As we reflect on the horrific events of 9/11, it’s important we address the impact it still has on first responders and their families. In this guest post, Lori Mercer from FireFighterWife.com shares inspirational ideas on dealing with the fear that comes from loving someone with such a dangerous job.
So many women tell me that every time they kiss their husband goodbye on his way out the door they think to themselves “This could be the last time I see him.”
I wonder how many of the fire wives thought that on the morning of September 11, 2001?
But an even better question, is I wonder how many of those lost in the tower even thought that in the past week before 9.11? A rare few if they were lucky were able to give a sufficient final goodbye “just in case”.
Most people have a sense of the fickle fate that could take any of our lives at any moment. Car accidents. Heart Attacks. Natural Disasters. But most people don’t have a constant reminder of the fragility of life living in their house leaving their firefighter paraphernalia lying around. The navy blue shirts. The coffee mugs. The maltese cross decals on the cars. The Last Will and Testament and important details for a Line of Duty Death tucked away in the fire safe.
Every fire wife has thought about her husband dying on duty. She’s rehearsed the phone call or the knock on the door all the way thru the tears, the funeral and life without him. I’ve personally found myself lost in thought when I’m driving, waiting for him to call me back after that last interrupted call “Working fire. Gotta go! Love you.” Click. It’s been 3 hours. Surely they are back by now. Somewhere those thoughts of “I’m sure they are just busy cleaning up. Or maybe his cell phone isn’t on him” turn to thoughts of what if. What if something happened to him? And before you know it tears are streaming down your face as you’re visualizing his eulogy given by his partner while you hug the kids tightly in the front row.
It’s so real. Or I should say, we can make things so real in our minds. And for some women, those thoughts grip them in ferocious fears that paralyze them, unable to act. Unable to go cook dinner, remember the next task or fall asleep. Even if you aren’t paralyzed in fear you may still be carrying with you that worry, gnawing in your gut and taking up precious space in your thoughts.
She’s trapped by those nasty emotions waiting for a stinking return phone call that 9,999 out of 10,000 times is going assure her that mental trap was just a false alarm.
And now we approach another anniversary of September 11th and the reminders get more frequent, more graphic, more lump-forming-in-my-throat-inducing.
Now I’m not just referring to fire wives. I think every American growing up in this generation has a strong emotional reaction to the events of 9.11. How could you not? It’s such a display of pure evil and loss of innocent lives. Perhaps even some firefighters react more strongly as they think of friends, colleagues, brothers and sisters who were killed on that day. And remind themselves it’s a promise they made and it could happen to them as well.
How do you beat this mental battle? Because if you don’t, they might as well keep flying planes into buildings because you are still fearfully impacted and that’s exactly what they wanted to happen. A little strong for you? Don’t underestimate the impact of your thoughts. You change your thoughts you change your life.
A few tips to battle the mental monsters of fear and worry especially surrounding September 11th
#1 You shouldn’t be in denial that firefighting is a dangerous profession. Duh. De Nial is just De River in Egypt. Sorry if that offends you to make light of that but some fire families really need to get their head out of the sand and do some pre-planning. Just in case. Cross that off the list and stop worrying about it.
#2 September 11th is a time to remember. To never forget, right? Think about what parts you aren’t forgetting. We want to honor the lives lost and it evokes a whole lot of emotions, especially for those personally impacted. Too many widows and orphans were made on that day. Far too many. I sincerely from the bottom of my heart mourn right alongside them. But at the same time, it does bother me when there is too much focus on death and not enough focus on the life. The good. The miracles surrounding 9.11. And I am pretty certain that those angels watching up in heaven understand our pain but wouldn’t want us to linger and get stuck there in a bad mental pit. Never forget all the good. Never forget our nation pulling together in support. Never forget those stories of heroes. But go ahead and forget all those images that keep you locked to the TV paralyzed in grief and inaction. We didn’t recover from 9.11 by replaying that scene over and over again. We acted. Which leads me to #3.
#3 Take action. I mean physically do something. Even just standing up and walking across a room or drinking a glass of water can change the chemical make up in our brains and help dispel negative emotions. But for September 11th, I’d actually encourage you to do something bigger. Remember the outpouring of support after 9.11? All the people that went to help. All the charities. All the acts of service. With that tragic event corresponding with us living in a more connected world, the opportunities to find a way to help are endless. If 9.11 has you a little extra emotional, then you need to find a way to occupy your mind with other activities instead. Over at FirefighterWife.com we are participating in the National Day of Service having our first ever 9.11 24 Hours of Service event to do just that. Anyone can participate by signing up at FirefighterWife.com/9-11 It’s our way of honoring those lost while leaving the world a little better at the end of the day.
