Purify.

Working in a hospital sometimes makes people incredibly OCD. Washing hands, for example.

Now, when I wash my hands, I literally have to stand at the sink and clean everything from between my fingers to the webby parts between the thumb and index finger, give a good scrub under the nails (infections, people!) and then the wrists. For my occasionally more deluded days, I wash up to my elbows. And then I take 5 paper towels and dry my hands. I try and forget the fact that trees are dying and I comfort myself with the also true fact that wet hands spread infection. And we don't want that, do we?

Washing hands is a cathartic experience for me. Its very stress relieving, whether its cold water or warm water or boiling hot water running over my hands. It reminds me that no matter what I touch today, no matter what has gone wrong, I can stand at the sink at the end of the day and clean it off me. A squirt of soap, lather, rinse, and repeat if I feel I still need to get rid of the feeling of being unclean.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Almost hypnotic to a point, really.

I can stand there and imagine these hands, my tools of my trade and I wash them. They've done so many things for so many people today. They've held tissues, patted backs, shook hands, written notes, held stethoscopes, pressed machine buttons, suctioned bloodstained mucus out of throats and mouths, lifted people, all that. And at the end of it all, my hands stink slightly of everything I've touched. I have to clean it.

Friend of mine who's doing dentistry once told me that to wash your hands effectively, it needs to be cleaned for over 30 seconds. And the only way to make sure this is done well is to sing "Happy Birthday" twice.

So now when I wash my hands, I imagine a Marilyn Monroe singing a seductive "Happy Birthday" song to President Kennedy and I play that soundtrack twice. And then I turn off the tap with my elbow and dry my hands upon scratchy paper towels.

And I've washed away the stress and the unhappiness and the gloom of the day. I leave it all behind and I leave the hospital hopefully with a lighter heart but definitely cleaner hands.

I'm not the cleanest person. People who know me can testify to that. But at least in one aspect of my life, I have control over something.

At the end of the road.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir, your flight has been cancelled due to engineering issues. Would you like to reschedule?”

So that’s what I get when I come up to the check in counter at the airport. Quite unexpected and worst of all, the only thing I could really care about was the fact that I couldn’t get to work in time tomorrow.

So due to this unforeseen incident, I’m going to be staying in a hotel in the City of Sails and then flying back down to Wangy tomorrow morning.

I was slightly nervous earlier when I found out that my flight was cancelled and that staff weren’t too happy with me NOT coming back to work today. For some reason, everyone thinks I was supposed to be back today. Hell is going to break loose.

Park Bench Conversation.

She sat next to me on the park bench and we both did not say a word.

"Cold, isn't it?"

Sure is.

Just me and her, on the park bench, as we stared at our books or at our laptops or at the people walking in front of us. Watching life walk past us.

"How's your day?"

It was all right. Just the usual. You know, the usual jerks and perks.

"Oh yeah."

It was her and me, sitting on the park bench as the sun started to fade and the wind started to blow. She shivered and blew into her cupped hands and tucked them deep into her pockets.

Sure is a cold day.

"You betcha."

Only me and her, in our existing universe, wanting so bad to exist, to be someone. To be something. Something more meaningful than just another passerby.

I huddled deep into the upturned collars of my jacket and looked down at the fallen leaves that twirled and played footsie with my worn out shoes. The scarf fluttered in the dying breeze. There were less people on the footpath now.

Hey, um...

"Yeah?"

You wanna grab a coffee?

"Only if its a mocha."

And only if I can pick up the tab.

"Deal."

As we stood up and headed towards the gleaming lights, she linked her hand with mine and leaned her head on my shoulder.

"Gloria sorry."

Kissing her nose, I smiled. She smiled back.

I know. Moto moto sorry too.

And we walked in our silence to the promised warmth of coffee.

So I got reviewed...

And I didn't get my back passage ripped apart. Contrary to to the blog title...

 

Fricking loved the review, Fr Gene.

