'Psycho' Patients

22nd October (Wednesday) - Few days of skipping posts... That's because my net has gone bonkers again. Sigh, I really think I should start saving my salary for a good internet plan (Any recommendations for a good internet plan are always welcome). Okay, today's Deepavali, but I still have to work. No matter, I get to claim one PH for working today. It's my motivation for working besides the mo-neh and learning.
Okay, I was shifted to the other ward because...there's only three staffs working there with eight patients, while some other staffs had been given day offs. To get me going, I brought tons of Horlicks (malt-flavoured) drinks that I received from the kind uncle after that time I nearly fainted in his room due to my gastric attacks. I was sorry I couldn't thank his wife in person because she was the one who kindly reminded me and insisted that I take the Horlicks packets so that I can keep myself going because I was at the other side, but I will definitely find a way to thank her in person once I go back there.
To start things off, eight patients seems like a piece of cake, right? Bzzzt. Wrong. A few of the patients... to politely use the term, whacked. My colleagues on insisting using the term 'psycho', but I'll say it's difficult. To begin with, the moment I just stepped foot to start work, all the bells start ringing. Seriously, three to four bells ringing at the same time. I joked that the patients all probably have telepathy and they stimultaneously press the bell together. One of my colleague answered they probably know that it's after two, so riiing. Off to handle their requests.
Remember the Residual Urine Passing Urine (RUPU) I did long time ago with a senior guidance? Apparently it's not a clean procedure, it's a STERILE procedure. Oh... I managed to do it, but I'm going to need tons of practice for this. At least I poked the catheter in the right hole. Back in my student days, I've seen some people poking the catheter into the wrong hole. Seriously, I'm going to keep my mouth close about who was it but I was so traumatized til I armed myself with a torchlight just to make sure I'm seeing the right hole. That was a very close call, although not much urine came out because the patient isn't drinking much.
Then I had to attend to lots of old Chinese ladies whom are all...shall we say, sarcastic, just because I couldn't speak Cantonese, but I'm able to understand, and they were all like, "You can't speak Cantonese? How sad, and you're Malaysian." Well, I'm able to speak Mandarin, geez. One of them even commented that my Mandarin sounded fake because of my 'accent'. I was raised in English-speaking first before going over to Mandarin, and they all went, "No wonder your Mandarin sounded weird." Should I take it as an insult or compliment? I say both.
Then apparently there's this lady who had stayed for nearly a month at that ward (wow, nearly the equivalent of our uncle, except uncle's been there for already two month plus) and she's well, again, a little whacked. She claimed that she has press the bell tons of times but nobody came to attend her and she was ready to breathe fire at us. So one of the senior staff tried pressing the bell and took a peek at outside...And nothing pops out. Her call bell's been spoiled. Well. we apologized to her and she cooled down, but even so... One lady who stayed opposite is a little...pampered, she often shrieks at the tiniest bit of pains and I have to force myself to politely assured her I'm going as slow as I can. She's not drinking well and every time her line needs to be flushed. If she doesn't let me put up the drip and open the line, she won't be getting anything into her system and I'm going to get a bullocking from prof himself.
Then after having dinner, I have to do an aspiration for an old lady. Now aspiration's is my first time but it's simple. It's just like feeding, except instead of feeding, you just aspirate. So, I equipped myself with a kidney dish, glove, the 50cc syringe is already in the patient's room. Ready and syringe out!
1st round, 60cc. Coffee ground. 2nd round, 60cc. Coffee ground. 3rd round, 60cc. Coffee ground. (Getting really worried here!) 4th Round, 60cc. Coffee ground. (Families are getting worried while I bit my lip and kept aspirating) 5th Round, 60cc. Coffee ground. (Oh my Lord, this is getting out of hand!) 6th Round, 53cc. (Finally! Some resistance.) Put all the total together and it makes a whopping grand total of 353cc coffee ground!!! Congrats, I just broke the record, previously held by 280cc.
NG Feeding and PEG Feeding. Now I'm introduced to JJ stent Feeding. This is through the JJ stent with a help of the kangaroo pump. You mix the milk and everything like normal, but instead of the jug, you mix everything and then separate them into two bags, one for flushing, one for feeding, then just follow the instructions, hit the auto flush, connect and voila.
I followed a prof who's mainly based in Emergency Medicines. He seems nice at first sight, but he asks tons of things. I remembered talking to him on the phone once, I had to drag the nursing care plan folder in front of me, and the entire patient's folder with me just so I could answer every single one of his questions. Crikey, he's real scary although he looks nice on the outside. And his patient is that lady. Before entering, I was praying very hard to heaven that she don't go and bad-mouth us to the prof about how we never attend to her when she needs help. Luckily, she did not say any of that and just answered nicely to the prof. Whew. Close call.