Focus

Here I am, thinking again.

Must try not to do that.

Thinking about MaddogMedic, on his way home.  Long flight, long drive, and I'm not convinced he's going to an entirely safe place.  But then again, no place is, is it?

Thinking about a blog post I read this morning.  Was bopping around, blog-skipping, and came across a couple of new blogs I had never heard of.  One was Scaredy Fish, and on her blog, she recommended several others.

Especially one.  Ambulance Addiction. With a "must read" post. The Big Picture.

Fair warning: it made me cry. Hard.

And it got me thinking about how easy it is to get caught up on details.  How easy it is to get annoyed, or even angry, about things that might matter... but maybe not as much as it feels like in the moment.  How easy it is to justify our own behavior because someone else "deserves it."

In the story on that blog, I don't want to give away too much in case you haven't gone to read it yet.  The part about the ladder? I would have done the exact same thing.  No question.

Things here, in my tiny town, and in my tiny department, sometimes suck.  Bad.  Some of it is mind boggling, really.

But you know what?

I'm better than that.

I have a note on my computer, there to remind me every day of what is most important in this business.

It says "Focus on the patient, on patient care. The rest doesn't matter."

Keeps me going, some days.

That, and the fact that my real "department," my community, my people... are somewhere out there, spread all over the place. The blogosphere. Y'all keep me sane.  Or as close to sane as I'm ever going to be.