Christmas Around The Corner

23rd December (Tuesday) - I went to work with a heavy heart. But worse of all were my eyes. They look like empty hollowed out shells. My friend even commented as we were getting to start shift, "You look awful, are you okay? You're still upset about yesterday are you?" Of course I am, no matter how much I try to be flippant about it, I can somehow still feel it hover above me. But no, I'm not going to dwell about it. No, I won't let those people and their comments knock me down. Profs never complained about me, patients never complained about me, so why brood?
Today is rather surprising. Not many patients, maybe it's due to the fact Christmas eve and the merry day is around the corner. But I assisted prof with an outpatient and it wasn't so bad, until the point where the paeds thermometer went haywire. Lucky he wasn't pissed, but he's annoyed. Then I couldn't find our other thermometer (!!!) and had to resort running like crazy to the next ward. Their thermometer is rather patched up with sellotape but I'll take it as long as it is not acting crazy.Miracles of miracles, it worked, although it doesn't beep but whatever, I reported the findings to the prof, and because to get the right dosage, we needed to get the child's weight. Sweet Lord, the weighing machine ran out of batteries. Aiyee, I rushed the kid to the other side and yes! They have two weighing machine, okay I got her weight reading and ran back to the prof. He's still fuming but at least he didn't bite my head off. He just complained to the TL about how we never checked our equipments properly. Whew, thank God I'm off the hook.
Moving on, there's not much besides in between checking my patients. The one I had trouble with is the Somali patient. His room had some strong odour and he doesn't understand much English. What scares me the most are his eyes. I thought he was wearing sunglasses cause he is blind or something, since the report only said he got a nasal pack in his left that has to be taken off. But he understood me enough that I'm the nurse and he removed his glasses.
SWEET HEAVENS. One of his eye is swollen to the size of a tennis ball and is bloodshot. Oh my God, at least I didn't scream but managed to stay expressionless. But I don't think I'll be able to look at anyone in the eye for a while. Good God, the eye was so swollen to the point where the guy had to push his glasses down to the bridge of his nose like those China accountants in the old days. Poor thing.
Then I met another Somali patient, who is a lecturer, but also a doctor. I don't think he's a medical doctor, more like a phD holder, I think, as he proudly told me, "From the University of Nottingham." Ah, I see. He's a very nice guy, telling me how even though he's a doctor, he feels that he is psychologically depressed because even though he says he looks fine on the outside, the inside he's a mess. I assured him it's a normal thing, the time when I was admitted for dengue last year I was also depressed, with Normal Saline drip plugged into my arm 4 pints a day. No matter whether you are a medical staff or non-medical, the moment you enter hospital. psychologically your mind changes. Look at poor prof who was also admitted for dengue 7 years back. He was also feeling sad even though it was dengue. And as I said many times to patients, doctors are not God, but humans as well. They can also fall sick, get cancer or heart attack. Who says they don't? I found my really old, ancient appointment card from the hospital I was born in and I found an unknown doctor's name scribbled in faded blue ink. When I asked my dad, he said that the doctor passed away from cancer.
On and off, I did small dressings, top up drips, and follow the doctors on their rounds, but really, nothing eventful happened except the patient with terminal cancer had finally passed away yesterday evening. On Winter Solstice. How sad. D: RIP.
The only silver lining from all of the black clouds was finally, finally, I get to meet up with my old friend after a long while. She's still as lovely as ever, how long was it since we last met? I think it was in Chinese New Year. We managed to watch a movie and had dinner together and I gave her some loom bracelets that I made during my spare time, I know it's not really a great gift, but I hope she likes it. I still remember the first time I made my first ever loom bracelet, it was disasterous, but after 2 weeks of looming with the bands and hooking each one, I finally managed to produced decent ones, even adding charms on them. I hope to pick up modelling clay soon. Time to start saving money to get Play-Doh plasticines.

The three loom bracelets that I kept for myself, I already given out some. 

Final Fantasy VIII - Fragments of Memories (Winhill Theme) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2BKtxNPq6k