21.06.10

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen...







I am looking SO forward to it!

19.06.10

A new day was dawning..

I don't know if you guys ever felt so unbelieveably relieved when you left your work, the sun was rising and all you could think of was leaving.

The night from Thursday to Friday was officially the worst in my whole life.

We started working at 8:30pm, the late shift told us that one old female died at 7:25pm.
So there is this rule that people who have died, have to stay at the ward for two hours afterwards
(I'm not sure why, maybe because the nurses are afraid they could wake up somehow?).
Anyway at 9:00pm we started our tour to see every patient, to see if everything is alright.
The ward I am working at right now, is right in front of the Intensive Care Station.
One of the docs and two people came out, the nurse I was working with said: "Oh dear, something happened.."
And she was right, the woman was crying so much, she really broke down. The man tried to hold her but looked shocked and unable to realise what was going on.
The doctor continued talking to them calm and carefully.
The mother of the woman died after an actually easy surgery all of a sudden.

So when P. and I continued our tour we entered the room of an old female patient who sufferes from dementia.
She was pretty confused and asked what was wrong with her roommate.

The late shift left her all alone with the dead woman.
I am serious.
They left this confused woman in a room with a closed door, closed windows (you can't imagine the smell in this room, I swear, my stomache turned upside down immediately) and a deaed woman whose back was covered in feces, who had yellow slime dripping out of her mouth and all they did was throwing an blanket over her head.

P. and I were shocked. We grabbed the bed with the dead lady and put it in an empty room.
Just imagine what would have happened if relatives would have visited the other lady?
Why did the late shift leave her in there?

We went on, pretty shocked.
One male patient who obviously was suffering from dementia too, grabbed into his pants and smeared his shit all over his legs, into the bed, grabbed tissues and placed them on the nightshelf...
Dear God..
We were busy cleaning him, the bed and everything for almost an hour and then I told him:
"Call us, if you need to go to the toilet. Please, please call us. Don't try to do anything on your own."

At 00:00 the main night watch came and said: "I need you to take the corpse to the charnel house with me."
I was insecure: "I've never been there before.."
"But I can't take her there alone."
So I grabbed gloves and moved the dead lady from the bed to the stretcher with P.
The smell, the postmortem lividity, the cold skin.. I started shaking and could hardly control myself.
We brought her down to the charnel house and I was shocked:
The charnel house of our hospital (which I've never seen before) looks like the grubby dump of a slaughterhouse.
It's the most horrible place I've ever seen.

When I was back at the ward F. came to me (she had night shift too) and said: "Tiny, why didn't you tell me that you've never been there before, I would have gone there for you!"
She's so cute and caring.

At the very end of our shift the above mentioned male patient covered everything  in feces again.
P. and I cleaned him, threw away the bed sheets, seriously you couldn't save them and both had tears in our eyes because we were so dead beat and exhausted.

I left the hospital at 5:45 and I swear, never before I felt the wish to never ever return there.

18.06.10

Link love

I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay."
-Madonna

Haha, Madonna is actually not my type of idol but this quote says it all.

Things to do and not to do when you are burned out

I came out to my anti-gay family. The only problem is: I'm straight um.. WOW!

Vintage style wedding, I like picture number 12 the most!

A spine necklace - How cool is this?

Shimmer Like Gold amazes me everytime! This collection of magical tents is so awesome, I would totally move in!

16.06.10

Second night

I had my second night shift yesterday. (Pictures will follow of course!)
I was luckily not so tired like yesterday but damn, this is exhausting..
There was an old lady, suffering slightly from dementia and her pants were wet.
So I opened her pants to help her change into something dry.
Suddenly she said: "No, there's more urine to come!", touched her genital area and then bare my arm!!!

...

Seriously. I was shocked and then disgusted.
Very disgusted.
I finished changing her clothes,went out, cursed a little on the empty hallway and then washed my arm pretty detailed.

The nurse I worked with and I were sitting in the bureau later and prepared the drugs for the next day when suddenly a voice said: "Tiny, can you come out for a minute?"
I heard it was F. but she sounded weird so N. and I jumped up and stepped outside quickly when suddenly F. jumped in front of me.
She was dressed in like a patient but with a surgical mask (with Joker like lipstick on), gloves and a cap with a red cross on (made out of a surgical mask).

:D I almost had a stroke because I was so scared (N. also)

So, I got up 45 minutes ago (I slept from 5:54 to 8:30 and then from 12:30 to 3:00)
and I am curious how the third night will be.

Stay tuned!

11.06.10

View from my parent's garden

Picture taken by Tiny (2010)

Link love

You are not so smart. Interesting!


Magnitka from Sasha Aleksandrov on Vimeo.

Not sure about this: *click*

Lifeblood via Street Anatomy



Um... WOW! Like the song too.

Walpurgisnacht  I wanna make one so bad!

"I'm Helene"

Yesterday I entered the room of an old female patient to do the intake with her.
I smiled, gave her my hand and said: "Hello, I'm Tiny."
She shook it firmly and said: "And I'm Helene."
I thought she was a resolute old lady.
But when we talked about her previous illnesses she told me, that she was already a patient at our psychiatry.
Obviously I looked questioningly so she continued: "I've been there 30 years before when my mother died and only 4 months later my only child, my daughter died.
I always said that my mother took her away. This is her!"

She had a black/white picture of a smiling young girl with glasses on her bed table.

I was pretty shocked and did not know what to say so all I could was "A pretty girl."
I always feel so helpless when patients tell me something so intimate.
I don't have enough time to talk to them until they feel better but it's so inappropriate to say:
"Well... I'm very sorry your husband died yesterday but could you tell me if you have eupepsia?"

So what to do?

08.06.10

Random pics I made

All pics taken by Tiny (2010)

06.06.10

Little burned out?

We have this female patient right now who really really drives me nuts.
She is sick, right, but she bullies the 97 year old super cute other female patient in this room, she screams at us nurses (since every patient calls me so I'm fine with it...thehe) and throws with things (Food, pillows, used vomit bowls!!

Since I get along with Nurse I. at the new ward pretty great I begged her this morning jokingly:
"Please I., I would rather wash every high-maintenance patient at this ward all by myself than washing only this one patient.." I. laughed and took pity on me.

Sometimes I get the feeling that some of the patients are bored and therefore invent little games to drive the nurses crazy.

We have a highly obese female patient who is not able to clean her backside after using the toilet (even though she lives at home on her own - how is that possible?!) and everytime she used the toilet she always smiles in this bitchy way and sings: "I made poopoo again!"
I could seriously shake her.

Everytime something like this happens I try to imagine a cute little monkey which sings "Papa Noah" by Seeed.
Don't ask me why :D

Only a few more weeks until vacation..

04.06.10

Link love

George Eliot

When you are dreaming I made the title up - the pic is by Sofia Ajram and I loooove it!

WHOA! Want!! By lebeanockstudio


How to do: Light Stencils So cool!

Living machines


Abandoned Russian brain lab

02.06.10

Zeche Zollverein

All pics taken by Tiny (2010)