IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK. I PROMISE.

November 07, 2006

I remember writing this post late one night, probably after a long shift—or maybe in the dead hours before the next one started. The house was quiet, the kind of quiet you only get when you’re too tired to even make noise. I was burned out, cynical, running on caffeine and calluses. That stretch of medic life had become mechanical: lift, transport, chart, repeat. I was starting to lose sight as to why I even did it.

This call—a routine fall for an elderly woman—should’ve been forgettable. Just another checkbox. But something about the vulnerability in her voice, the way she apologized for existing, the way she tried to laugh off her embarrassment... it cracked through my armor - just a subtle ache that reminded me this job wasn’t just guts and adrenaline. It was bearing witness to people when they were invisible to the rest of the world.

When I sat down to write, I wanted the title to disarm people. I was still young enough to enjoy the bait-and-switch—hook them with humor, then drop the weight. But beneath the sarcasm was something I needed to say: that being a medic isn’t about saving lives in slow motion with theme music behind you. Sometimes it’s about helping someone off the cold tile floor and pretending not to notice that they’re crying.

I didn’t write it for applause. I wrote it to remind myself not to go numb. To remember that compassion doesn’t have to be loud to matter.

That post was a letter to myself—half confession, half reset button. And I think, even now, it holds up.