Appreciating Ladies

20th December (Saturday) - Same people pulled over to the next shift. As I know the moment I stepped into the ward for work, I get yelled by the same people. No, it's not about my bed-making, but just because while I was doing my report, the girls were asking what to order for lunch and I asked them whether they could get me Indian flat breads, and they snapped at me, "Quit daydreaming and get on with your report. Always dawdling in your work..." Ouch, now that really hurts. I just paused for a minute and get yelled for daydreaming. Fantastic. Silently I went back to writing my report.
To avoid getting yelled by the same people for, how do they put it, daydreaming, dawdling, slowpoke, fool, simpleton, I went to check on my patients. First patient I had was a cute child who was about to be discharged. Super cute little boy. He kept hugging his little bolster and kept dropping it as I was doing his bed. Oh well, just pick it back up for him and left just as his father was giving him milk. When prof called and met with the family for a last discussion, I went to remove the needle. Such a brave boy, he never cried or screamed but looked at me with large curious Bambi eyes. When I removed he just went, "Ohhh, blood. Mommy, blood." After instructing the mother to tilt the hand back and placing thick layers of gauze on top, the bleeding stopped. He insisted on keeping his id band. Ha-ha. So funny. I guess he wanted to keep it as a souvenir. :D
Second patient is the lovely uncle with the same surname as me. The reports that the girls passed over often said that he's a very stubborn old man, but after chatting with him about his meal and taking off his CBD, he turns out to be a very nice man, even if he's loud. He told me how he appreciate ladies, especially his wife, who he points out, "I want to get better soon, so that when I go back, my wife don't have to suffer. She's so small size like you, she can never carry me up and down." Bless him, who would've thought. He said his heart goes out to us young ladies, especially the pregnant ones, when they go through child delivery. I feel the same too, especially last time when I witnessed a few normal delivery and caesarean. Especially caesarean, where I remember this one lady who's crying in pain several time because the epidural needle couldn't get through her spine. The poor lady was crying and screaming in agony, but what can we do? She was having fetal distress at that time. It took the anaesthetist four to five attempts to finally get the needle in. Seriously, he's really devoted to his wife, even when I pulled out his CBD, he bear the agony of the tube being removed because, as he calmly puts it, "Compared to what you ladies are going through, this is nothing."
My third patient is the same patient as well too. A lovely Siamese girl with multiple fractures, but she's looking good compared to the previous week I saw her. She's finally able to ambulate around with assistance, although it's a little hard to talk to her cause sometimes she has difficulty understanding some words, but simple English, she can understand. Ah well, at least she's not making trouble for me.
All of my patients are fractured cases. On and off I do visit the other patients, whom I developed an okay relationship where they enjoyed chatting with me. Even where the prof whose patients I'm assigned to with his many dressings, we did a technique which I dubbed tag-and-go, meaning he has four patients who are all fractured cases, whose dressing he cleans personally while we assist. Since he had three out of four dressings, one nurse will stand by at the counter while another follows him to assist in the dressing. Then the one who finishes the dressing runs to the counter with the changes while the standby nurse takes over the assisting. Once the second nurse is done, she runs to the counter with the changes while the next nurse takes over. Neat, right?
Near the end of my shift, knowing that they'll probably bully me into doing odd jobs, I took the opportunity to remove an outpatient's chemoport needle since daycare had just been closed. I was called a fool and simpleton (here, here), all because I asked the senior girls whether the odd Baxter bottle needs to be kept or thrown. It's not as though I don't know how to take off the chemoport needle. Sigh, they are the type who already had kids, but the way they treat me is like I'm a total airhead or an imbecile. How do they want me to be of use to the prof if they keep treating me like that? There's a limit to how much nonsense I can take.