 

For all you who want to know how the blog copped it, click here.

 

Lalalalalalalala...

 

Mondays are such a drag

Its really nothing to brag

But I feel like a dumb handbag

Oh shut up, you laughing hag

 

Love,
P

Just so I can use up my pictures.

So I attended my first ballroom dance competition.

And managed to place in a few dances.

And..

Marvelled at the wonders of Creation and the Creator outside work one day.

And found a comforting bit of home in a little box of rubber tubing in the physiotherapy department.

Numbed.

You know you’ve become immune when you start to view patients as beds to be emptied or by their sickness (The acute renal failure in room 8, anyone?)

You know you’ve become used to it when the smell of shit does not make you wrinkle your nose anymore. Or you can look at wrinkled, fragile skin that tears with a simple graze. Or look at catheters and smell infected urine without blinking or registering how it reeks. All you know is that “there’s a urinary tract infection, people…”

You know that you’ve trained yourself to become fully deaf when a phone can ring and you can somehow block it out so that all you hear is a silent nothing. Just so that you can do your paperwork without interruptions.

You know you’ve morphed to be able to handle the wards somewhat when you walk in, look at the board and all the lists of discharges and new patients, grunt, and take out your highlighters. It’s going to be a long day, boy, its going to be a long day.

You know you’re known to the ward when you know each nurse by name and voice. Or you can spot them down 50 metres of corridor and just by the way they walk, you can tell who they are. And with a fleeting glance at the patient boards, you know exactly where each nurse will be.

You know exactly where you hid that last walking frame so the nurses won’t go and send them back down to the Loans department. And you know where to get that elusive form for patients to fill out when they go to rehab ward. You know patient 4B needs an a$$-kicking to get out of bed, patient 8 is genuinely weak, and patient 6C just wants to go home to take care of her blind, stroke-ridden husband who is missing her like crazy and thus, will climb the ceiling upside down if you tell her to just so she can be discharged.

***

No, I’m not quite like that yet. Although I’m quickly approaching that point and that scares the fsck out of me.

I guess I’m becoming used to this job. Its all right. I’m not exactly jumping around yoohoo-ing about it but hey, it pays the bills and for that, I can’t really complain. 

But I still honestly think that I’ll never really last a lifetime in this job. I think that life is too fickle, too full of energy that I’ll find myself somewhere else soon.

***

A few days ago, I kinda surprised myself when I was talking to the Pharmacist about some of the patients and how old they are and how I didn’t want to be like them. And then this statement.

“I’m not going to bother to get to that age. I’m going to kill myself when I’m 40. I’m halfway there.”

That kinda stopped me in my tracks a little. Just a little.

Eye of the Storm

Funny.

I'm currently on a fast. And this is probably my most successful one yet. I'm not feeling as hungry although I was feeling kind of tired this morning. But apart from that, I'm feeling okay. Not exactly hungry either which is a good thing, I reckon.

All I've drunk at the moment is water. I did take my multivitamin but apart from that, nothing has gone through my system.

It is addictive, for some reason. I feel good, a bit more alive although today was honestly such a drag. I might end up doing the fast on a weekend rather than on a weekday. They're right after all. Brain work is exhausting when you've no blood glucose.

Although its funny. Having studied biochemistry (or what I remember of it anyway), it says that the body turns to fat stores then turns to muscle for energy sources? Really? But if I'm not mistaken, isn't triglyceride molecules so much harder to break down compared to amino acids which just takes a removal of a NH2 component?

If anyone stumbles across this, they can help me figure this out.

But then again, looking at the signs, its looking pretty promising. Increased efficiency in fat burning, increased growth hormone production (hello, testosterone!) and ooh la la...more muscle!

We'll see how it works out. But for the moment, I really have to ignore the stomach calling out for dinner.

Strength.

Lord, won't You give me strength
To make it through somehow
I've never been more homesick than now.

Homesick, MercyMe.

