You'll Be Dead Within Two Minutes Unless You Do Exactly What I Tell You. I'm All Ears.

Drek and I are taking an Adult/Child/Infant CPR/AED class. This is my fifth time certifying in CPR. My first time was in 2001. The last time was in 2005. My certification has been expired for... um, three years. My WSI certification and my Emergency Responce certification have only been expired for two years. As a side not, my Lifeguard certification expired four years ago. Yeesh, I am so old!

Last night was our first class, we have another one tonight. It was so much fun. None of my other classes were fun, well, except when we certified in my Intro to EMT class and and played Oreo Hockey, but that's not the point.

Chest thrusts have completely changed. Completely. Twice the teacher said "They used to teach CPR this way..." and in fact they did. That was the way I learned it. That is not the way they teach it now. Now it is more efficient and saves more lives.

The thing that shocked me the most was the breathing barrier. I have one from 2003 that is a little bigger than my hand. It is a plastic mask that resembles an oxygen mask...well, it is an oxygen mask. It has two attachments, one for an air tank and one for a mouth. You have to be trained on how to position the mask, how to seal it, how to clean it and so forth. I keep in in the car in case of an emergency. The breathing barriers now are a piece of plastic. Entirely flat. It fits in a pouch that hangs on your key chain. There is no wrong way to use it, you just lay it down and there you go. Amazing.

More shocking was the attitude toward the breathing barrier. In all of my previous classes I had been told over and over not to do CPR or rescue breathing (they don't even have rescue breathing anymore!) without a mask. NEVER. One teacher said he was supposed to tell us to let the person die if we didn't have a mask, but he said his conscience, personally, would not allow that. We were told to make the decision for ourselves.

This time the teacher talked about how the stars would have to be perfectly aligned to get any sort of disease from doing CPR without a mask. He said if we have a mask, use it. If we don't, who cares? Do CPR anyway. You'll be fine. Wow.

It was a fun class, well worth it. I loved that I was taking it with Drek. He is so wonderful. I found it funny that while Drek has never been certified in CPR before, he finished the test before me an got 100%. I took longer and missed one (It's truly pathetic that I still can't tell my left from my right in writing. But I know where to put the AED pads in reall life!). My husband is a genius.

Like I said, tonight we have another class. This class focuses on the child/infant part. Which is why we are taking the class. I'm excited!