A letter from Jan 27, 2026

Dear FutureMe, Maybe I should make this private but whatever. I'm using my phone mic so this is going to be rambling. It's going to be probably misspelled with broken grammar, but whatever today is Tuesday, January 27th. 2026 paramedic class just ended for today. Today was a lecture on endocrinology. I've got about five more months of this ******** and then it's over. Hopefully hopefully I actually graduate. I really don't know. I think I will but honestly I don't know. I'm just I'm. This is generally one of the most stressful periods of my life. I'm so exhausted. I feel like quitting everyday. I have a fire department shift tomorrow which means I have to wake up at about 4:10 a.m. Tomorrow. That's when my alarm is set. I absolutely can't stand waking up that early because pretty sure my chronotype would prefer that I go to bed closer to. I'm much more comfortable going to bed at 4:00. I am than waking up at 4:00 a.m. I just did. I came to class early today so I could do a paramedic scenario with the instructor. Dave and I failed at the scenario. I forgot to check the patients blood sugar which is I should have known how to answer that question before I even started paramedic school. So that's really concerning. I'm the oldest student in class. I'm just shy of the same age as the lead instructor of the entire program. It's embarrassing how behind I am. I'm just bouncing so many responsibilities. You've got so many students that are in their early twenties that are. You know naturally have a little bit of stress but they're from what I can see. Most of them are absolutely doing pretty well getting their ambulance hours. I know I'm books more but I'm it's bad. I mean two ***** to go. I was yelled at by someone 12 to 13 years younger than me. Basically made me feel like I should just quit paramedic school and quit the fire department and just go back to my little corner of the world and I haven't even talked to him since I'm not. I've never been very confrontational like firefighters like him. I feel like all I can do is just put my head down and get better but not really put my head down because I need to lead these calls as the paramedic inchief on the ambulance which means I have to delegate tasks and do it quickly because people's lives are at stake. So stressful. People actually live or die. Based on this you know I really thought paramedic school would be a lot easier than I don't know. I worked at a private ambulance company and so many of my colleagues were pre-med students going to become doctors and you know going to actual med school here. I am just doing a one not even a one year medic school program and the fact that I'm struggling this much is just I don't know. I mean I'm doing decently on the written exams and quizzes. So sure I guess you can say on books more. But man I'm really when it comes to the actual stuff I suck. I'm just so used to just you know being well behaved, not ruffling any feathers. Just you know being the last one to speak being quietly encouraging and try to be positive. This is such a different environment for me being the first being. You know one of the first. Maybe you know one of two Indian people to have ever been hired by this particular fire department or in the entire county from what I've heard. But who knows. I'm driving towards home knowing I have to go. I should go to bed soon but I plan to watch. At least you know 40 at least 40 minutes if not over an hour of of zool monitor video so I can learn how to use it properly. I just feel like quitting man. I definitely don't know about working a fire department long term. I the stress is just overwhelming and the pay is not even that good. Obviously I'm not doing it for the pay but you know working as an EMT doing advance Medical gigs. I found that to be and I currently find that to be fulfilling getting to watch concerts. I got to watch the Derek Rose Jersey retirement game a couple days ago. I got to watch two. Incredible bears Packers game, both of which ended up with somewhat unexpected wins and truly historic comebacks. Once I'm a paramedic I mean there's a strong chance I will not be able to watch those games anymore because I'll be in the first aid rooms doing stuff I don't like such as administering IVs getting a modest pay bump for the work I don't know man. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't know if I can work as an EMT still for the event medical company and then maybe work as a paramedic for another company. I just I don't know. I really need to push myself to ask more people, their life experiences and what they, what they were doing and what they find fulfilling because I'm really. I thought I would be good at IVs and I just suck at them and I thought you know I've always been a gamer. I'm like okay Ivy's and I've heard about video games helping people with surgery and I thought I truly was excited to do IVs when I started the paramedic program. But my IV success rate is terrific and I'm seeing people's lives. Patience lives affected by that right? I know I don't like being poked by Needle. I tried donating plasma last month. And I got poked by 17 gauge **** needle at and it was horrible and I felt like passing out several times. But so I really don't like missing IVs on people because I know how much I did not enjoy