Live Sticks

Day 2 of our CLS training went pretty well. We hit the ground running with a review of the proper procedures for preparing and administering an IV with a catheter and a saline lock. For some of us the idea of sticking needles into another living person caused a little bit of concern. Then there's those who are afraid of needles to begin with. I was surprisingly not nervous and managed to have a good stick on the first try...after about five minutes of messing around with the darn wrappers the equipment was packaged in. It wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't wearing rubber gloves. Can't complain too much though as at least I didn't have to wear the protective goggles. Either over my glasses or without them, I wouldn't have been able to see a thing needed to stick a needle in a person.


Now, getting stuck was a different story entirely. I would like to point out that none of the problems I experienced were the fault of my fellow student. The human body being what it is, my veins simply did what they wanted to and apparently that was to be uncooperative today. Unfortunately on the first stick my vein rolled and I ended up with a nice burning pain when the catheter was inserted. Fortunately it only lasted a few moments until the catheter was removed. The second attempt was on my other arm, and the vein rolled on that side as well. I got a nice bubble at the penetration site, and now know for future reference what infiltration looks like. Over all though I had a good time and felt a TON more comfortable about performing live sticks.

During the afternoon we covered the paperwork that goes along with applying First Aid, and then learned about the various litters and how to carry a casualty on one. Once that block of instruction was completed we had a race...carry litters with patients on them. That was actually fun as well as being educational. I have to applaud our instructors for finding inventive ways to conduct essential training and keeping it interesting at the same time.

Tried uploading a video of one of our live sticks, but for some reason (most likely the net connection here) Blogger didn't want to accept it. I'll try again over Thanksgiving pass. Until then, here's a picture of some of us performing a stick.

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