#4 Find some tools to help you work through these emotions. Whether they are stealing minutes or days from your life, we can all benefit from on-going learning and self-improvement. Journal your thoughts. Read books. Talk to a counselor or a friend. Eliminate bad influences, the Debbie Downers in your life. Find a way to change stressful situations. Join a group for support and friendship.
As the leader of the largest online community of fire wives, I see so many women just spend too much time losing out on life because they are living in the “what if?”. It’s time to live in the “What next?” and do more.
Lori Mercer is the Chief Fire Wife, writer and speaker at FirefighterWife.com. She is the mother of 4 and very blessed to be happily married to her firefighter after many challenging years where she hated the firehouse and all its influence on him. Now she is an advocate for firefighter marriages and encouraging the fire wife community to drop the girl drama and work together for support and friendship.
As the weather starts to change once again, we look towards the fall season. This means it is important to remember to prepare your house and family accordingly for the season change. Preparing for fall can help save money, and protect your family and home. Check out these tips about preparing your home both inside and out, along with family (including pets).
Inside the house
Service your furnace / air conditioner. Be sure to call your local heating and cooling company to service and make sure everything is working properly. Double check furnace for any leaks. This will save headaches and money later when the temperatures drop.
Check to make sure your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide monitors are properly working. It’s important to know the alarms work, and that fresh batteries have been installed. Replace any fire extinguishers that have expired with new ones throughout the home.
If you keep emergency kits, make sure they are full and stocked with small medical items, water, flashlight with fresh batteries, and any supplies needed. There should be enough to last you and the family about a week.
Stock up on winter supplies. If you live in a climate where it snows frequently or ices, stock up on shovels, ice scrapers, sidewalk salts, etc. If your climate features heavy rain or hurricanes, make sure you have plenty of tarps, bottled water, duct tape, etc.
Use caution with space heaters and fireplaces. Place a fireplace screen in front of fire to prevent sparks from flying out. Never leave a burning fire unattended, and make sure the fire is out before going to bed. If your space heater requires ventilation, make sure it vents to the outdoors. Never use a stove or oven to heat home. Always allow three feet of empty area around the space heaters.
Outside the home
Reconsider burning the big pile of leaves. Check with your city’s regulations. It may be illegal to burn leaves. Burning leaves produce dangerous and cancer-causing chemicals according to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). If you are going to burn the leaves, wear a protective mask. Make sure that you are far away from the house or any other structures. Double check the weather forecast for the day for windy activity.
Watch for power lines if trimming trees in the yard. Look and survey your yard area for power lines hanging above. Notice the placement of your ladder and trimming tools.
Use caution while using a ladder. If you have to clean leaves out of the gutter, remember to have on appropriate footwear to avoid getting caught in between steps. Watch the steps for water or moisture to avoid slipping and falling. Make sure the ladder is secure and placed before climbing.
Check all of the outdoor lighting fixtures. Make sure they all are working properly and secure. Outdoor lights are also effective deterrents for crime.
When you’re cleaning up your yard, prevent injuries by standing straight and upright while raking leaves. Pull from your arms and legs, lift bags with bent knees using your legs, not your back, for support. If you’re using a leaf blower, wear appropriate clothing, eye protection, and tennis shoes or boots to prevent injury.
Family
Go get a flu shot. There are still possibilities of getting sick after receiving the shot, but it will protect you from severe complications.
Not just for employees returning to work, wash your hands. Use hot water, plenty of soap, and scrub for at least 30 seconds.
Bundle up if it is cold. Wear a jacket and dress accordingly.
Pets. If your furry friend lives outside, feed them more in the cooler times to help them retain body heat.
Keep an emergency kit in your car. If you haven’t already, make up an emergency kit and keep in your trunk. Some are in stores already made-up. To make your own, include a flashlight with fresh batteries, first-aid kit, jumper cables, windshield washer fluid, and basic tools.
