robin darcy: Howdy!

Howdy from windy Wyoming! Some of y'all are probably wondering how the WEMT (Wilderness Emergency Medicine Technician) course is going, some of you are probably wondering why in world someone would want to do a WEMT course in Wyoming in January, and some of you probably want to know both. Well, have no fear! I'm here to update you...which I realize is long overdue (Mohney, this is mostly directed at you...haha).

It's hard to believe that it's already been 2.5 weeks here in Sinks Canyon and we only have a week and a half to go before becoming EMT's (cross your fingers). The amount of information that is being pounded into our brains is nothing less than absurd and this is by far the most I have ever actually read for a class in my entire life. Not only am I reading the material over and over again, but I have made it to every single class on time, stayed awake in class the whole time, taken notes, done all my homework, performed skill drills successfully, and I have passed all my tests with flying colors so far. For those of you that knew me in college, I can see your jaw dropping in awe as you read this and you may be going into a bit of hypoperfusion. I officially just made myself sound smarter than I did about 3 weeks ago.

We have an absolutely amazing group of students in the course. In total, there are 30 of us, plus 3 instructors (give or take). It's amazing how close you can get to people when you are away from most civilization and when you live within about a foot of each other for a month straight. I kind of equivalent that to spending one day with someone in this setting is like spending one week with them in real life. Our instructors keep saying that we're going to start getting on each others nerves and hating each other at this stage, but it seems like we keep getting closer, giving more hugs, and having more spontaneous dance parties. Not to mention that we officially know each others physical shape and any deformities we all have due to palpating each other far too many times. That may sound dirty to you, but it's a normal day for me to do a complete, firm, head to toe exam on multiple people. Yesterday, we had to learn how to do a patient assessment on someone when we were blindfolded. Amazing enough, I could tell who I was doing this too without seeing them and only knowing them by touch. Kinda creepy eh? Haha.

To sum all this up in a relatively brief manner, here's what a schedule looks like for me on average:

6am - Wake up

6-6:35am - Shower/Get ready

6:35-7am - Walk to classroom and watch my hair freeze/check email/review info

7-7:20am - Gorge ourselves with Betty & Barry's (cooks) breakfast

7:20-8am - Study

8am-12pm - Class/Scenarios

12-12:20pm - Lunch

12:20-1pm - Study

1-5pm - Class/Scenarios

5-6pm - Study/Scream/Drink Caffeine

6pm-6:20pm - Dinner

6:30-10:30pm - Study/skill drills/drink more caffeine

10:30-10:31pm - Say goodbye to the moose on the wall.

10:31-11pm - crawl in sleepingbag/take medical quizzes through the app on phone until you fall asleep

Now this is "average". Last night I was up till midnight. And Tuesday/Thursday we have night class and scenarios. So, when I say that we're exhausted, I mean it! But it's a good exhaustion. It's amazing how much I have learned in the past 3 weeks. It's already Thursday of week 3...which means tomorrow is Friday...which means hallelujah for the Lander Bar....which means it's the weekend....which means more studying and skill drills and discipline...which means my last ER rotation....which means I can have another beer to celebrate....which brings us to the last and final week of the course...which means basically testing only....which means I'm almost an EMT. Catch all that? The days are flying by. I feel like it was Monday about 4 hours ago and I've been in this weird coma for quite some time now.

It's been a great 3 weeks and I've made fantastic friends who live all over the world, which means more places to stay when I travel! ;-)

Enjoy the few pictures I put on here and feel free to email me and say hi, because I love some outside world contact. For now, I gotta run because we are about to start class on Emergency Childbirth...no big deal. Hah! Over and out!