North Pacific Ocean | 19.748518 N, -156.244609 W | September 25, 2023

Chloé Easterling is a professional first responder – she has been a paramedic, firefighter, and shipboard medic, and has worked in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and now the North Pacific.

As soon as I met Chloé, I knew I wanted to hear her story.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of engaging in many soulful chats with Chloé. While some details of her work have been omitted for security reasons, her stories are no less captivating.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading excerpts from some of our conversations below.

MLP: How and when did you decide to become a paramedic?

CE: I originally wanted to be a lawyer. But when I was 15-years-old, I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. To treat it, doctors gave me a mild form of chemotherapy designed to treat immune system cancers. It wasn’t as intense as full-blown chemo, but it was still draining. I literally couldn’t walk some days. I almost didn’t graduate from high school because I missed so much of my senior year.

During my second treatment, I went into anaphylactic shock. When I woke up, my hands were blue, and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like something heavy was sitting on my chest. But I had this nurse named Jamie. As soon as I saw Jamie’s face, I knew I would be okay. I knew I would be safe. She had this calming presence.

Jamie made me want to pay it forward. I wanted to be the face that someone would see in their time of crisis. I wanted to be able to provide the same hope that Jamie gave me.

MLP: Tell me about the first time you left the United States.

CE: In 2018, when I was 28-years-old, I got on an airplane for the first time in my life. I flew from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Houston, Texas, then to Dubai, then to Kandahar, Afghanistan. Before that trip, I had never even been inside an airport.

I was working for Remote Medical International, a private company that had been contracted by the U.S. air force base in Kandahar. I spent almost a year there. As a girl from Small Town, USA, it was my first dose of real culture. I was interacting with Kenyans, Indians, and Afghans on a daily basis.

It taught me a lot about resilience. In the book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes you can let fear sit with you, but you tell it to get in the back seat. I told my fear to get in the fucking trunk.

MLP: Can you tell me about your experiences working in a refugee camp for displaced Afghans?

CE: Imagine you had four hours to go home and fill a single backpack with everything you might need, your most precious possessions, pictures, everything – these people showed up with a single backpack. It was heart-wrenching. I was just there to provide medical care. But it’s so much more than that.

You see people stripped from their homes and their lives, their families, their businesses, their cars, everything. All of it is gone – never to be seen again. I can’t imagine being forced to uproot my life like that. The amount of heartbreak, the amount of grief that each one of those people was feeling – it was hard to see and hard to feel. I worked there for five months.

MLP: How did you get through each day? Being surrounded by so much grief and heartbreak?

CE: You want to be the bright light. You’re trying to provide healthcare, but you know you’re not able to provide everything they need. You’re trying to evaluate people and be uplifting.

I’ll never forget the amount of gratitude that all the Afghans showed – they were going through the worst period of their lives, yet they would say things like, “thank you for everything, I’m praying for you and your family as well.”

**Be the light:** Chloé has certainly been a bright light for me (and many others) during this expedition.

MLP: And now you’re working on a ship in the Pacific Ocean. How did you go from conflict zones to seafaring?

CE: After working in the refugee camp, I needed a break. A former colleague of mine looped me into this world. This is actually my first official deep-sea expedition.

I like it, but it’s challenging. Getting seasick and then taking care of other people going through the same thing – it’s almost comical. On one of the first days, I went to vomit, brushed my teeth, then I came out to the clinic – trying to be the bright, professional medic – and started handing out meclizine to other people who were seasick.

MLP: I’ve been fascinated by the mentality and work ethic of first-responders ever since I completed my Wilderness First Responder training in 2019. But training scenarios are a far cry from real life. What do you think is the most challenging aspect of being a first-responder?

CE: A lot of first-responders and military live by the motto, if not me, then who?

You’re the calm in the storm. You’re the one making it safe for everyone else. You’re the strong, stable point in the chaos.

But it often feels like you can never do enough. There is always that one patient who doesn’t make it, or that one call that goes wrong despite all your best efforts. You look back and think I could have done more.

You have to find the off switch in your brain. You have to accept it somehow. You have to learn how to forgive yourself for not being able to save everyone. I think that’s one of the hardest things that any first-responder will ever have to do.

MLP: Figure it out as you go has been one of my mantras since I quit my job in 2018. It seems like you’ve been practicing that mentality a bit too. What do you see yourself doing in the future?

CE: I want to provide for the providers. First-responders need to know it’s okay to accept help.

I want to teach people how to invest energy back into themselves after they have given so much to other people. I’m getting back into studying music theory because I want to compose my own music for yoga therapy. I want to create the whole vibe – the music, voice-overs, and yoga sequences.

MLP: How do you cultivate resilience?

CE: Damn. That’s a tough one. Let’s see… the definition of “resilience” is the capacity to withstand or recover quickly. So, your ability to rebound.

I think a lot of my resilience these days comes from pre-planning. Like, if I know I’m about to go on this expedition, that means I need to do more self-care now. I’m going to take extra time for myself beforehand.

MLP: Yeah, I do that too. Are you familiar with Desiderata?

CE: No, what’s that?

MLP: I’ll send it to you. But there’s a line in it that has always stuck with me. It says nurture strength of spirit to shield you in times of sudden misfortune.

Not that expedition work is full of “sudden misfortune”, but it’s definitely challenging, and exhausting at times…

CE: Yeah, it’s just knowing that you’re going to be faced with difficulties. And also recognizing the worst could happen – like if someone was critically injured out here – I would have enough confidence and wherewithal to know I can do my job and do it well.

MLP: How do you engage in self-care when you’re living and working in an extreme environment?

CE: That was one of the biggest lessons I learned between Afghanistan and Iraq – knowing how to nurture myself and care for myself. In Afghanistan, I leaned on my colleagues for support. But Iraq was extremely hectic and heavy – and I had to look more inward to gain a sense of security and stability. Realigning my body. Focusing on my breath. Using all the tools in my toolbox.

In the end, practicing self-care along with accepting support from your teammates is the best combination.

I mean, look at us. Independent women with non-traditional careers have to stick together. Otherwise, it can get really fucking lonely.

MLP: Amen, sister. Earlier this summer, when I was working on another ship, an intern approached me and asked “Marley, what wisdom do you have to share with me?” So, Chloé, I’ll pose the same question to you: what wisdom do you have to share with young women who might want to pursue a non-traditional path?

CE: Just do it. Anchor into your own intuition. Tell fear to get in the fucking trunk! If you don’t, there will be lingering questions that can drive you crazy. I forget who said it, but the pain of regret trumps any kind of fear.

Someone reading this might be wondering, “is my idea actually going to work?” Maybe they’re wondering if they should go along with the expectations of their family and friends.

Don’t settle. Don’t ever settle.

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Don't Settle