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Earlier this year, the right training combined with the right timing helped Julian save a toddler’s life. Julian, a volunteer paramedic and firefighter, happened to be driving past a stranger’s house when he noticed a woman outside screaming into two cell phones. Thinking she may be in trouble, he stopped to help. The woman was on the phone with 911 Dispatch. Her son, a 2-year-old boy named Decker, was nearly unconscious at the foot of the stairwell just inside the door. The woman was outside waiting for the ambulance, confused before realizing she was on the line with the wrong dispatch. The confusion meant that it took several minutes for an ambulance to arrive. In those precious moments, Julian began CPR and kept Decker alive until paramedics arrived. Once he got the ER, the medical team removed a pushpin that was lodged in his throat, choking him. Decker’s mother calls Julian her son’s guardian angel. Julian is currently serving with the United States Armed Forces as a medic doing EMS work in Afghanistan.
Please note – we’ve changed the voting requirements this month. In order to vote, you’ll have to create an account and log in to vote. Once you register, you’ll be taken directly to the voting page.
Don’t want to register? You can still see the voting results – just click here.
Fran C. | Pennsylvania Firefighter & Nurse
On July 4, 2012, Fran entered a smoke-filled home and heard a woman in distress on the 2nd floor. When Fran found her, she was trapped, panicked and out of breathe from breathing in too much smoke. In a split-second decision, Fran took a big breath, removed his tank and put it on the woman. Both got out safely, although Fran was hospitalized for smoke inhalation. Fran later met the woman he saved, and presented her with about $500 of his own overtime pay to help her and her family. Fran became a firefighter after following in the footsteps of his retired Fire Captain father.
When Fran isn’t fighting fires, he works as a part time Nurse at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Before becoming a full time firefighter, he worked as a Paramedic.
Nancy J. | Wisconsin Educator
Nancy J. has been enthusiastically servings as the Arrowhead High School Choir Director for almost 30 years. Known for her passion and motivation, Nancy works to make each and every student a part of the team. She uses creativity in her teaching to keep her high school students engaged and enthusiastic about the fine arts. Her hard work shows. Every year, choir performances pack the house and lines to buy performance tickets stretch out the door. Nancy goes above and beyond to highlight her students’ achievements: decorating the halls for their performances, taking headshots so they feel like stars, and accompanying them to weekend contests. Due to Nancy’s unceasing hard work, her high school’s choir and theatre programs have a reputation for greatness.
Corporal Stan P | Georgia Police Officer
When Officer Phillips answered a call about an aggressive dog, he arrived at the scene to find a vicious attack in progress. The dog was biting the victim, a 5-year-old little girl named Lilly, on the face and neck. Officer Phillips rushed to her aid and was able to free her from the dog. The girl was immediately airlifted to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, including a missing ear. After saving the girl’s life, Officer Phillips continued to go visit her in the hospital, despite the hour drive each way, and even arranged for donations to pay for her reconstructive surgery. After she was released from the hospital, Officer Phillips helped work with churches and charities to raise money for her continued recovery. Stan has worked on a crime suppression units, SWAT, and road patrols (among others) and coworkers note his dedication and noteworthy impact on high crime areas- calling him a ‘go to’ guy in the field.
When shots rang out in the hospital where Robert works, his first thought was the victim’s safety. As others dropped to the floor, Robert ran to aid of the gunshot victim- a physician who worked at the hospital. After rushing to get his patient to a safe location to receive medical attention, Robert took cover and provided comfort to distraught nursing students. Robert’s coworkers say this kind of heroic action is not out of character for a man who cares deeply about his patients. Robert is an integral member of the Haiti Outreach Mission (HOM). HOM works to bring mobile clinics to distant mountain locations where Robert helps triage patients in need. Closer to home, Robert also speaks out on behalf of his patients, many of whom are victims of violence, by speaking at anti-violence rallies.
Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon. – Dag Hammarskjold
Nurses dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription. -Val Saintsbury
To do what nobody else will do, a way that nobody else can do, in spite of all we go through; is to be a nurse. – Rawsi Williams
Nurses are a unique kind. They have this insatiable need to care for others, which is both their biggest strength and fatal flaw. –Dr. Jean Watson
Our job as Nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the joy, every day, while we are ‘just doing our jobs.’ -Christine Belle
Healing yourself is connected with healing others. -Yoko Ono
The door that nobody else will go in at, seems always to swing open widely for me. -Clara Barton
To make a difference in someone’s life, you don’t have to be brilliant, rich, beautiful or perfect. You just have to care. -Mandy Hale
You don’t build a house without its foundation. You don’t build a hospital without its Nurses. –Anonymous
Nurses Know: The mind can only look. The heart can truly see. -Carol Gino
Nurses quietly go about their work in a noble profession, uncelebrated soldiers toiling through the days and nights in service to the sick, the injured and the dying. -Steve Lopez
You’re going to be there when a lot of people are born, and when a lot of people die. In most every culture, such moments are regarded as sacred and private, made special by a divine presence. No one on Earth would be welcomed, but you’re personally invited. What an honor that is. -Thom Dick
They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou
America’s nurses are the beating heart of our medical system. – President Barack Obama
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind. – Napoleon
The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesses him that gives and him that takes. – Unknown
The heart that gives, gathers. -Tao Te Ching
Nine-tenths of our sickness can be prevented by right thinking plus right hygiene–nine-tenths of it! -Henry Miller
The nurse who can smile when things go wrong is probably going off duty.
