i was part of a drill where 9mm were being fired beside me, the pressure was something else, and they weren't that close to me. ( maybe 2-3 feet) i didn't know what cal was being used. i asked the instructor "are those 45's?" based on the pressure . . . he laughed "looked pretty damn big when it's coming towards you!"

had ears on, so the sounds wasn't the same . . . fired once without hearing protection. i wouldn't want to do it again. but i think it was "on combat" when it was talked about thinkings like bullets moving at slow motion, and officers ears would "shut off" and the noise doesn't damage. the thought behind this was adrenaline plus knowing the loud noise was coming.

when a big trauma comes in, we get a warning, we got in to auto pilot, prep our lines, our trays, get our IV's out, call RT, the surgeon, our ER docs deal with what needs to be dealt with in the back, so they can be free for a while. lab and blood bank are on call, and we get some ICU nurses down when needed. nights we have a slim crew (i work 95% nights) when they get here we start lines, draw blood, start fluid, chest tubes, RT does air way, we had a big guy come in with stab wounds to the chest, alert and fighting us. wanted to get up to "take a shit" i hammered 13 bags of blood into him, platelets and plasma. we were doing a lot of fluid and it was all me at first, i got another nurse to take care of the one side . . . everyone doing their job, and the adrenaline was flowing well. i could remember where i lost my He man at age 4 lol. i was keeping track of the blood and released none of the docs had ordered plasma (i had a PSW call down for plasma) called out when spiking it "can i get an order for plasma?" it's part of the protocol, but still some doc needs to say it . . . there were 5 doctors working on this guy. one of them was massaging his heart (oh ya it was fucked up) and i was preforming better then i thought i could. i KNEW everything i needed to, and could do it rocksteady. hours later that adrenaline was still making me feel like a million bucks. (we actually had to call in another doctor to run another code in the back (it was me, the chief of the ER and another nurse on that) but like i said, my mind and memory worked better for those hours then it has for years. i was afraid i'd fall asleep driving home, but didn't.

training, course and practice do help. it's how you handle stress that may be a decided factor in performance. a bad day at work, or a broken leg both have the same stress reactions in the body, the same chemical/hormones are released. i'm sure there are a number of things that affect how we deal with those chemicals and those situations . . . lack of sleep likely makes us less able to deal, but at the same time, the reactions that help us, (like that night) can help us over come things like lack of sleep (because i never sleep well).

i better get to work . . . only very far behind today. . .