Retirement

The day I’ve long thought about finally arrived. Yesterday I was told by my Chief that I was done. Almost a year ago I sustained an injury that has just never really healed. It began as a pain and advanced into a series major issues that have required three surgeries. Now the waiting game begins that will result in my retirement. At forty-seven years of age most people would be planning for retirement, not getting ready to retire.

One of the challenges most people don’t consider is how to get your head around the fact that what you’ve done for most of your life, you won’t be doing anymore. With me, that has been emergency services. I’ve spent most of my life being a paramedic in some fashion, ending as a fire fighter paramedic. I’ve worked countless twenty-four hour shifts, been away from my family on many holidays, worked part of most weekends, and had a life style that was counter to what most people had. Now I have to put it all away and leave the world of emergency response. The closest I will be from here on out is as a spectator on the side lines. I may trade one uniform for another, but that new uniform will entail supervising from afar and not being up close and personal.

Many think the end of their career come from old age and if it comes earlier it will be some blaze of glory. Mine was none of the above, it was just a series of push ups. After all, the abuse I had heaped on my body, it was a push up that brought down the house of cards. I was finishing the physical assessment testing my department conducted each year and was doing the push ups and had just gotten to number twenty-one when it happened, the sudden onset of pain and numbness. It wasn’t anything that screamed that I was finished. I was told I’d be as good as new when it was over, but that didn’t happen.

This morning at shift change, the department was dispatched on a suicide attempt. I was walking to my car, ready to begin my four days off, as the ambulance left the station. I’ve watched it leave many times before, sometime remembering to say a prayer for the crew and the victim, but today was different. I knew that I would not make an alarm like that again. A chapter of twenty-eight years of my life was closing, bringing the uncertainly of new adventures to come.

I know the future is bright. I know that good things await me in the future, but all I’ve known is the crackle of the radio and the sounds of the alarms. Normal life will take some getting used to.