I want to tell each and everyone of you here that you are all special to me. I have been meaning to get back into this and post something but life just comes along and sweeps your feet out from under you and your head goes under. This has been a ride to say the least. I try to look past the issues I had with my surgery but I think in a way that make me who I am today. When things come into your life they change you just like a rock in the water changes the current but it does not stop it. I have had some major life blows over the course of less then two years. Counting the time spent in the hospital and how give and take the Doctors said my life was with the complications all the infections and the medicine, the thoughts and prayers of each and everyone of you. Then the ones of you that have been there with me along the way through the issues with family, the passing of my dad in March 07 and now the passing of my mom on Christmas eve. Life has been hard and very cold but looking out I see my "new" family there I seen you at last years winter ball I seen you with the thoughts and prayers some of you no more then a phone call away dealing with your own lives but taking a second to listen to me ramble on about mine. I wish you all the best in this coming year may what you pray for come to pass. May your health improve and the others of you that are slated to have surgery may everything that happens to you know God has his hand on you and you are right there in the palm of his hand safe. It's hard to write these words when at times I look at them and have some real issues believing them my self.

We all have a weakness
But some of ours are easy to identify. Look me in the eye,
and ask for forgiveness.
We'll make a pact to never speak that word again.
Yes, you are my friend.
We all have something that digs at us,
at least we dig each other.

So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday.

If I turn into another
dig me up from under what is covering
the better part of me.
Sing this song
remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.

We all have a sickness
that cleverly attaches and multiplies
No matter how we try.
We all have someone that digs at us,
at least we dig each other.

So when sickness turns my ego up
I know you'll act as a clever medicine.
If I turn into another,
dig me up from under what is covering
The better part of me.
Sing this song!
Remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.
Oh, each other when everything else is gone.

ooooh....
(15x)

If I turn into another
dig me up from under what is covering
the better part of me.
Sing this song
remind me that we'll always have each other
when everything else is gone.

Oh, each other when everything else is gone. (x2)

How Far Would You Go?

 

I wish you could comprehend a wife's horror at 6 in the morning as I Check her husband of 40 years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping to bring him back, knowing intuitively it is too late. But wanting his wife and family to know everything possible was done to try and save his life.

I wish you knew the unique smell of burning insulation, the taste of soot-filled mucus, the feeling of intense heat through your turnout gear, the sound of flames crackling, the eeriness of being able to see absolutely nothing in dense smoke-sensations that I've become too familiar with.

I wish you could read my mind as I respond to a call, Is this a false alarm or a working fire? How is the building constructed? What Hazards await me? Is anyone trapped?" Or to call and ask what is wrong with the patient? Is it minor or life threatening? Is the caller really in distress or is he waiting for us with a 2x4 or a gun?

I wish you could be in the emergency room, as a doctor pronounces dead, the beautiful five-year old girl that I have been trying to save during the past 25 minutes, knowing she will never go on her first date or say the words, "I love you Mommy", ever again.

I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the cab of the ambulance or engine or cruiser, the driver with his foot pressing down hard on the pedal, my arm tugging again and again at the air horn chain, as you fail to yield the right-of-way at an intersection or in traffic. When you need us however, your first comment upon our arrival will be, "It took you forever to get here!"

I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate a girl of teenage years from the remains of her automobile. What if this was my daughter, sister, my girlfriend or a friend? What were her parent's reaction going to be when they opened the door to find a police officer with hat in hand?

I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my parents and family, not having the heart to tell them that I nearly did not come back from the last call.

I wish you could know how it feels dispatching officers, firefighters and Paramedics out and when we call for them and our heart drops because no one answers back or to here a bone chilling 911 call of a child or wife needing assistance.

I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally and sometimes physically abuse us or belittle what I do, or as they express their attitudes of "It will never happen to me". I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain of missed meals, lost sleep and forgone social activities, in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have seen.

I wish you could know the brotherhood and self-satisfaction of helping save a life or preserving someone's property, or being able to be there in time of crisis, or creating order from total chaos.

I wish you could understand what it feels like to have a little boy tugging at your arm and asking, "Is my Mommy okay?" , not even being able to look in his eyes without tears from your own and not knowing what to say. Or to have to hold back a long time friend who watches his buddy having CPR done on him as they take him away in the Medic Unit. You know all along he did not have his seat belt on. A sensation that I have become too familiar with.

Unless you have lived with this kind of life, you will never truly understand or appreciate who I am, we are, or what our job really means to us...I wish you could though.