The greenish colour of the sofa, the familiar plasticky feel, the edges of this squarish construct, and the ways my legs know all the sweet spot to put at makes me feel like I have been here in this seat before. Oh yes, 7 years ago when I was holding virgil for granddad.
Its been 3 bloody long hours of waiting for a porter who happens to be some auntie/uncle to come and collect 3 cooler boxes and then down to the blood bank to collect some blood products before I can start the treatment. I was so happy when I saw a middle aged uncle walking in with purpose and ramsacking the cooler box for some forms. He is here and my night can start soon.
But oh god, he went down with 1 cooler box out of 3 provided. It will not be enough to pack the albumins or plasma. I dont even need to think about that, I know for a fact. A fact that escaped him!.
Not so bad I thought, I can still start if he collects the albumin first, the worse thing that can happen is for him to collect the frozen plasma first. And thats what he did, plasma first!
After more waiting, i started at 1.30am.
The ventilator vented at a very constant rate. I was disturbed by it. No one should be dictated to breathe in a pattern and the forcefulness of it gave me a picture of alveolars being stretched to their limits.
I have never been so affected by numbers. Blood pressure numbers. No kidding, it was like a rollarcoaster ride for my heart too, watching the patient's number going up and down. Many times I wanted to escape to the background, to let my senior take over, to ward off uncertainty with my "im still a trainee" shield. But no. I have to stay and weather these waves of uncertainty. I had the trainings, I know how to do it and the only thing left is I have yet to do it myself. So I did it. Bp low, thats because you are removing fluid you dumb ass, of course it will be lower than base. Bp too low and error in flow, check flow, cant solve. Oh shit how sia. Senior can't solve it too, lets make some phonecalls to our guru.
"Did you vent the albumin?" Guru asked with his sagely voice over the phone. Senior eyes lited up, I was still confused.
A needle was all it took to solve the problem, to poke a hole and vent the bottle. A nursing tip and trick which I wouldnt have known since Im not a nurse.
The elasped time on the machine has another meaning in my mind, it means time to go home and sleep. I can manipulate it to shorter or longer but at perils of suffering unknown errors. Its uncharted territory, parameters are mine to adjust and the wise thing to do is go slow and gentle but longer. But my bed, my bed is calling me 15kms away, and my eyelids are heavy. Should I go fast so I can go back to sleep early?
No you idiot, clinical judgment does not factor your sleeping time into it. You dont do fast because you can sleep early, imagine if its someone important to you and an idiot is rushing to finish the treatment. Do you want that?
Of course not. And so I imagined the patient as someone dear, did the treatment within stable limits.
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