Hurricane

Hey, hey it's been a bloody while. Hope you guys are still alright.
Let's move right ahead:


I've seen (and washed, ugh..) almost every kind of human body type. Like this



Had my first reanimation two days ago. Wow, never thought it's that exhausting. Been drenched in sweat after a minute or less. The most disturbing part was, that in this specific moment, I looked at the face of the man and thought: Oh jeez.. I am not doing you a favour in any way. It would be the best for him if we would just go and leave him alone. But no, of course not, I mean he was only 53 years old but had lung cancer with a real bad prognosis. Like my colleague D. said:

"They are all victims. Victims of our health system. They are not allowed to die."



Like that other patient we had:
Even at 93 years you are not allowed to die. Not before you had your 12th blood bottle.

Welcome to the end.

The great Austrian empress always blogs delightful stuff. Check it out here and here and here.

I'm working on the new ward since almost two and a half months now. It's still super interesting (I mean, where else do you have conversations like: "Why is there brain on the pillowcase?" "Wait, what?" "Haven't you seen this?" "....Oh FUCK!"), but I really miss my old team.

Plus, I'm really scared to become a cold hearted psychobitch like some of my new colleagues.
I always thought I'm more the cynical, sarcastic one but, hands down, compared to them I am a school girl. No, really.

Today is one of those days (Why always Sunday?!) when I catch myself thinking things like:
"Fuck, it's time to do something, to do something with your life."

I would recommend this song while reading this post. I think it suits it pretty well.

Almost everyday (what do I say: Everyday!) I ask myself why we keep on doing all this... stuff..
Running around like madmen, working our ass off, bla,bla you've got to make a living.. This, that, all that stuff, that keeps us busy. I keep asking myself this question especially when it comes to my work.

What the fuck am I doing here?

A few days ago, something happened, that taught me why I keep on doing this job, even though I hate so many aspects of it.

A young man died at our intensive ward, only eight years older than me, looking like Frankenstein's child with tubes going in, tubes coming out, everything beeping and blinking and a whole lot of stuff going on to keep him alive.
He was not my patient actually but suddenly one of the Docs I like for being pretty reserved but cordially at the same, asked me to come with him, we entered the visitor room and he told the waiting relatives that the man died.

The wife broke down, a girl,  nearly my age. She kept on screaming and crying and I hold her like a child, with her head pressed to my chest, holding her hand.

I don't know how to act professional in situations like this, I never know. I do what I feel mostly.
I cried with her when she said: "Why didn't you jumpstart his heart?" "We did." "Why didn't you give him medicine?" "Look, we did everything that was possible, everything."

My mum had a very nice quote on her blog a few weeks ago, the translation is this:

"In fifty years, it will not matter how much money you've earned, how modern your flat was and what kind of car you've owned. But it could change the world, that we were important in the life of a child."

Maria Montessori

And I think for that reason I keep on doing this. The world will not stop turning because one man died, seven billion people won't even notice.
But maybe, it was important for his wife, that someone was there for her and hold her hand.

Matter of opinion

It's 6 am, we're getting the handover from the colleagues who had night shift, they talk about this and that: Patient X got along better, Patient Y needed more catecholamines... You get the idea.

One colleague talked about her patient, who got a very big surgery because of his cancer, they cut out a piece of his trachea (airway), did a big neck dissection, put parts of his pectoralis over the whole wound area. Really nothing you or me or anyone would want.
He was given artificial respiration, needed lots and lots of pain killer (Quelle surprise..) and my colleague said:

"As I know them (the docs), I think they are going to pull out the snorkel (intensive ward slang for endotracheal tube) as soon as possible, let him awake quick and try to tell him how beautiful life is."

Due to my lack of sleep, tiredness, overdose of caffeine and being overlain by the whole situation atm. I started laughing pretty hysterically.

So viel Leid..

Today a patient died on the intensive ward I'm working at. That happens now and then, people are sick, people die, the world keeps on turning.

But this patient was special to me because I knew him from the cardiology ward.
He liked me, he was the one who wanted to give me ten Euros "because you're nice."
It's different when people die and a few weeks before you laughed and chatted with them, if you know their family etc.
His daughter is just a few years older than I am and really, it broke my heart.
She cried so much, repeating: "Dad, don't go, don't leave me." Over and over and over again.
When I told my colleague that he died he said: "Well.. Finally!" and I replied: "Oh fuck you, that's so mean."

It's part of the circle, to die one day.
But it's never easy and never nice. Dying is always ugly.