Journal 5

Journal 5 – June 27, 2006

This has been a pretty sad weekend here in Cathlamet. One of the volunteer EMTs drowned trying to pull someone’s jet-ski up from the bottom of the river. He was diving alone and just didn’t come back up. They still haven’t found his body. This kind of thing hits a community this small pretty hard. Not too many people were talking about it but the mood in the clinic has been noticeably gloomier the last two days. Just two months ago another EMT was crushed between two vehicles and passed away. I met his parents in the clinic this morning and was able to talk with them about it briefly, although I really didn’t know what to say. Nothing here has made me feel more like an outsider than listening to this couple talking about a tragedy that’s affected everyone else so deeply.

Otherwise, things have been pretty much par for the course. The 18 yo with the heart problem is now in OSHU but his bed in the ICU has been taken by another one of our patients that has severe aortic valve stenosis. Dr. Wright was quizzing me on his EKG interpretation and I had to admit I’d only gotten 1/3 of the way through the EKG book he gave me to read. Although I did manage to salvage some dignity by catching an unusual T wave. Why can’t they pimp me on something I DO know? Ask me anything about intravesicular bacteria. Well, maybe not anything. Micro was such a long time ago.