Killing Rubber Dummies (Then saving them, of course!)

How many ways can you kill the same guy? Then, after you kill him, how many times can you save him? This is the question I've been asking myself for the last 3 days as I was taking the beloved ACLS (that's advanced cardiovascular life support for the non-healthcare folk.)

The answer to this age-old question (is it really age-old or only days old?) is lots of ways. He can have just about any strange or common event happen to him, but then the real kicker is, that no matter what happened, he's just as dead from severe cold as he is from a car crash or a heart attack (my personal favorite, but we won't get into the psychology of having a personal favorite way to save a dead person), there are only so many things you can do to save this dead person. Yep, I said save a dead person, because you realize that once you have no heart beat, and no breathing, then you are clinically dead, but not so dead that we can't revive you if we act quickly. Anyway, I digress... did I have an original topic? This blog is confusing myself, I can only imagine how my loyal days old readers are feeling right now. I apologize.

The point of this blog is (I think) that I PASSED MY ACLS CLASS!! Yes, I realize this is the fourth time I've taken it and passed it in my career as a nurse, but nonetheless I feel an extreme sense of accomplishment every time I do actually pass. It's hard to describe the tension I actually feel as I'm resuscitating a rubber dummy. What if I do the wrong thing? What if I kill him more dead than he already is? These are the thoughts I have as I'm "saving my dead dummy." They are real, and it is scary. The good news is I have so far saved all of my dead dudes to date. YEAH!! That's way better than real life statistics, which I don't actually know, but I know it's not 100%!