Last night was my first night back on graveyard shift. It was a bit on the long side as I’ve been used to a dayshift. Now I start work at the time I should have been asleep just a few days ago. So of course I was yawning all throughout the second half of the night.

Not much happened, at least as far as my activities went. My trainer had some paperwork to catch up on from his previous trainee, so we spent some time at the station while he typed away. I did go looking for a Home-Invasion car from Daly City that had been followed into our lovely City, but by the time we were there it had already been lost in the area. Thankfully another unit found it about an hour later…unoccupied, but still…at least one piece of property and possible evidence of who committed it.

Me riding shotgun.

Me in the Sunnydale

My last trainer while I pumped gas. Yes, we do other things too that aren’t exciting.

Quiet morning in the ‘Dale. Sunrise from behind Mobile Command.

Starting/Finishing my last week of Phase 1 of FTO. I am going to Midnights now, and will be with a brand new FTO. I hear he is good, so I will have to “prove” myself to him I’m sure. I look forward to the challenge, confident that I can rise up. Oh yeah. The change isn’t coming a moment too soon. I am having a hard time getting to sleep at night. Considering I try and get the hell out of my bed before 0330 hours, I get to bed waaaaaaaaaay too late, like sometime around 2230. That means, well yeah, I’m fucking tired when I get up.

Ok, tomorrow is my Friday. Yaaayyyy!!! Talk to y’all later.

Holding a baby while mom sets up her stroller. And for those that don’t know me, that’s NOT me.

Today proved to be interesting. I went to a call of a possible SIDS case. I went to the call, and other than the initial shock of seeing a dead baby, I continued the incident without much else bothering me. I interviewed the mother and the people in the house, got information from the Paramedics and the Rescue Captain, contacted the Medical Examiner and helped them conduct their interview. (The parents spoke only Spanish) The Medical Examiner took the baby, complete with Bassinet and gave me a receipt for the property.

I went back to the station to write the report. That was taken care of in short order. The paperwork of death. Then the CIRT (Critical Incident Response Team) came out to debrief those of us that went to the incident. It was there while we were discussing what had happened and what types of feelings could be expected. It was there that I realized that I had repressed alot of negative feeling. In order to deal with the task at hand, in my mind I turned the baby into a doll. A stiff, blue, dead doll. I thought about the parents sitting at home, grieving…looking at the empty bassinet, the bottles of formula, left with the memories of their three short months together.

I feel for the family. This is something that is not easy for anyone. I hadn’t even thought about how my FTO was doing on the way back. I hadn’t thought that he was having any issues. But our meeting with CIRT made me realize that it had in fact hit him quite hard. I thought he was dealing with it the same way I had, just kinda pushed it out of the way.

I was so damned sick last night.  I left work yesterday feeling extremely tired, sore throat, phlegm filled, falling asleep at the wheel momentarily…it was scary.  Ramune made me some stew which was delicious.  I went to bed by 2000 hours, woke up at midnight drenched in sweat with a horrendous fever and completely unable to talk.  I had Ramune call in for me.  Thank God for sick time on the books…as long as they are willing to pay it.  I understand that there was a memo that came out stating that members that called in sick today are not going to be compensated.  I haven’t seen it, nor have I gotten very reliable information as of yet, so we shall see.  I do however feel MUCH better today.  I can talk, not that much phlegm.  I’ll still be going to bed early however, just so I can make sure that I have enough rest for whatever tomorrow has to offer.

On a side note, I got my Blackberry 8830 last week.  I have been getting used to the new user interface which is totally different from a Windows Mobile device, but it’s great.  I haven’t had one instance of it freezing or having to reboot.  YAYY!!!!!