having a 17 gauge style IV shoved into my vein. And just feeling light-headed and sweaty and weak with damaged to my best vein that I'm not sure will ever fully recover later. That'll be. That was the first and last time. I'll probably ever donate plasma right? I thought I thought I should donate plasma to help reduce pfas and microplastics and other stuff like you know carcinogens and stuff from my blood because there we all know about how many people get cancer as a firefighter if they don't outright commit suicide or die in a fire or just burn out. **** I don't know. I'm so stressed out man. So stressed out just out. Trying to balance. **** a lot man. I mean by the time I read this future me email. I'll be 35 years old. If I was a woman trying to get pregnant, that'd be considered a high-risk pregnancy, right? I mean life is just going by and I just I wouldn't really consider myself financially stable like that. Even though everyone thinks I'm making a lot of money holding down five to six jobs. I work so much but my dad is like why? Why are you doing this? What are you? What are you doing with the money? You don't even have kids and in my head I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it because I want to help people and you know life. Life is precious and priceless and saving a life is worth all the money in the world. But with how things are going right now, I feel like I'm causing more suffering and more pain and and to these high acuity patients. And I'm stressing out my fellow EMS colleagues at the fire department. Just just making life worse tonight and I just I'm so stressed out and it's hard for me to just relax and joke around with everybody and help improve the mood. I thought I'd be a good paramedic because at my other jobs I felt like I was pretty good at handling stress and cracking jokes and keeping the spirit light. But now I'm the person who feels like he's having to take it day by day and just barely surviving. And you know I put a lot of I try to take care of myself. Keep my stress slow for most of my. You know people usually think I'm a little bit younger than I actually am and I'm sure that's partially because I don't have kids and stuff but man with how stressed I am. I just the chest tightness and just feeling tired all the time. Reminds me of the first year I started teaching when I was 24. I purposely picked one of the lowest performing schools in the state because I wanted the challenge and now here I am at a fire department which has the longest transport times in the county and once again I've somehow stumbled upon the hardest road and now that I'm older I can look back and be like I survived that I can survive this. I don't know. I just feel a lot of pressure because of my skin color. My ethnicity who I'm representing my age. I feel like I have no excuses. It's when you're in your early twenties and you're incompetent. It's not too out of the ordinary. Sometimes it can even be cute and endearing on people's lives are at stake and you're 34 years old and you don't know what you're doing. It's a big problem. That's why I understand why people are not happy with me and I'm not happy with myself and I anyway. That's where I'm at. Hopefully I graduate. Hopefully I become a decent. Hopefully I'll become a good paramedic. I think about David coggins who said he's tried to be the best paramedic he can be and he's he's. His reading level was never particularly up to par, but through shear work ethic he's doing what he can do to be the best paramedic he can be. So you know, there's president for people and more difficult situations succeeding so I have no excuse. Many people have paved the way for me even if they're not for my exact background. A lot of people from more difficult backgrounds with more problems raising kids dealing with chronic migraines health issues. Just finding a way to get the work done to study understanding. Understanding that they're not going to have much of a social life sacrificing sleep I got to I got to make you know I got to do what I got to do to succeed. I just it's. It's not good when. Anyway, I guess that's my therapy session for today. That's my rambling. I don't even know if I'll have the energy to read this. Hopefully I'll still be alive in 5 months to be honest. I've I've since I know it's I was going to go to the *** range with a few classmates who were kind enough to invite me. I guess even though I'm kind of a fourth to fifth wheel, I don't think I'm not sure to ever buy a ***. I just I think it's too risky for me and I don't want to be tempted to commit self-harm if I'm going to be honest. I think the best thing for me to do is just to [mic stopped here] The mic stopped so I guess it stopped recording everything I was trying to say which is really annoying. I think the biggest thing that I wanted to say was that a couple days ago it was Sunday. It was barely above. 0° f I went to bed late. I woke up late feeling sorry for myself and just tired and exhausted and my dad was looking at the security the live security camera footage and he said look at your mom. She woke up early as she cooked and now she's shoveling snow. It's 61 years old. I have no excuse. I got to do better. I got to be a better son, brother, friend, teacher EMT to hopefully eventually be a paramedic, etc. All right, that's enough