Question .1
I am a health paramedic, aged thirty one, married and a father of two. I am a trained medical professional with my core duties being providing health care in the pre-hospital setup that include, transporting and assessing the injured and sick persons , carrying out life-saving activities such as first aid as well as being the spearhead of the medical emergency team in the pre-hospital set up.
Question.2
Sleeping to me comes as the second option, giving first priority to my job. As a norm most of my works emerge at night and therefore am forced to spend most of my morning hours asleep unless another emergency case that needs my attention arises.
Question.3
Considering that emergency cases are determined by nature, my sleep depends on fate with most of the times being woken from bed to attend a case. My phone is always on as requirement of my profession and thus I am called upon to attend duty anytime of the day and night without the consideration that I might be asleep.
Question.4
Sleep is an essential to any persons sleep. The statement that with experience in anything the body becomes used to does not apply to lack of sleep. Therefore sometimes I underperform the assessment duties but am I try my best to avail myself for any emergency case.
Question.5
Sleep deprivation results to many health complications as sleep is as necessary as food to the body. Some of these may include lack of alertness that is accompanied by slow reactions to any situation as well as slow reasoning, creativity and innovation, increased blood pressure that can result to hypertension, a rise in appetite that could lead to obesity when it becomes an norm and the worst about sleep deprivation is that it raises the probability of getting an heart attack due to the increased inflammation
Question.6
A paramedic is a normal person who undergoes all the health impairments that result from lack of sleep. Sleep enables relaxation of body and especially the brain a situation that enables linking of cells as well as promoting memory formation. Therefore, lack of sleep results to low brain capacity that brings about a faulty memory as well as a feeling of tiredness that results to low moods and depressions as well as being antisocial and unfriendly just as you have said.
Question.7
The whole functioning of the body is depends on brain response and thus is majorly affected by lack of sleep. However repeated action makes the brain adapt and take it as a norm although not with a hundred percent confidence. Therefore through experience I have maintained the way I respond to activities even after long hours of work without sleep. Since these is very stressing I always take a nap whenever am free to compensate for the night emergencies.
Question.8
The unfriendly nature that am sometimes associated with used to scare my wife and she would respond rudely as well as staying upset and discouraged. However with time she came to understand the cause by noting the difference of my moods when I after busy nights. She now takes it as a responsibility to bring me back to a friendly nature and even goes forward to understanding my slow responses. To the children I try as much as possible to show since it demoralizes them when my moods are low and more so with delayed or no responses to their demands.
Question.9
As a normal human being am subject to body infections that result from lack of sleep. These include tiredness, low response to activities as well as immune and sometimes fatigue. Sleep deprivation has also resulted to lack of sleep when given the chance to.
Question.10
Our jobs are mostly on shift bases with most cases falling at night. This implies that I have less time with my spouse as when she is at home during the night I might be at work a situation that has reduced the power of our relationship. Moreover, working more at night implies sleeping during the day and thus I lack time to socialize with others as well as missing important life scenarios. This has backdated my social status as in addition to my unfriendly nature I am also not updated on the day to day issues.
Question.11
First of all one has to understand that nothing comes easy and every occupation has negative effect. This calls for protection measures, with engagement of sports and games being encouraged to maintain physical fitness. Socializing with people who are happy and can keep you laughing increases ones quality of life. When there is time especially during the afternoon after sleep I visit fields and other social places and try as much as possible to avoid drugs as these could worsen the issue.
Question.12
We cannot ascertain the relationship to be direct. However, due to the fact that a spouse needs attention mostly during the night which she lacks from sleep deprivation, then this could result to marital relation deterioration. Moreover lack of sleep results to reduced immune and emotional response that could deny the spouse conjugal rights.
Question.13
Under normal conditions the state of mind actually affects the quality of work and especially in the field of medicine where personal emotions have to be controlled for quality performance. We as paramedics obtain information from the relatives of the sick or injured that is necessary to offer the patient best treatment. Lack of social ethics can scare the stressed relatives not to give the right information and thus resulting to faulty action a situation that has occurred to me in most of the late night cases.
Question.14
Since the job requires me to be alert most of the night, I have set my mind to shift to sleeping at the night. Taking heavy meals would increase the chances of getting deep sleep and to reduce obesity I would be involved in regular exercise.
