The Air I Breathe

The past 2 days, I have had good, slow, busy shifts.... (I know, that sounds contradictory). The first day, I charted 2 births at the same time, both babies were born 2 minutes within each other..... Talk about crazy!!! Both of which, I could have been the handling midwife, but I was quite happy to chart.

The second day was almost completely dead--all afternoon--nothing zilch, until the last 2 hours...then too, I could have delivered a baby, but things worked best for 2 of the other students to deliver.

Wednesday morning, I experienced a very interesting situation... It all started with eating whole oats (like Oatmeal, except it was not cooked) for breakfast, which seemed to have swelled in my stomach, compressing my diaphragm which caused severe shortness of breath and inspiratory and expiratory stridor, and was revealed by having sharp, severe upper abdominal cramping. I'm told dehydration and lack of sleep probably didn't help things, but oh well...

It came on so suddenly, and thankfully a few of my housemates were able to coach me through the 1/2 hour ordeal. You know how doctors are often the worst patients?? Well, I suppose I can be counted in, most singularly through the fault of over-analyzation....and being an EMT doesn't help. It's that time when you really need to throw out your intellect and be a minion to your coach...

I immediately went into 'the mode', and started categorizing everything according to EMS, and tried to see what would help and what would not, and wishing desperately that we had a CPAP on hand (an uncomfortable apparatus that pretty much forces air in and out of your lungs, which usually proves effective). The whole time, I thought the whole situation seemed ridiculous, but as breathing got harder, and I started tiring out, I was not too comforted that we live no where near the clinic, or could call 9-1-1 just like that. ;)

CPAP Device (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure)

Thankfully, my coaches were amazing, and one of the gals walking through actually thought we were doing a Labor Role Play (talk about funny!!) Here I was on the birth ball ('moaning'?), with 3 gals around me, one coaching my breathing, another rubbing my back, and another checking my lung sounds, etc. I think we got an A+ on that one!!

Anyway, after half an hour of fighting, I finally lost my breakfast (who knows where it went!), and my breathing returned to normal almost immediately!! Praise God!!

Have you ever not been able to breathe before? I can know fully identify with my brother Daniel, and what he was going through with his last asthma attack, where, no matter how much you tried, you could hardly draw a breath, if that!

I really thank God for the experience, because it opened my eyes to so many things...
Rachel is coming tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it!! :)

Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

~ Psalms 150:6 ~