It’s a New Year

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Its a new year. With a new job in a new state. 2017 has been a rough year for most people that I know.

2018 is knocking on the door wanting in.

The great John Wayne said:
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.

Are you ready for 2018?  I’ll share a little secret. We are not even in the same zip code of being ready. Moving up here working trying to get the family up here. And add in a 4 hour and 55 minute day. But that is changing.

This fits the new year as well. We need to take it and do what is right for our kin and family. Not so much ourselves and definitely not for strangers. Kindred and Family are what matter. Governors, Presidents wars and countries come and go. Our true families be they blood or chosen are who matter.

New Years resolutions have a maximum effective range of ZERO meters. Making the COMMITMENT and carrying it out has unlimited range. By each person making the commitment to work on making their family and kindred or group or church, whatever you want better prepared for what ever 2018 may throw at us is a hundred times better than resolving to “lose 15 pounds” Or be nicer to the moron at Krogers.

Don’t resolve. Commit. Make 2018 YOURS. Make it so you your family and kindred can sleep well knowing that no matter what our world throws at them they are protected and prepared. Look you don;t have to go full Doomsday Preppers. My hospital, yes a hospital. AK Regional has lists and small classes on basic preparedness. We all should take a page out of that book.

2018 is here. Make the commitment to learn, to gather and to teach. Make the commitment to care.

I posted this part on my personal FB page. One additional commitment I am going to make is to make The Medic Shack bigger and better. To make it deserve to be in the great vastness of Alaska. This is truly a last frontier. You go 20 miles out of Anchorage and you are in wilderness. There is so much that grows here and will grow here is cared for properly.
This year I am designing new classes to suit the wilds of Alaska. The basics change very little. Some will have to modified to work in a climate that is more winter than spring and summer.
With the huge amount of activities that Alaskans do, and yes a lot do it year round. And considering the vast distances separating this state the need to be able to care for one’s self is even more important than in my home state of New Mexico. Yes distances were large. But Alaska is 1/5 the size of the ENTIRE lower 48. It is a long way from anywhere here.

This year classes will focus a lot more on hypothermia. More trauma. And a lot more on sustainable medicine. Here EVERYTHING is sent by ship from Seattle or by truck from the rest of the US. Last summer one of the barges that brings supplies to Alaska had mechanical issues. Store shelves here were running low. And that was only for a week. At my hospital, things that we would wait overnight take days to get here. So the need to know how to manage your blood pressure, your diabetes asthma COPD Heart Failure etc, when that ferry or both ferry’s break down. We are gearing up to teach those classes. Jacob Christine Ryan and I are looking forward to the new challenges of the new year. For us this is not just a move and a new job, This is a great adventure. A learning and teaching experience for all of us. We all look forward to meeting new people and teach how to care for yourself no matter what happens else were.

We’ve made the commitment to give it our all here. To learn all we can, to care for our family and new kindred that we may find here. Can YOU make the same commitment?

May this New Year be filled with love life and laughter. Also a well stocked pantry, means of defending yourself and the skills to do it. Even if fate decides to invite Mr Murphy to the party may your be able to look him in the eye and tell him to bugger off!

 

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