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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 2012)
SEPTEMBER 15, 2012 Smoke Signals Tribal member's career is a breath off fresh air 10 By Ron Karten Smoke Sitnnla stuff writer When Micky Herron comes around, people breuthe easier. Herron, 35, of Junction City, Kan., is a respiratory therapist at Irwin Army Community Hospital, a job that interests him technically and allows him to give back to the military he served for four years. "It was the respiratory therapy side that got me interested," Herron said. 'The mechanics of it. There's more to breathing than what we do instinctively. Listening to other re spiratory therapists talk to people, that spiked my interest. There's not a lot of people who think about how your lungs work with your heart. "I always had the biggest soft spot in my heart for my brothers in arms. One of my dreams, if you will, is to give back to the military." Following high school, Herron's path took him to the Army where he served in the peacekeeping force in Bosnia. He was a gunner on a Brad ley fighting vehicle. Stateside, he served at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert and at Fort Riley in Kansas from 1995-98. "I drove it around a lot," he said of the Bradley. He followed Army service with a year in Topeka as a military police officer trainee with the National Guard. After the service, he worked at different occupations. "Trying to find my niche," he said. He ran his own bail bonds busi ness for four years. He became a driver for a medical equipment company. He got a feel for the industry there and decided it was something he wanted to do. It was 2007 before he started thinking, "I had to use my G.I. Bill (that helps with education costs) within 10 years after serving in the military. It was getting close. J 7Tr ' Mi Submitted photo Micky Herron stands by tha unit that measures pulmonary function. "Tha PFT Body Box, as wa call it," Herron said. I was 30." Meanwhile, back in Grand Ronde, Herron's mother, Sharon Wattier, an Elder of the Tribe who works at the Tribal Health Clinic, let him know that additional help was avail able through the Tribe. Between the two, Herron said, "I was able to get through three years of college with out getting one single loan." The Tribe provided assistance for books, tuition and rental assis tance, and the G.I. Bill helped with the rest of his living expenses. Wattier has been moved in dif ferent directions by her son's suc cess. "Well, I have to say he is a very determined young man. He will do whatever it takes to finish anything he starts," she said. "Going to col lege and working and supporting Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Youth Education Department Foit. lip Tentative Fall Field Trips: August 27 ry Beach Jt ' Helser Vi u. r . " Vrli Family Bowling and Costume Contest Colli ember 26 i iiinpui lours - i his daughter was very stressful for him, but he plowed through it and achieved his goal. His family and friends can always depend on him; he will help anyone. His family means the world to him, (though) his dis tance apart from us does leave a huge hole in my heart as I don't get to see him or his family very of ten. We talk on the phone and share our worries. Just to hear his voice! "We never know where our lives will end up and I truly did not think he would end up in Kansas. I am so proud of him and what he has achieved. He fills my heart with pride and joy knowing he has done what he set out to do. The Army was a blessing in giving him a hands up with his goals in life." Monty started school at Cloud County Community CollegeGeary County campus, in Concordia, Kan., in 2007. "I had no idea, zero knowledge," he said, "when it came to college. I didn't know anybody. None of my friends had been to college. I had nobody to turn to." At the Tribal Education Depart ment, John Harp, Continuing and Distance Education specialist, and Luhui Whitebear, College Advising & Scholarship coordinator, helped Herron learn "how to do this whole college thing. Every stupid question I asked, from the very, very begin ning basics until I graduated with an associate degree, they answered all my questions and did everything they could to help me." "Micky Herron models very well the concept of lifelong learning in education," said Harp. "After a break of over a decade, he returned to school and excelled term after term for the two years I had the opportunity to work with him." "I'm sure I would have made it through," Herron said, "but it wouldn't have been so easy." Whitebear, who worked with him through the former Competi tive Scholarship program, said he was "a great student to work with. He seemed very motivated and fo cused, which I am sure helped him succeed in school." Herron worked on his associate degree for three years, continuing to work at the medical supply store, taking classes at night, almost all the way to summer 2009. Along the way, in 2008, he inter viewed for one of 20 seats (among 75 to 100 applicants) in the respira tory therapy program in Johnson County. He was accepted, but would still need his associate de gree to be certified. He quit working full-time and started his last year of school full-time. He earned the associate of applied science in Re spiratory Care degree in May 2010. He passed the National Board of Respiratory Care test soon after, on July 18, 2010. Today, he is a respiratory thera pist at Irwin Army Community Hospital at Fort Riley. He took the position, serving military person nel and their families, in March of this year. "I feel like I am back home where I started," he said. The longer he is in the job, the more he realizes how special his expertise is. "A lot of regular people just don't know what a respiratory therapist is or does," he said. "We're in clinics, in hospital settings, there's sales (of equipment) and education. "We know how to evaluate for asthma triggers. Most don't know, but respiratory therapists do." If it is inhaled medication, he said, a respiratory therapist is go ing to give it to you. Anytime any one is being chemically aided by a ventilator, a respiratory therapist is running that ventilator. There is lots of work behind the scenes, including ventilator man agement. When a respiratory therapist measures arterial blood gas, "we can analyze off that exactly how much oxygen you are transfer ring from your lungs to your blood stream." The job has challenges that have tested Herron's skills. "I never had to work with babies in a nursery before. I never worked with adolescents, but at this posi tion I work with people from the nursery up to geriatrics, and often have to dig back deep into my stud ies again. "It can be stressful when work ing with the babies; they're fragile, brand new life." Something else that most people don't know is that respiratory therapists are "the MacGyvers of the medical field. If you can't find a piece of equipment right away, you go and piece something else together to make it work. It is a thinking person's position. When a doctor tells you to find a connector, you find a way to make that con nector if you don't have it on hand. That is one thing about respiratory therapy: you have to have a little bit of a mechanical skill." Herron has "taken apart anesthe sia circuits, essentially a flow tube with returns, to make a connection that I can deliver oxygen with." He is on call 24 hours a day for 7 days every third week, and has been called in for "a standby with twins being born prematurely. I had to be ready to put both on ven tilators," he said. Herron is now running EKG, asthma and pulmonary function test clinics. "I was exposed to these through out my studies," he said, "but now I'm doing them." Though the job is satisfying, Her ron said, "When you lose somebody, there's low times, too." Herron was raised in Salem early in his life and then in Santa Rosa, Calif. He is married to Kelley, an emergency room nurse, and they live together with Herron's daugh ter, Sierra, 14, and Kelley's son, Michael, 17, in Junction City. 0
