Struggling with Fate

[rowyn]

I've been duking it out with Prophecy all week. I've been slogging determinedly forward, trying to force my way through the current scene, but it's not gone well. I've got a ton of notes on angles to try, things to use, tacks to take, etc., ad nauseum, but I still find myself staring at the current chapter and going, "Bleh."

I am very tempted to skip this one and move on to the next. I'm not quite sure why I don't. True, some of the coming scenes will hinge on what I ultimately do with this one. But there's still a fair bit of material that won't be significantly impacted by the details of this particular chapter.

Maybe the problem is that I don't really want to do any of those, either.

And as Saturdays go, this one wasn't as lazy as I would've liked. I went to a class on CPR today, and I now have a little white card saying that I know how to perform CPR.

And please, oh Lord, let this knowledge never come in handy.

At one point, the instructor is explaining where to put your hands when doing CPR, so as to minimize the risk of breaking ribs. "If you hear a loud snap, locate the notch of the breastbone again, shift the position of your hands, and try again. If you hear another snap, again, reposition your hands, and try again."

Ouch.

Of course, CPR is, in essence, what you do to dead people. If you are performing CPR on someone, it's because they have no pulse and are about to go from "mostly dead" to "all-the-way-dead."

Still.

Boy, I hope I never need to know this stuff.

Comments

[oceansedge.livejournal.com]

Interesting, just did my CPR course today as well. The gentleman teaching the class is an EMS Paramedic.... people were a bit surprised, he pulled no punches and gave us a fair bit of information that isn't standardly included in the Red Cross syllabus. Some of it a bit disturbing, but his tack on it was "better you know NOW, then for me to feed you the 'standard line', and have you freak out later that maybe you did something wrong"

About broken ribs.... in all his years as a paramedic, he's only personally know of 3 cases where CPR did not break ribs, one was a baby (more flexible bones), and 2 were great big football player types.

The other thing, was to tell us that less than 1% of all CPR recipients ever survive.. but "remember, you're doing this BECAUSE the person is DEAD. You can't make it any worse, you can only make it better, and less than 1% chance is better than NO chance which is what they have if you do nothing." Of course one also has to figure in the circumstances, in terms of the actually likelihood it'll help.

They used to have a TV ad on here in Canada encouraging people to take First Aid and CPR courses, that was a dramatization of a 12 yr old girl saving her grandpa with CPR, they were forced to pull the ad as false advertising. And a good thing too imo, (and his). He's seen people get entirely hysterical and freaked out when it hasn't helped, presuming they've done something wrong and killed the person, because they were taught to believe that 'CPR will save their lives'.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

I recall one dramatic presentatation of CPR on screen, in the movie "The Abyss". At least in the movies, it doesn't always work. It depends on how important the character is, perhaps.

May both of you never need to apply this. But if the occasion arises, I would take comfort in having my ribs broken by such nice people.

Sorry about your writing snag, Lady Rowyn. I'm confident that your ultimate result will be quite satisfactory -- but getting there is not easy sometimes.

===|==============/ Level Head

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

The a priori chance of success of CPR in ICU is 15%. I would presume this is "ideal conditions".

I found this out post-mortem. Back when I was doing my 40 days and 40 nights in ICU, it appears that I went "Code Blue" (and was revived by CPR) twice.

Some times....

[jimmy-hollaman.livejournal.com]

its a good thing to learn cpr. i have the knolege, tho its been years since I had been certified. its some thing i hope to never use but its nice to know that i will have the knolege to do so....

besides it gives you a chance to do a little mouth to mouth practice on that special some one...

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Hey, if you've got a scene you can't get through, feel free to throw the unfinished outline, sketch, whatever my way, and maybe I can come up with some suggestions? (They may not be good suggestions, but even bad ones might be able to spur some ideas.)

And congratulations on taking the CPR training!

Conga-rats on the CPR training!

[sheepdog.livejournal.com]

Yes, if the person has no pulse and is not breathing, you can't hurt them because they are or will be dead soon.
CPR gives them a fighting chance to survive if done soon enough and is continued until better measures can be used.
And if you are doing the compressions enough to move enough air you will most likely crack the sternum and possibly a rib or two.
The main thing to worry about is to not break off the tip sticking down on the bottom of the sternum. If you do compressions to low and break that off, it can travel around the chest cavity and cause allot of damage.
Another thing to be careful of is to not blow to hard or to fast when doing mouth to mouth. Slow and steady or the air will go into the stomach and cause vomiting. Most likely by both of you. ;-P
Don't expect to victim to stand up and thank you, but it does help sometimes.
My uncle had a heart-attack about fifteen years ago and fortunately my aunt saw it happen. She called 911 and they told her what to do. Since they lived in the country, he never would have survived without it.

Good luck working through your writing blahs. :-)