Hi, and thanks again for taking a look at my blog. May I introduce myself….
I’m Ebony, a thirty something year old currently living in Innisfail, North Queensland. While employed by the Queensland Fire & Emergency Services as a Firefighter, I was soon in awe and became interested in the work Paramedics did on-road. The birth of my passion. I decided to put an application in with the Queensland Ambulance Service in 2007. Successful! The next day however, I was informed I was eight months pregnant (damn children!).
I was forced to reject the offer…..the post-natal set in and I was a Mum. Taj, my son, was born.
Years went by and I couldn’t shift the feeling – I needed to reapply but didn’t know if I could manage it, Taj was so young and we were on our own. But, I knew it was where I wanted to be.
In 2015, I graduated from Central Queensland University with a Bachelor of Paramedic Science (Distinction) which I completed via distance education over five years (damn children!). It wasn’t easy, but I got there. During university, I worked casually as a Patient Transport Officer with the Queensland Ambulance Service and for a private Ambulance Service, Rescue-1.
The feeling of completing the degree, and graduating knowing no one could take that piece of paper off me was amazing! The testing process with the QAS in 2015 was so different from what I had experienced in 2007, but I got through it. The feedback I received was fabulous, positive and encouraging, I was really doing it! My application was rejected.
Devastated didn’t even cut it. Nine years I had worked for this moment, for one phone call from H.R to take it all away. It hit me hard and I suppose I let it, hindsight tells me that now. I resigned from my position as a Patient Transport Officer and did less and less shifts with Rescue-1.
Two years on and I'm sitting in the Youth Support Coordinator seat at a local state school, teaching certificates in health to the senior students, and I absolutely love it! The kids have chosen me, to be their support, their go to, their rock (their words not mine). I could never have imagined myself working alongside children in a school, not in a million years. The universe had ideas for me. I chose paramedicine, the kids chose me.
I'm not saying I won't go back to the health industry, it is something I worked hard for and a passion I'll have for life. But for now, I'm where I'm meant to be, doing what I'm meant to be doing. Funny how things work out hey?