jaletrail-blog

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Exploration of Seattle (quick jot)

~48 hours of exploring Seattle led me to 5 breweries, amazing food, the fremont troll, coffee with a stranger, and etc. Taking the trip and driving out on my own allowed me to step out of my boundary a little bit, and I continue onward. 

I have to remain true in life. Not every day is going to be some sort of happy, inspiring day. But there is beauty in appreciating life as it happens. 

Talking about the present moment should not be a cliche. 

[jaletrail-blog]

Quick Notes on Improvement in Anything Really

Small dips in the pool may eventually lead to sailing the rough waters with the expertise of the best swimmer. Start small and build. 

Reactions and change are constantly occurring, but noticeable progress happens only when you take snippets of your life at different times. Take progress pics and notes. 

If you plan on getting better, reflect on what you could do better when you did the work you were supposed to do. 

All other people besides your own self care about themselves first and foremost, so if you want to reach another person on a significant level you should work on yourself and become a teacher in something. This is simpler than it sounds. 

Fail a shitload. 

Show up every morning. 

I'm gonna start by making more organized and specific posts that reflect this mentality. 

[jaletrail-blog]

Blood Moons and Mosquitoes

This is my ongoing series of blog entries dedicated to highlighting the aspects of medicine and healthcare as seen through my eyes as a Phlebotomist. This first entry will cover my first three months as a general summary of events. 

On October 8th, 2015, I woke up for the first time at 3 o'clock in the morning to head to my first official day of work at the largest hospital in the city of Spokane. An eerie calmness came beside me as I drove past the black streets of the freeway illuminated by the most unusual moon I have ever seen. 

The photograph above is a depiction of a "Blood Moon". Its appearance stems from a Total Lunar Eclipse--when the Earth's shadow blocks all of the Sun's light from directly reaching the moon. And this is exactly the moon I saw as I drove to the hospital at around 3:30am. 

My employee name badge was not ready, so instead of walking through an employee entrance door, I wandered my way around from the labryinth consisting of a parking lot, an emergency room entrance, and elevators that took me downstairs to the lab. It was 3:55 in the morning, and I was already late. My instructor is a large man with silver and white hair, thick framed glasses, and a resting face equivalent to that of an angry bulldog. He holds a device in his hand that looks like a Blackberry phone swallowed an original Nintendo gameboy. He was preparing a wheeled blue tray full of colored tubes, syringes, needles, gauze, tourniquets, tape, gloves, and all other various knick knacks required to be a phlebotomist. 

"Throw on a white lab coat, it's time to go," he barked at me. "We're busy and understaffed this morning, that means you have to watch me."

My instructor told me me that every full moon, weird things happen at the hospital. And, he suggested that this was not a coincidence. Whatever the powers controlled the day, I was immersed into the world of waking up patients, scanning wristbands, drawing blood, thanking, washing your hands, rinsing, and repeating. It was trial by fire. 

As the first couple of weeks trudged forward from the Blood Moon, I learned how to fail way too many times. I learned how to deal with agony and heartache while carrying on one of the worst days I've ever had, I learned how to get really good at something I knew almost nothing about and had no immediate skills in, I developed confidence in greeting and meeting people I had never met before, I learned how to swallow pride, I learned how to deal with the most terrifying moment of my life so far, I learned how to deal with patients coming off of meth trips, I learned how to wake up early and show up, I learned how to ask unscripted quesitons, I learned how to be an essential link in an infinitely long chain of health care delivery. 

In all honesty, it made me feel more alive, despite everyone calling me a "Vampire". 

As a side note, A short coworker with a bald head, long sideburns, and a raspy voice told me two things inherently true about phlebotomy as a hospital.

1) "We make grannies bleed and babies cry."

Despite the crassness of the above statement, it's true.

2) "We are not vampires. I can draw your blood with the sun shining on me midday, I can touch every cross in this hospital and not burst into flames, I love garlic on everything, and I don't bite you in the neck once and let you bleed to death. We are mosquitoes. We constantly come back to the same places on your arm, we are nosy, annoying, itchy, and always searching for a small sample of blood. We buzz and fly around room to room." 

I have a lot to reflect on in my first three months of phlebotomy, but I can already state that I have such a better understanding of health care because of my job. I wake up earlier that doctors, and I work my ass off to deliver a type of care that many patients find annoying as hell. 

But there is a positive serendipity in this line of work. And, It's made me rekindle a misguided passion for what I want to do with my life. 

When blood moons happen, be prepared. 

JL

[jaletrail-blog]

Noticing Signals, Reducing Noise

Where to start? 

I honestly believe at this exact moment in time I am stuck in my own purgatory, yet heaven does not wait when I am out. 

Am I at a crossroads, the catch-all word for describing when one is at a point in his or her life that they must decide what they will dedicate the rest of their life towards? 

Well, I call bullshit on my current state of thinking. 

I recently watched the Great Beauty (2013). It is an Italian film that centers around Jep, a 65 year old Roman Socialite and Author. He has not written a novel in 45 years. Everyone asks him why he hasn't written anything. He indulges himself in parties, in lavishness, in art, in sex, and other forms of pleasure found around Rome. He discovers that one does not need to wait for "The Great Beauty". 

I gathered from this film that there are several small moments of beauty around us. Do not live life on autopilot waiting for that great moment of inspiration to come. The individual chooses what they wish to view as beautiful. 

Create something. Become the active engager. Actively do things for your benefit. 

That's all I want right now. I want to create things for myself, and become the best at that. I want to understand why people succeed, where they fail, and I want to use all of this for my own self-knowledge. 

That means I need to pick up signals of meaning, and reduce noise. 

There is no purpose to this particular post. I wrote it as a stream of consciousness. I don't care how it sounds right now because I'll get better at it.