Taken by Tiny, 2013

Oh my.. The XX, Bastille, TLC & Rihanna in one song, but it's gorgeous!

Music makes me happy

All of these songs make me wanna dance instantly, of course singing along loud and horrible, comme toujours!

But this song:



touches me so much and makes me shiver.

Unfinished post

A while ago I wrote the beginning of a blog post, it seemed to be the winter two years ago I suppose but unfortunately I did not finish it and I don't remember the situation. So we will never know what exactly I replied.
This is the post:

One of the guys who drives the patients from the ward to all the different examinations seemed to be in a pretty good mood. I wanted to pick a patient up at the intensive ward and said:
"Oh, wait a minute, I'm just getting a jacket, otherwise I'll freeze my ass off."
and he replied:
"Well.. With me, you don't need a jacket. The ride will be hot enough."
With made me look kinda like this: O.o" ...
and I said:
"

Never gets old.

Letters

I read the book "99 francs" by Frédéric Beigbeder a few years ago and there was one special sentence main character Octave said in the book.

It was something like:
"People commit suicide because they only have outstanding balances in the mail.
No one writes real letters anymore."

This sentence made me think for quite a while.
When did I receive the last real letter? And when did I write the last one?
And why? Ah.. The questions kept coming..

Of course it seems to be much easier to just send a SMS or write a few lines on Facebook, via Email or whatever.

I wrote a lot of postcards when I've been on my four weeks trip but at home.. Very occasionally.
Very, very occasionally.
I do love writing letters though, so I think I will try to write more letters to my friends and family.
 Just because.

Girls night

Going out tonight with my colleague (and friend) C. Will be awesome I suppose.

Nightshifts. It's really busy right now, everyone had to take care of three patients (which is really stressful if only one of them worsens) and one colleague even had to take care of four (which is slightly impossible, at least for me)

One of them is pregnant,  but she is really sick, unable to move and to breath, we don't know why yet.
So last night, they rushed her to the gyn operating room and delivered the baby.
The baby's CO2 parameter was already by 98. Which is a lot.

But one of my favourite colleagues said to me: "Tiny, you're always trying to see the good side, I really like that."

Well, I can def. say, that it wasn't always like that, not even close. But things change.

By the way: The baby is a girl and she's already breathing on her own.
I really hope her mum survives.

"The only way to be happy is to love. 

Unless you love your life will flash by."

quote from the movie Tree Of Life which I have seen years ago.

It's great to see all your friends again and they hug you and say: "It's so good to have back!" 

"The people you love become ghosts inside of you and like this you keep them alive."

Rob Montgomery

Matt Corby - Resolution

Waking up at three in the morning (unintentionally), waiting for the sunrise, this song.



Beautiful.

Hey folks :)

I'm back and it was so awesome. Really. All my anxieties were absolutely unnecessary.
I think I got to know someone really well on this four weeks trip:

Myself.

"Believe in yourself and all that you are,
know that there is something inside you,
 that is greater than any obstacle."

Christian D. Larson

Soundtrack for tonight

I really like the video.

On my way home, sunrise, windows open, this song at full volume



A perfect little moment.

Your legs are alive.. No not really, but kind of.

Haha, I can relate to everything except the TPN bag thing. Thankfully.

A couple of days ago we had a patient at our ward which had stasis dermatitis ( His legs are secerning clear liquid because they are so swollen that the skin finally opens up to release the pressure. Taking off socks can be so much fun! Not.) So he wore wound dressings (which should be changed everyday by a mobile nursing service since he lived at home) and when my colleague removed them he just couldn't believe what he saw..

Maggots.

Gee.. I am so glad he was not my patient, I would've probably been vomitting all over his flyblown legs.

So can you imagine what my colleague and almost every other colleague, doctor, student, cleaning lady at duty did?

Right, they took a photo with their smartphone.

Bummer: Patient is awake and oriented. I imagine them being like: "Oh, hey, you don't mind me taking a photo, do you? Cool, thanks!"

When I told my colleague M. about the patient he replied: "That's wicked. Did he survive? Did the maggots survive?" and laughed his ass off.

The difference between who you are
and who you want to be
is what you do. 

Sad but beautiful song.

Another intensive ward slang word I learned during my last night shift:

A colleague called the neurosurgeons nutcracker.

I can't help it, I think this is pretty funny.

Soulmates on a chocolate base.

F. and I were picking raspberries in my hometown a couple of days ago and while we were there, I had a pretty old song stuck in my head. Later, we were already back in my car, driving home, she started humming exactly that song.

I looked at her and said: "Did you sing that while we were picking raspberries?"
and she replied: "Umm.. not aloud, it was stuck in my head though."
"I had the same song in my head too."
and we looked at each other like "What the hell.."
and she said slowly: "Well, Tiny.. I think you and I, we are soulmates on a chocolate base.. Like we always said."

Awesome.

"In the end, only three things matter:

How much you loved, how gently you lived,
and how gracefully you let go of the things not meant for you."

Buddha

I'm sitting outside of my home, looking at the stars, listening to Roosevelts song "Soleil" (which is soo nice) and it's warm even though it's almost midnight.



Thoughts about this weekend:

On Friday night I've been to a Hawaii Party of a friend and while I sat there between my friends, flowers in our hair, laughing and hanging out, I suddenly realized how lucky I am.
Same thing on Saturday evening, I prepared dinner for F. and me, we started eating and she said: "Oh.. this is so, so good!", later we went out with her boyfriend and a friend and enjoyed looking at all the guys from the Star Wars convention, I mean, have you ever seen a dancing Stormtrooper? Or some serious Lightsaber Limbo dancing?

