Do You Even Blog?

Hello again! It’s been a while hasn’t it?

From time to time I sat down to write, but truly didn’t believe I had anything worth while to contribute. There are many reasons for that. Reasons I have tried to put into words a hundred times, but the words just didn’t come. Frustrated, eventually, I accepted that my writing days were over and put my blog to rest.

However, I have persistent friends who put on a full court press to get me back at it, so here I am putting fingers to keyboard.

When I first started blogging I had a story to tell. A journey to share. The writing came from sharing my life and experiences. The journey was sometimes difficult, but the writing was easy. Now, not so much.

Where would I start?

One afternoon as I was pondering what my first post back would be, I started to clean out my purse and realized how much has changed in how and what I carry and thought, “Huh, that might be a good place to.”

Sooooooo, here it goes…

These days my first aid kit is a lot more pedestrian than tactical. On the range, out and about town or on the ambulance, I have never used a tourniquet and only rarely a chest seal even though I have treated a fair amount of gun shot wounds and tended to serious car accidents.  I have used combat gauze more often when working, but not nearly as much direct pressure or a plain old band aid. On a range I still have a full kit, but no longer just about town.

When I put my first kit together, I relied a lot on what others were carrying and that was good because I didn’t have a starting point, but as the years have gone on and I have lived a more Shelby like life and less of an Agirl one, I reevaluated my needs.

A few years ago when I took a TCCC(Tactical Combat Casualty Care) course I was so excited to be treating blast wounds in the dark with smoke and “gun fire” all around. I loved it. I loved being dirty and covered in “blood” and saving the day. I loved being a part of something and I wanted to carry that feeling with me for as long as I could and I truly believed that a small(or large) IFAK type bag was needed, but after 2 years of carrying a really cool pack, I realized that mostly those things were heavy and in the way of the things I truly used daily.

Today I carry a purse not a backpack. My kids are older and no longer need me to carry things for them as they carry their own wallet, first aid kits and miscellaneous kid junk. The backpacks were starting to cause me back and shoulder pain and frankly I never found one that fit my style. I found some I liked and that worked well for being on an ambulance, but no longer for my day to day life.

I still always have a knife and a flashlight because I use them all the time. The knife is often used to open packages, cut string, prey open containers and sitting around a campfire or in the backyard whacking things with the kiddos. The flashlight is mostly used because my eyes are old and even with my glasses or contacts I still need some extra help actually seeing things. The bright light along with a head tilt usually does the job.

I am a paramedic, so I do have a fully stocked bag in my car, but on my person the only “trauma” thing I carry is a tourniquet. I carry one because even though I haven’t had the need for one, I realize that in a catastrophic event such as an arterial bleed a professional tourniquet is the fastest tool to effectively save a life. It is cheap and light.

In my purse I have things I use almost daily for myself, my friends, people in the grocery store, the kid at the park, and even other medics that have their combat gauze, but nothing for their hive break out.

These I have everyday, everywhere I go and have replenished time and time again: aspirin, Ibuprofen, Benadryl, band aids in various sizes, Benadryl cream, 2 epi-pens, small gauze pads, small roll of tape, small scissors, tweezers, and small antiseptic wipes.

There is nothing wrong with carrying 5 tourniquets and 24 rolls of combat gauze or any other item one wants to carry. There is also nothing wrong with not carrying this or that. This isn’t a “What you should carry” post. It is “Hey, this is what I carry now” post. As my life and needs change, I may very well write a new post with a whole new set of items. Who knows?