Four o’clock in the morning

Four o’clock in the morning.
Five hours into the night shift. It has been so stressful.

27.Mar2009

This entry is filed under Doctors and tagged , . There are 15 responses to this post.

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I almost entered a cold war with a nurse (How embarrassingly childish, I know, sigh…).
My hands shook like a wimp when I threaded the ET tube down the bougie into the
lady’s trachea.
I felt like a complete idiot after speaking in circling thoughts to the medical registrar.
I found I had nothing to offer at all, having just certified an old woman dead with her husband
sobbing harder and harder beside. I’ve never even known what to say in these situations.

This is totally not about the grandeur of doctors realizing how little humans can actually do,
But rather how little I know – how unable and how incompetent I am,
And how frighteningly unloving, unjoyful, unpeaceful, impatient, and unkind I can be,
When dealing with all sorts of people, in all sorts of situations, four o’clock in the morning.

In between the days and nights when things are going smoothly and happily,
I really thank God for this realization.

It makes me go back to Him.


–


( 3am in the hospital corridors, on a less eventful night! )

Some things we keep doing

We asked if she smoked. “No,” she answered flatly. “I stopped. A year ago.” A glint of pride in the accomplishment, it seemed, flashed across her face with that reply.

20.Mar2009

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But it was too ironic.

She was definitely not alone. In fact, too many are just like her – smokers for all their lives, who suddenly (and finally), out of their own intentions, quit smoking, only to be hit by a diagnosis of lung cancer shortly after. We see this again and again. Why do so many smokers stop smoking just before they get lung cancer?

Not all admit when asked, but often it is because they could feel that something was going amiss, and so they stopped in alarm. It might be some blood specks coughed up, or some strange weight loss that had worsened – not enough to make them see a doctor immediately, but enough to scare them to think, “Gosh, all my cigarettes may actually kill me one day!!”

But it is already too late; and what is done is done.

It is easy to point at others, but there are some things too – small and big – that we – all of us – keep doing, despite knowing they are wrong. Of course we pay, in the end.

Grandpa passed away

Grandpa passed away on the day I arrived home just before the last Christmas. It was a weird week that followed, beginning my holidays back home after several years overseas.

25.Feb2009

This entry is filed under Miscellany and tagged , , . There are 4 responses to this post.

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Weakly could he still nudge his head when he saw me standing beside his bed that morning, but it was a swift deterioration, and he passed away – so quickly – about nine hours later.

In retrospect, should I have spent more time with him earlier the day? Should I have insisted more strongly for him to be admitted to hospital earlier? I don’t know; in retrospect there will always be many what-if’s and if-only’s. But I’m thankful I arrived home in time when he still had enough consciousness left to recognize me. I know he had always wanted to see me for the years I was away.

In the week that followed with the funeral service and relatives visiting, I realized, too, that there are many things so close, yet not usually talked about.

What other times in our lives do we talk about finding a good and suitable cemetery to buy a spot, in preparation for the future? What other times in our lives are we so open, even in the extended family about life, death and the next generations?

So I suppose I have grown up, my friends are getting married, my parents are soon retiring, and my young cousins now able to walk and talk. The people I have around me – many so very dear – are changing, and will not be around forever. Sometimes this is closer than we think.

Indeed we are all but a mist, that appear for a little while and then vanishes. Yet God has set eternity in the human heart. It amazes me, but I know many avoid the topic.

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