifeProTips) by drdeteck
I felt my shout was unheard but the guy doing compressions returned to doing compressions. Someone asked for gloves. I ran to the car for mine forgetting that a restaurant probably had boxes and boxes of gloves and sure enough when I returned he was gloved but it was a new guy doing the compressions and the guy from the sheriff’s department had moved to the head of the victim. I said, "let me know if you need help with compressions" but I doubted myself. The guy from the sheriff’s department said, "Tell me if you are tired." While I was getting my gloves, I could hear the ambulance coming. The restaurant propped the doors. The crowd screamed, "Get out of the way. The paramedics are here." I shouted back, "Keep doing compressions until the paramedics tell you to stop." My voice trailed into the abyss. The paramedics rolled a gurney into the restaurant and the crowd said in unison, "Get out of the way." I spoke back, "Keep doing compressions." Or did I think it? As the paramedic got beside the man doing compressions, he stood up to get out of the way and without a word, the paramedic gently placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down to the victim to keep doing compressions. I turned back to the lounge to see my wife standing there. We returned to our table. Forced down our final bites of food. Paid the bill and drove solemnly home.
My parting thought was that I need to schedule a refresher on my CPR training and that this experience has made me better prepared for the next time this happens.
See also: Lessons from last night and Cathy’s perspective.
Awesome parenting
Amy, 10 years old: "I can’t find the plastic push rod that shoves the tray through the Shinky Dink machine."
Dad: "So you’ve got an oven plugged into the wall? Here, stick this metal yardstick into it."
Didn’t I
And thus we become our parents
…
Shelf Elf is watching you poop
Forget about Jeff Goldblum! (See also)
From the mouths of babes
Me, writhing in pain trying to remove my pants and begging my wife to help.
Wife: "Well aren’t you the special butterfly!"
From the mouths of babes
Somehow I hurt my knee badly. I suspect it has something to do with playing hacky sack with Amy (10) and Evan (7) at the bus stop every morning. How badly? Last night I iced it with a 50/50 slurry of water and 90% isopropyl alochol, and washed a hydrocodone down with a glass of wine (or two). How badly? This morning my wife had to help me put my pants and shoes on.
Me, hobbling to the bus stop with one of my Mountainsmith Carbonlite Pro Trekking Poles
Evan, 7 years old, cheerfully: "You look like Granddaddy!"
Nothing heals you faster! (And guess which child is getting coal for Christmas)
State of Me
I’ve taken this next week off with the intentions of stepping away from the computer, clearing my head and addressing those things neglected in my life (my family, my house, my yard, my cars, my juggling, my body, my volunteer activities aka scouts) and perhaps finding the bottom of a nice single malt (unlikely-I’d prefer several hours of meditation to a bottle now-a-days). Thus far, I have spent all day Saturday programming and Sunday morning programming. C’est la vie.
Losing
You know that point in Trade Wars when you realize you can’t possibly win and the game is pointless. Yup. Kinda like that.
Whoa! Knoxville has public transportation?!
For the better part of 13 years, I worked from home. Prior to that I had worked for a company that had an exercise room complete with showers so I would brave the Knoxville roads of Gleason and Dean Hill without sidewalks or even shoulders and ride my bike to work. It wasn’t terribly long lived but biking was certainly an option. In January 2010, I took a six week contract locally which required me to be in an office downtown. After purchasing a wardrobe, I began commuting from Rocky Hill to the campus area of Knoxville. I considered the KAT, k-trans, the Knoxville busing system but KAT had recently removed the route that came within a half mile of my house. To get to a bus stop, I’d have to walk an hour (3 miles) with half that distance having no sidewalks or shoulders. Knoxville is extremely unfriendly to bicycles and pedestrians.
Our cars all died. Over the years we have gone from a multicar family to a single car family then burst to a three car family and are now back down to one functioning vehicle with three dead vehicles (plus one dead motorcycle).
Yesterday, I was supposed to take the van to the wife during lunch and she would return me to work. Instead I brought it to her just before her appointment and my daughter’s activity. She implored me just to drive back to work and she’d make phone calls to find a way home. Instead, I picked up a bus schedule, scrounged a dollar bill, four dimes, a nickel, and five pennies, and within minutes I was sitting on a KAT bus. For the record, buses will accept more money than the fare ($1.50) but gives change as bus credit so a $5 bill gets you 3.3 rides and they don’t take credit cards. I asked the driver instructions on how to depart the bus near my destination and she to me when I should pull the cord (which rings the driver). The ride was comfortable and relaxing. The other riders were sane and only toward the end of the trip did two passengers come in stinking of cigarette smoke. Twenty minutes later I was departing the bus. KAT only drops passengers at official stops so I found myself with a bit of a hike to get to the office. The walk was 10 minutes. $1.50 and thirty minutes traveled me from West Knoxville to campus without the wear and tear, gas, or tension of driving my own car.
Overall, I have not been on a KAT bus in over a decade or two and believed that it just wasn’t a viable means of transportation due to lack of stops and infrequency of pickups but I found that the commute wasn’t much different than driving myself. If anything, I may become a commuter who drives to the mall then rides the bus downtown. Hopefully KAT will extend a route down Northshore and the bus will become an even more viable option.
Dad of the year
Two of my children have entered The Age of Bickering. Every parent knows it. No matter how inconsequential, these two find something to fight over. The seven year old knows how to push the buttons of the ten year old and enjoys doing so. The ten year old wants to control everything and sets up scenarios she know will get the seven year old going. My morning routine consists of constantly reminding them, "please don’t fight" "please get along." I have a quota and apparently I can repeat myself only so many times before the Hulk takes over. Then everyone cries and I feel like a cad for the rest of the day. It’s quite amazing how quickly a calm, happy morning can turn to disaster and tension. I have committed myself to becoming Zen Dad but I’m a far way from snatching any stones from palms.
From the mouths of babes
Moe’s employee: "What can I get you brother?"
Evan, seven years old: "You’re not my brother."
Moe’s employee: "Little man, that just means I like you. We’re friends."
Evan: "But you’re not my brother."
