Katherine Scott

Transcript

I once got into a screaming match with a stick of butter. The butter won. I was standing in my kitchen one day baking and I took some butter out of the fridge and it slipped out of my hand. And I lost it. I mean, I completely lost it. I stood there yelling at the butter like it had personally wronged me. And then I just remember thinking to myself, "Wow, Catherine, you've officially lost your mind." Because that wasn't me. I was a paramedic.

I was the person who ran toward chaos when everyone else ran away. I made decisions when seconds mattered. I carried people through some of the worst days of their lives. Blood? Fine. Life or death emergency? I'm your girl. Butter on the floor? Apparently, that was my breaking point. For years, I carried things that most people never have to experience. The sights you can't unsee. The sounds you can't unhear. You put each difficult call into a tiny little box, close the lid, and move on.

I became very good at closing boxes. Until I became a mom. Suddenly, every child became my child. Every family became my family. Those boxes? They started opening. I was diagnosed with PTSD and I didn't believe it. To me, PTSD happened to other people. I was working. I was showing up. I was fine. Except I was yelling at butter. Still, I pushed through because pushing through was what I knew. And then life gave me another message that I couldn't ignore. What was supposed to be a routine test turned into the news that I was going to need open heart surgery.

That wasn't something I could put into a tiny little box. Before the surgery, the anesthesiologist came up to me and asked, "Katherine, do you have any questions before we begin?" I said, "No, but I want you to do two things for me. One, make sure I wake up. And two, when I wake up, I want to be neurologically intact. Simple. Just keep me alive and protect my brain." When I woke up, everything was foggy. But then, I heard him. "Katherine, neurologically intact, just like I promised."

I was alive. My heart was beating. But the life that I had known was over. I tried to return to the job I loved after the surgery, but the pain was constant. And every time I tried to perform CPR, I felt it in my own chest. Every compression was a reminder telling me, "You can't go back." And that terrified me. Because being a paramedic wasn't just what I did, it was who I was. And if I wasn't the person running toward the emergency, who was I?

For the first time in my life, I needed to stop surviving long enough to answer that question. And then it hit me. I didn't have to lose the woman I was. I could bring her with me. I could bring everything that made me a great paramedic and just apply it a different way. So naturally, I became a real estate agent. I know. Paramedic to real estate seems like a dramatic career change, but people buy and sell homes during some of the biggest transitions of their lives.

Marriage, divorce, a new baby, and I get to walk into those moments with them. I still listen, bring a calming voice, and help them move forward. I just do it differently now. I used to think that losing my career meant losing myself. I was wrong. I used to think that changing directions meant giving up. I was wrong. We are allowed to take the best parts of ourselves and leave behind the parts that are hurting us. And that is anything but wrong.

I waited until life forced me to change. But reinvention doesn't have to begin with a loss, a diagnosis, or some other moment that leaves you with no other choice. Pay attention to the warning signs. Trust yourself enough to change directions before life changes it for you. And whatever you do, don't yell at the butter. Thank you.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.