Health and Wellness

The firefighter diagnosed with colon cancer today may have first been exposed 15 to 20 years ago (1998 to 2003). What did we know then? How well were we protecting ourselves then? These are questions that should be scaring the hell out of firefighters. They do me because my career spanned the years 1982 to 2007!

Said Wheldon, who has worked with firefighters in her private psychology practice, “In my own work, and in speaking with other psychologists who’ve treated firefighters, I’ve come to learn that that firefighters are different. They’re different from police officers, who I’ve also worked with, and they’re the general public. And I think they need a different kind of psychologist. They deserve a different kind of psychologist.”

Until I went the following year to a specialist who understood autoimmune issues and said that the previous tests were incomplete as most docs do not understand how to test for the full thyroid spectrum.  My former male fire officer [with Aurora Fire Department] also has Hashimoto's (though it’s much more common in women) and I know women firefighters that have had thyroid cancer as well as Sjogren's syndrome—a really terrible autoimmune disease, worse than Hashimoto's.

It’s on you as the individual firefighter or officer to document your exposures—every single one—that you can document from the past and from here on out in your career. It can be years before you develop cancer, more than likely after you’ve completed your career in the fire service.

Chief Avsec writes of the need for a "third corner" in the company officer's hat of responsibilities: risk manager. “If we are to continue making positive strides towards making the job of a firefighter safer, we must develop company officers who can recognize and manage risk in both the emergency and non-emergency arenas.”

How does one of those Alpha males "open their soul" to their comrades who earlier in the day or the previous shift were "fighting" with them for dominance that day? How does a more introverted male or a woman or a male of color get the understanding ear that they seek as they try to deal with a particularly stressful incident or post-traumatic stress in general?

The Fire Service Safety Stand Down (June 17-23) is an opportunity for firefighters everywhere to become informed and educated about health and wellness and The Emergency Services Road Map to Health and Wellness published by the Firefighter Safety Through Advanced Research (FSTAR) program.

That’s the only one that affected me in that way, and to this day, I have no idea why. There have been others that were worse calls, but I never had an issue afterward. It didn’t really bother me at the time, it was more of a, “Really? Why? Geez. Stop.”

According to a December 2016 story published in the Denver Post, the Denver Fire Department saw a 42 percent decrease in worker’s comp claims from overexertion as well as the cost of treating injuries to lower backs, shoulders and knees (Which, along with overexertion, accounted for the majority of the department’s worker’s compensation costs).  

Treating and recovering from a brain that's been injured through post traumatic stress (PTS) or PTSD is unlike that for a physical injury that's visible to the world. Former firefighter and PTSD sufferer/survivor Nathalie Michaud writes about here continuing journey.