We’re armored against our own troubles. We can’t afford to give in to despair. Then you see someone else struggling, and it breaks your… heart. – Sean Stewart
Diagnosis is not the end, but the beginning of practice. – Martin H. Fischer
Medicine is the only profession that labours incessantly to destroy the reason for its own existence. – James Bryce
The patient does not care about your science; what he wants to know is, can you cure him? -Martin H. Fischer
It is not a case we are treating; it is a living, palpitating, alas, too often suffering fellow creature. – John Brown
Disease is war with the laws of our being, and all war, as a great general has said, is hell. – Lewis G. Janes
It is easy to get a thousand prescriptions but hard to get one single remedy. – Chinese Proverb
Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing. – Ben Hecht
Cancer is a word, not a sentence. – John Diamond
Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts. – Charles Dickens
Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts. – Florence Nightingale
The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest. – William Osler
Nursing is not for everyone. It takes a very strong, intelligent, and compassionate person to take on the ills of the world with passion and purpose and work to maintain the health and well-being of the planet. No wonder we’re exhausted at the end of the day! – Donna Wilk Cardillo
A nurse will always give us hope, an angel with a stethoscope. – Terri Guillemets
It is not how much you do, but how much love you put in the doing. — Mother Theresa
There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow. — Orison Swett Marden
Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy. — Chogyam Trungpa
Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food. — Joseph Butler
Nursing isn’t what you do it’s who you are. -Unknown
Character is not made in a crisis it is only exhibited. – Rose Dorothy Freeman
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. -Mother Teresa
Do you want to speak to the Doctor in charge, or the Nurse who really knows what is going on? -Unknown
Always thank your nurse. Sometimes they’re the only one between you and a hearse. – Warren Beatty
In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it. –Marianne Williamson
Healing is a matter of time but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. – Hippocrates
Our job is to love people. When it hurts. When it’s awkward. When it’s uncool and embarrassing. Our job is to stand together, to carry the burdens of one another and to meet each other in our questions. – Jamie Tworkowksi
Being a nurse means to hold all your own tears and start drawing smiles on people’s faces. – Dana Basem
Nursing is Sacrificing with and for Humanity! – Unknown
Every Nurse is Angel with a Key for Healthy Community! All in Caring for Patients is part of Nursing Soul! – Aleksandar Radenovi
Bound by paperwork, short on hands, sleep, and energy… nurses are rarely short on caring. – Sharon Hudacek
When I think about all the patients and their loved ones that I have worked with over the years, I know most of them don’t remember me nor I them. But I do know that I gave a little piece of myself to each of them and they to me and those threads make up the beautiful tapestry in my mind that is my career in nursing. – Donna Wilk Cardillo
Nurses: one of the few blessings of being ill. – Sara Moss-Wolfe
If love can’t cure it, nurses can. – Unknown
The most important practical lesson than can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe. – Florence Nightingale
Nurses serve their patients in the most important capacities. We know that they serve as our first lines of communication when something goes wrong or when we are concerned about health. – Lois Capps
Panic plays no part in the training of a nurse. – Elizabeth Kenny
Whether a person is a male or female, a nurse is a nurse. – Gary Veale
The character of the nurse is as important as the knowledge she possesses. – Carolyn Jarvis
You treat a disease: You win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win—no matter the outcome. — Patch Adams
In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do. — Dorothea Dix (superintendent of women nurses for the Union Army)
I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel. – Florence Nightingale
As we reflect on the horrific events of 9/11, it’s important we address the impact it still has on first responders and their families. In this guest post, Lori Mercer from FireFighterWife.com shares inspirational ideas on dealing with the fear that comes from loving someone with such a dangerous job.
