Now racing is not ordinarily on my list of favourite things to do. Unless it is a race to the couch, or the cookies, or quite possibly a race to a puddle to splash someone! Admittedly this event had quite a bit more to do with racing than I had anticipated. But it was sooooo much fun that I didn't even care. We started out in teams of 3 (59 teams in all from canada and the US) doing some trail hiking (well...running for those people who actually had a chance of winning!), then canoed through 2 lakes, saved a patient who fell out of a tree while our other team member biked a mountain biking course to supposedly go get a cellphone, then back across the two lakes. I would like to interject at this point that I have big black bruises on both knees from jamming them into the sides of the canoe as I paddled for more leverage....but it was worth it - I kept up with the boys!Next we were sent off into the woods for some fancy orienteering. On the trees were signs with multiple choice questions, and the right answer would give coordinates and distance to the next question (for ex. 240 degrees for 65m). If you picked the wrong answer you got to a tree that said you were incorrect and had to find your way back and start over. Wasn't a problem for us - we got them all right!
By this time it was starting to get a bit dark. So headlamps on we headed off in another direction to find a plane crash site with 5 patients where we needed to assess, come up with the best treatment plan and equipment needed, and triage who would come first. (Side note - someone snuck up on us and jumped out of the bush thinking it would be funny...I nearly had a heart attack. Still have some post traumatic stress disorder from the bear incident!)
Ok, so now it is really really dark. We head off in yet another direction and get to a ropes course where we each have to climb a rope ladder into a tree and jump off the other side (big scrape on my arm from that graceful endeavor). Once we were all over we had to pretend that one of our friends had fallen and broken his leg and spine. Now this is where my life got exciting. I actually got every question right! I did things in the right order, came up with the right plan, saved his poor dying leg from lack of blood, and then as Mike splinted him up I built the most awesomest litter to carry him out of the woods. So good in fact that the supervisor at that station came over to congratulate me. I was on top of the world :)
Well at this point it was about 9pm (having started at 3pm) and we were all pretty damn tired. Luckily that was the last station so it was a rush to the finish line. Now by rush I mean walk, and by walk I actually mean fall. I have a problem with the discs in my back and after 6 hours of racing my back was very angry at me. The nerves were getting compressed which basically means signals were not getting through properly to the muscles in my legs. So any branch or twig that I stepped on (which would cause an ordinary person to rebalance and walk on) caused me to fall. It was hilarious. I was like a drunken fool navigating through the woods falling every hundred feet. My poor teammates, they had no idea what to do with me. The best we could do was laugh, slap on a tensor, and keep going.
I'm not entirely sure where we placed, we definitely weren't first, but we weren't last either, and a GREAT time was had by all. I have never been so bruised, dirty, sweaty, ugly and tired in my whole life, but it felt fantastic. Not only did I prove to myself that I can actually apply some solid medical knowledge, but I also proved that I can race with the boys! hahahaha...and we all know I am just stubborn enough for that to matter a great deal :)
I may have to give up my hatred for racing and do this more often!
Lots of love
Pamela
p.s. My other exciting news for this week is that I have been placed in Simcoe Ontario for the month of December doing Emergency and Internal Medicine. So we can all look forward to tales from a small town hospital :)
p.p.s I'm going to take a nap....ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
so the bear followed you all the way to Michigan eh!
ReplyDeleteMedWAR sounds like the greatest! How can you have so much fun and also learn stuff too?? Must be nice!
Yes Dr. Plam cortesone does the trick! The application isn't much fun though. Dr. F says Hi!
You go, Girl! What fun! Just take good care of that back, eh?
ReplyDeleteLove you!
fijbar
Canoing tip
ReplyDeletefor better leverage and stability try kneeling when paddling. Working on both knees lowers the center of gravity and with your knees apart you get wonderful leverage.