on a sleepless night.
Spent a day at work, with a dripping nose and a freaking headache. Changed like half a dozen mask cos it kept getting wet from the disgusting fluids that just kept coming out.
And being the paranoid person that I am, I recall the portable case one week ago where I managed stupidly to get some fluid splurting onto my face when the nurse detached the ETT accidentally from a pneumonia patient in ICU when we were positioning for a CXR.
or maybe its just the usual sinusitis/allergy problem. heh.
now, im awake in the middle of the night, with a freaking headache with nothing to do except dishing out complaints here.
Paracetamol, work your magic!
Angels in disguise II
Luckily for me, I am still a lucky person.
Time really flies, one moment I was fretting over taking the first step into the working world. Then, I was angry at why things are always so unfair. After this, it got a bit disappointing. And now, I’m just optimistic about work.
Can’t really say that I’m really into work now, cos somehow I feel that there are certain parts of the working life that you can never agree with and will never get used to. I am inclined to believe that there are things which you stick to with determination, but authority and standardisations exists in an organisation, which of course is necessary but it just sucks in some parts really.
But there are always angels in the world that we live in, disguised and somehow appearing when they need to.
The rubbery-faced malay phototech who always flashes his toothless grin during work at me. Most of the time i dont catch what he is saying, so we end up laughing and talking rubbish. Even though uncle is not good at saying the appropriate things, but when a complaint got me down, he was the first one to brush it off with a disgruntled face. Then he went on to scold the other party, saying if they are so free to complain, why don’t they help out instead. Another one of our staff nurses even told me to forget about it, almost everyone new in the dept has gotten a complaint before. Then went on to say, all of us are fated to lead “salted vegetable” life. A senior gave me loads of encouragement even though he was still bogged down with cases to clear. Another one even apologised to me, which i tot was uncalled for. He had tried to speak up for me stating that I was a newbie, therefore the bottleneck that we saw in the dept that day. But he didn’t realise that I had a resus and a couple of portables that day.
A patient for CT was already lying on the table, and he even expressed concern for us, saying that we are really very busy. and even said that it was bad that we don’t have time for lunch even sometimes.
Another patient who came in at the wee hours of the morning, someone whom i only took a chest xray of, handed me 2 cups of soya bean from the canteen in the morning while me and my phototech were on our way to the icu for portables. He was full of thanks even though we didn’t do much for him. I was pleasantly touched and thanked him for his offer. I brot the soya bean up and gave it to a malay aunty who was keeping watch outside the icu over her husband who just got admitted, since i couldnt bring it in. But i was very touched by his act of kindness still.
The best one came that day, when i was returning home from a night shift in the morning. While i was walking down the garden path towards the busstop, one of the malay cleaners smiled at me, and asked me if i was gg home. He then turned and smiled again, and told me to take care. All these while he was still holding the broom, sweeping away the dead leaves beside the little fountain.
It was really surprising, that the words which came from the person who made the most impact, is not the patient himself, but one of our cleaners. But it really proved a point. Anybody, can make a difference in someone’s life.
I’m glad he did.
