All of us take snapshots of times and memories they hold dear in their hearts and treasure them in their albums and folders .However ,for me the most precious memories are very often not photographed.It is those times when I have felt a deep joy in my heart.I had one such moment just the other night.The emergency the past few days have been beyond mad.It is a continuos process of engagement with very sick people for thirteen hours straight with a small break for lunch if one can help it.
I was doing the post-take rounds with one of the consultants .We had some sick people ,but we also had to keep the line moving with discharging as much patients as possible so that we had beds for the sick ones.
In all the confusion ,I had some job trying to trace one of our sick patients who had been moved to another ward.After doing the rounds of three wards I was mighty glad to trace the patient and was examining him and writing up the prescriptions when i heard a gibberish yodel from another part of the ward.It caught my attention allright as of all the other patients and the bystanders.I thought I was being teased.That was when I realised it was a patient I had clerked in some two days earlier in the A and E.
He had bilateral knee amputation with a long term catheter.The catheter was full of pus and he was non-responsive by the time he was brought to us with sepsis,AKI and dehydration.With a few bags of fluid in ,he improved quite dramatically.He improved enough to let my colleague know that 'I was a good girl!'.
I was extremely touched to realise that he was trying to let me know that he was in that ward....with spit drooling from the sides of his mouth...weighing around a hundred kgs,it was a feat trying to make him a little more comfortable...no help was at hand,everyone working beyond their capacity..I tried one way or the other to push him till he was mildly comfortable.He kept reiterating I was too small,and would not be able to do it,he was comfortable enough.
Working around Christmas and New Year has actually taken me by surprise.Apart from the fact that everyone seems to be complaining about the sheer magnitude of patients that have come in very sick through the emergency door, I have been surprised and touched by the sheer grit and goodness of the human spirit,in some of my colleagies who have been working very hard,the relatives who have stood by their loved ones through the long wait ,the patients themselves,very sick but even in their sickness being the best they possibly can.
These are the snap-shots I would like to carry with me.
I was doing the post-take rounds with one of the consultants .We had some sick people ,but we also had to keep the line moving with discharging as much patients as possible so that we had beds for the sick ones.
In all the confusion ,I had some job trying to trace one of our sick patients who had been moved to another ward.After doing the rounds of three wards I was mighty glad to trace the patient and was examining him and writing up the prescriptions when i heard a gibberish yodel from another part of the ward.It caught my attention allright as of all the other patients and the bystanders.I thought I was being teased.That was when I realised it was a patient I had clerked in some two days earlier in the A and E.
He had bilateral knee amputation with a long term catheter.The catheter was full of pus and he was non-responsive by the time he was brought to us with sepsis,AKI and dehydration.With a few bags of fluid in ,he improved quite dramatically.He improved enough to let my colleague know that 'I was a good girl!'.
I was extremely touched to realise that he was trying to let me know that he was in that ward....with spit drooling from the sides of his mouth...weighing around a hundred kgs,it was a feat trying to make him a little more comfortable...no help was at hand,everyone working beyond their capacity..I tried one way or the other to push him till he was mildly comfortable.He kept reiterating I was too small,and would not be able to do it,he was comfortable enough.
Working around Christmas and New Year has actually taken me by surprise.Apart from the fact that everyone seems to be complaining about the sheer magnitude of patients that have come in very sick through the emergency door, I have been surprised and touched by the sheer grit and goodness of the human spirit,in some of my colleagies who have been working very hard,the relatives who have stood by their loved ones through the long wait ,the patients themselves,very sick but even in their sickness being the best they possibly can.
These are the snap-shots I would like to carry with me.
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