BLS renewal—ouch

When I saw your title my first though was you meant it was a (figurative) pain in the butt. Before I got my ACLS synchronized with my BLS I had been to BLS renewals that were harder than ACLS renewal (maybe bc I didn't study that much for BLS). One I remember was when the AED first became part of BLS. The class was through the hospital so (mostly) everyone was a nurse/ employee. The instructor knew that this was new to everyone so he went over how it worked (verbally) and then told us to now "do it". We are all looking at each other (because viewing is obviously different than hands on) and started stumbling around the equipment. Next thing you know this guy starts going off and telling everyone he is going to fail us because we should know how to do this and this is our "test". Someone spoke up and told him we thought this was the practice session. Well, a back and forth ensued and after that someone else came into to finish the class. My thought was this is the type of person that needs to feel self important by making others feel like they are stupid.

Anyway, I have never experienced the type of BLS you did. I guess you could look at it like you got your work-out at the same time, killed two birds with one stone. I probably would have been sore too, lol.

I avoid doing compressions if at all possible because it exacerbates an old injury. I can do them and certainly jump in and do my share when needed, but I tend to pick other roles otherwise I tend to be in severe pain for several days.

Daisy- I feel like the in-person renewal portion for BLS is way worse than ACLS.

Whenever I did a code I always eventually jumped on the chest because, well, I'm a dude and it's hard work. I always bounce on my toes and get a good rhythm, letting my legs do most of the work, but yes, my abs always feel like they got a workout after.

2 minutes ago, prmenrs said:

When I got certified as an instructor, we used a manikin w/a strip that printed out the side. They checked that all your compressions, and breaths were correct. After a few tries, I passed. Then we had 2 person. My partner could NOT get it right. I couldn't pass till she passed. I was determined to not come back another day. So we went for who knows how long. Finally, one of the instructors had mercy on me and partnered w/me to pass. I went home. The next day, I was sore from my neck, wrists, arms, abs, to my knees. And, don't forget my glutes and shoulders. Oh, ouch. It was the next week before I was normal.

oh hell no! who are these people?

You feel like a truck hit you? GOOD! You did it right.

That's what Mr. Ruby Jane (who's also a nurse) said to me when I got retrained this summer.

We recently had a code at work. There was 5 of us that rotated for compressions. We did compressions for about 45 minutes before they pronounced the poor guy. It was awful. I was sore for like 3 days.

We were all dripping with sweat when we were done and the soreness didn't really hit until the day after.. My poor abs were d-o-n-e!