As someone with OI myself, I think we can all share the time someone called 999 for us and an ambulance came along to help us after the latest silly stunt we just pulled. My first fracture was when I was about 2yrs old and nobody knew I had OI. My dad had it, but my grandparents told my mum only women can pass it on. After a few more breaks and social services interrogating my mum and dad someone had the eureka moment and thought “Hang on, maybe the son of the man with OI also has it and that’s why he keeps breaking his bones randomly”.
Lots more breaks, At home, at school, out and about, and plenty of trips in the ambulances. I do enjoy the gas and air and its laughing gas. All the paramedics always been so kind and fun, making sure I am ok and checking in on you as the day goes by in A&E. Explaining to the 5th doctor what OI is and my mum refusing to take me home as something is not right.
Fast forward to my teens. “What do you want to be Chris?”, I decided I would like to be a Paramedic. But I am 16yrs old, I have a wheelchair at school and a broken hip because I thought roller skating was a promising idea. I clearly did not learn my lesson when I tried it the 1st time and dislocated my elbow. I never did much about it. No one took me seriously and I just had other jobs. But the want and desire to help people and advocate and be there never left me.
Growing up I was the calm friend when your other friends were having a medical episode or we came across a fatal car crash. Always one to go towards the fire and never turn away. I volunteered for St John ambulance and did first aid events as a volunteer. Then one day I’d picked my son up from his mum for the weekend. He was 2 at the time. Passing a car in a layby at rush hour to see a 50yr old man performing CPR on his 30yr old son. People rushing by. I slammed on the brakes and swung in. A desperate man trying to save his son doing one handed CPR while trying to call 999. My brain just switched on and I started CPR until a Rapid Response paramedic showed up. They told me I was doing great and keep going while he applied the Pads. He received 10 defib shocks and was flown from the roadside to Norwich where he stayed for near a year and underwent a lot of surgery. I still speak with the family and that was my kick to turn my life around.
I applied to be a student Paramedic with the East of England Ambulance service. I told them what I had. I passed the medical. The touch your toes test was easy with the hypermobility. I struggled with the academic work but with the practical stuff and how I was with patients I excel in. It takes 3yrs to train to be a Paramedic. It is hard, the hours are long and some people just are not nice. I had amazing mentors.
I remember when I was in my 20s I fell down the stairs in a nightclub damaging my knee and breaking that same elbow again. You are wondering how someone with OI does this job. I am lucky that my OI is not the worst. I am on around 50 fractures. The back pains, the hearing loss, the one leg shorter than the other and all the other associated bits, but I muddle through. The ambulance service is well kitted out. Equipment to lift and carry things, and I used to have a lot of students with me who you could get to carry things. I know my limits and I am just careful.
I worked frontline on 999 ambulances for 10yrs, then I left as a frontline Paramedic and now I work for Ipswich Hospital but in the community. I am a specialist Paramedic for a Virtual ward team called REACT. Basically, I take 999 calls from the ambulance service or referrals from hospitals, the hospice, GPs, and self-referrals to see people in a crisis. In my team, our aim is to keep these people out of hospital and manage them in their own homes as a virtual ward. A hospital at home service. No nights was the big draw for me to do that and I’d had an accident which took me out of work for near a year and so I got to know this team while working from home and I loved what they did so when a job came up with some incentives I went for it and I have been there 3yrs now.
I have time off on occasion, but it is rare. Bad back, leg pain, hip pain but I manage with either over the counter pain relief or some slightly stronger medication as and when. I have equipment that will lift people from the floor. I must keep being active or I’ll get bigger than I already am. I have a privately purchased digital stethoscope to help me listen to chests, abdomens, and heart sounds. I have just generally adapted how I do things and I know my limits. I respond in my car as its comfortable compared to the NHS pool cars they have in my team.
I love being a Paramedic. I love to help people. I have never been to someone who has OI as a Paramedic funnily enough. To look at me you would not even think I had it unless you looked in my eyes and knew the signs. I work with a group of doctors and consultants and even they are surprised about what I do. But I have always been supported and I think because of my OI, it made me who I am and was the reason I became a Paramedic. I do still work on frontline ambulances for 999 but when I want on a bank contract.
My daughter is 11 yrs old with OI and is considering a carer herself as a Paramedic or an Ice cream lady (Similar vans I guess) and is yet to decide. I will encourage her to try whatever she wants to be. (Other than a professional roller skater)
