I'm looking to find out what is normal, and what is not. What will go away with time, and what won't. I'm only a year into my EMS career, in a very very small community, with a very small call volume (Last year 4 calls, this year 30). So, needless to say, you know every patient. My experience is limited. I've been to a number of medical calls, a few trauma, and have experienced one death. The death I experienced was a choking, in a hospital setting during my practicum. I handled it well and therefor felt confident I'd do well with that side of things. However, this Friday I was called to a Code 5...which, where I'm from is a Unconfirmed Body. The patient had passed a number of days prior to our arrival and it was quite a gory scene. During the call itself I was fine, even after I got home I was fine. Then I tried to sleep and *WHAM* I could not get the image out of my mind. When I finally did get to sleep it was hours later and my dreams were flooded with the same image. The next day I thought of it often so I distracted myself by house cleaning thoroughly. But again, come bed time, I had to literally force the image out of my mind over and over again. In addition that, I keep smelling that smell at random moments, when obviously the smell is not there. So again, my question is...is this normal...and most importantly, will it go away??
