Good Copy / Bad Copy: Leadership, Poems, the Radial Pulse
Things sure do change quickly.
It’s interesting who gets to be called a leader, under what circumstances, and why.
If I ask you to imagine a leader, you might conjure one person, delivering the message, directing the show—the person at the podium, the Person In Charge.
Person-in-charge is an important role, and the present is a good example of why. But actions like social distancing, washing your hands, and following your local health authority are leadership too. NOLS calls this self-leadership: taking care yourself in order to reduce strain on the system and protect your own capacity to pitch in.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot this month. If we don’t recognize self-leadership as leadership, we not only undervalue it, we run the risk of confusing a sense of “in-chargeness” with what really matters.
It’s pretty simple, actually—good leadership is doing everything you can for the health of your community.
In order to facilitate your self-leadership this month, we’re bringing you a lovely poem and a quick hit from wilderness medicine.
Aaaaahh! Staying Alive
First aid is one of my favorite things to teach. It’s challenging, important, creative, and involves something called BEAMing. It’s also highly transferable to a frontcountry setting.
Today, we’re going to learn how to take a heart rate reading and discuss why you might want to do so.
Here’s a pop quiz: which one of these pictures demonstrates the proper way to take your radial (wrist) pulse?
If you don’t know, I forgive you. Google is full of misleading examples.
The good news is that the radial pulse is pretty easy to find. Here’s how.
Put two fingers on top of the inside of your wrist. You’ll notice some tendons in there—the things that move when you wiggle your fingers. Fun.
Now slide those fingers over toward the thumb side of your wrist. You should feel a divot when your fingers slip off the tendon, a soft area between the tendons and the bone. That’s the spot!
Your pulse here should be pretty strong. If you can’t feel anything, reduce your pressure a little bit—you may be cutting off the circulation.
Heart rate is measured in beats per minute. I like to count the number of beats in 20 seconds and multiply by 3.
You got it! It was the one on the right.
The most common mistake I see is students trying to take a pulse in the middle of the wrist or on the side near the pinky. That won’t work. Say it with me: thumb-side, not dumb side.
And this helps how?
You can do all kinds of cool things with heart rate, like humblebrag about what good shape you’re in or surprise your partner with a lie-detector test.
You can also get some sense of blood pressure by noting the relative strength of pulses in the neck, wrists, and feet, or by measuring the difference in rate when a patient goes from lying down to sitting or standing.
For the most part, though, this exceeds what you need to know. The main purpose of monitoring vital signs at home is to help you communicate with your doctor. Having a plan for this—and some confidence in your abilities—is a great way to practice self-leadership when you don’t have immediate access to medical care.
This applies to non-COVID patients too: if you are caring for a sick or injured person for any reason, you should measure vital signs regularly. Here is an article from Johns Hopkins explaining how.
Emergency responders keep records using something called a SOAP note—an overview of symptoms, observations, and treatments that travels with the patient from primary response to definitive care.
Don’t forget to record the time of day with each set.
This is probably obvious, but monitoring vitals is not a substitute for consulting a doctor.
Rather, having this record handy when you call your healthcare provider can help them advise you on what to do next. Who knows, it could even spare you a trip to the ER, freeing up space for somebody in greater need.
And any of this stuff interests you, you might think about taking WFA or WFR on the far side of all of this. I highly recommend it.
The proper way to make a snail.
On The Road
And now, for a poem.
Anna Akhmatova was born in Russia in 1889, and, according to the Poetry Foundation, her life “was darkened disproportionately by calamitous moments.” Think on that a minute.
Here’s “On the Road",” translated by Jane Kenyon.
On the Road
Though this land is not my own
I will never forget it,
or the waters of its ocean,
fresh and delicately icy.
Sand on the bottom is whiter than chalk,
and the air drunk, like wine.
Late sun lays bare
the rosy limbs of the pine trees.
And the sun goes down in waves of ether
in such a way that I can't tell
if the day is ending, or the world,
or if the secret of secrets is within me again.
Gorgeous, no?
I think so. And if you’re still glum, here’s another.
Oof.
Oof indeed.
From Muzzi Consulting, here’s Zeke the chameleon washing his beautiful hands.
Stay safe everybody. And see you next month.