 

Sometimes, you get driven to the edge of insanity. No bungy cord, no safety rope, no high wires or safety net. You're pushed over the edge.

 

And you're expected to catch yourself on the precipice and make things happen. Make life happen. Clear people out one by one with feats of strength and determination and persistence.

 

And you don't say anything. Because you think to yourself that this job is bigger than you are. It's more than what you think. Its more than whatever you're doing up there. Its wayy bigger and more infinite than a lot of things that you think about yourself.

 

A bit like God, really. And when you want to wonder why and your lips form the questions you've been dying to ask, you get given the answer, "His Ways are higher than ours."

 

Fsck the ways. Sometimes, what is required is an explanation, not a demonstration.

Nice.

"It's nice that people can get together when they don't have anyone else."

 

Harper,

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

 

It sure is, isn't it.

Breathless.

Sometimes, medical terms and little things like getting people out of bed make me feel like I want to make my head explode. On purpose.

In other interesting news, I wonder how strict/pushy/annoying I can be to patients who're just so bloody damn rude to me? I guess, after all, if they can be a jackass, I can be just as bad. Or as rude. Or shall I just take it all down with a huge shot of morphine.

 

The morphine is actually pretty tempting.

 

But then, so is the look of surprise when I tell them what I really think of them.

 

But then again, do I really want to be fired so soon into the job?

 

Makes ballroom looks like a dream, doesn't it?

The meaning of it.

Sometimes, I honestly think I'm not really cut out for hospital work. I do not have enough empathy, sympathy, all the "-thy"s in the world to cope with the world of the sick. But I am in this business and I guess that I have to make it count and make it work, perhaps.

 

So many people are sick everyday. So many people come in, get treated, go out walking or in a bodybag. And then I move on to the next one.

 

Sometimes, I wish I can become desensitized to some of the things I hear. Or see. Or smell. That I can just put them out of my mind with a snap of the fingers, as if people could appear and disappear like magic.

 

But no, they can't. The reality is that they are all too real. With too many problems.

 

Acute renal failure, chronic heart failure, myocardial infarctions, bowel cancer, malaena, haemoptysis, leptospirosis, pyrexia, pneumonia, underwater seal drains, confusion, dementia, personality disorders. They just keep flying in my face and I feel as though I'm some kind of clerk, sorting things out into different boxes and trying to place them all in the right spots in the right order and time and honestly? 24 hours is just a little too short, God. Honestly. I can stay back and work more but its unpaid and unappreciated and after all, I guess what really matters is that they get home and they get home safe, isn't it?

 

What does it matter? What does it matter that I don't like my job and perhaps, its bloody obvious that I don't like it but I do it for the bills or for my dance addictions or for the fact that one day, I can discard the stethoscope and uniform and the names of drugs and muscles and wheelchairs and mobility aids and referral forms and instead, put on a shirt, a pair of trousers, and lace on my dancing shoes. Or decadently don my first tailcoat suit, lace up the patent shoelaces and head off to my who-cares-how-many-I've-done dance competition.

 

DanceMentor mentions that a new tailored tailcoat suit costs about a cool $1500. I'm thinking, "That's exactly how much I have in my account at the moment, not counting my savings or my loan repayments. Ah, who cares, I'm just going to starve anyway.

 

Its interesting, really. This place. Coming to work and treating the ill and leaving. Some are grateful for the assistance. Some just can't give a flying fsck. Some are more than likely to bite your head off rather than walk for you. But this is human life, is it not?

 

I sometimes wonder what will happen if one day, I just didn't turn up to work. And then never show up after that. So what if Mr So and So kicked the bucket. Someone will step in. Someone will step up.

 

Its just not going to be me.

 

Is it just me or is it only me that sees the wonder of dance as it truly truly is?

 

Or maybe its just all in my head. That the real world is out there and I'm just standing on the fringe, dancing to music only I can hear, masquerading by night, disguised by day.