Today we went out for a walk and sat down at one of my favourite spots in my hometown (where you  see some kind of rainbow reflection in the sky almost everytime, don't know why) and I felt peaceful.
No matter what, I will be okay and I think my friends will be also.

Like J. wrote a while ago: Life is good.

“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the shore

"I was thinking of my patients, and how the worst moment for them was when they discovered they were masters of their own fate.  It was not a matter of bad or good luck.  When they could no longer blame fate, they were in despair."  ~Anaïs Nin

The patient cries and cries and cries, like a baby, since she still needs ventilation you cannot hear a sound but seeing her face, twisted and distorted, really turns you down after a while.

She survived a heart surgery, she is still needy for intensive care but hey, she's not dead, she's awake and her family visits every day, trying to cheer her up.

I've been really patient. I tried to cheer her up too. But after a week of non stop whining, I lost my temper for a second.

"So many people would do anything to live and they have to die and you, you survived and this is how you value the gift of your life: you are whining all day, being totally miserable. 

You are whining when your family is here, you are whining when I am here, you are whining when you are all by yourself."  (I skipped the part where I wanted to say: "And besides, you are pretty much responsible for your own fate since you lived way too unhealthy, you are way too obese and you did not give a fuck about the responsibility of your on health in general.")

I don't know what to do, to make her see how lucky she's been, I don't think she is able to understand it. 

Even though her life changed by all means, there's still hope.

Or, to be a little bit more dramatic

Oh lala, less than a month until my adventure of the year (or one of my adventures of the year to be precisely) begins! I just can't wait even though the good old "What if.." game already reached an all time high in my head.
My magical motivator friend F. keeps on telling me like a prayer wheel: "You will be fine." "Everything will turn out great." "Don't you worry." "Stop acting crazy."  "No seriously, stop acting crazy."

My favourite song right now is "Sweater weather" by The Neighbourhood. Unfortunately I cannot link it but give it a try, I love the lyrics!

"Let's have an adventure
Head in the clouds but my gravity's centered."

'Cause it's too cold
For you here and now
So let me hold
Both your hands in the holes of my sweater."
 

So, enough thought hopping for the moment.

Get up, get out and get inspired,

T.

M: "Do or do not - there's no try."
Me: "That's not a quote by you, is it?"
M.: "It's by a great philosopher. Yoda."

Both: :D

Colleague: "You are talking so weird.."
Me: "What? Why?"
Colleague: "You're using words I've never even heard of."
Me: "Okay.. In my world this is totally normal, you know?"
Colleague: "Well, not in my world."
Me jokingly: "You're just confused because I am able to speak High German and "Ruhrpott" slang equally. And sometimes I switch between them in one sentence."
She: "Yeah.. That's so weird."

I received an emergency patient, so I started doing the routine we normally do:

Connecting him with the monitoring system, checking the ventilation tubes, taking blood samples etc..

So my colleague walks past my room and says: "Wait a minute, I'll help you in a sec."
and when he entered he said: "Where are all the other colleagues?" and I smiled, blinked  my eyes and replied jokingly: "Who needs the other colleagues if one can count on your help." (Because he really likes his help being appreciated, on the other hand: Who doesn't?) and of course he smiled too and said: "Aww, look at you, always pushing the right buttons as usual."

Oh yeah!

Night shift, it's still warm at 4 o' clock am and my colleague says: "Tiny and I are going out for a cigarette." (Fun fact: Both not smoking). So we stroll around the area, checking out if there are any unlocked vehicles of the transportation employees to drive around (his idea, not mine) and we chat with the security staff. The last night shift was def. the best: We made Cafe Affogato (double espresso with a scoop of ice-cream on top).

Unfortunately most nights are not like that. A few weeks ago they had 23 patients (our ward  only has the capacity to take 22, they put one patient into the operating room) and only seven nurses. That's.. not so nice.

Colleague: "Tiny, I don't know if you know this or if people say that to you all the time, but sometimes the things you  say are pure poetry. No, really."

I was flattered.

;)

True.


 

I had a weird dream a couple of nights before, it was night and I was walking around my hometown, no cars or people in the streets, it was absolutely silent and somehow my hair was waving even though there was no wind whatsoever, when I walked past the light cone of a street lamp it looked like there was snow falling down despite the fact that it is summer, but when I looked closer, I saw that it wasn't snow but some kind of petals or something like that.
 I heard music near me or, to be precisely, it was like I felt it inside, it sounded a bit like this: 







I walked pass a lot of houses and stopped at the houses of people I care for.
 My family, my friends and so on. I placed my hand flat on the door for a second and when I removed it I could see my handprint silver and shimmery before it disappeared but I knew, that nothing bad would happen to them because the handprint would fight back all evil. 
Just a dream, as I said. But I liked it. 


This reminds me of Inception

Ice cream for breakfast? Yes please!
 

“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”
― Lois Lowry - The Giver

 Great book.

This quote!

Reflections, a pretty smart ad campaign. Even though I think that some people don't want to see what they were like when they were young.


 I kind of want to sing songs like this in a band - wait, I can't sing, so this is not making any sense. But I like this song.



"They say home is a place you can choose to be
and I’ve decided to carry home inside me
so it’s not really as if I am leaving
it’s more like something pulling me

‘cause behind everything that I do
I just want to forget, want to carry this through
fill my lungs with the sweet summer air
in my heart in my mind I am already there
yeah behind everything that I do
I just want to come home and lay down beside you
and then I’ll be who I wanted to be
in my heart I belong in a house by the sea.."

Wow. Watch it fullscreen if possible.

Pompeii - Bastille

I was left to my own devices
Many days fell away with nothing to show

And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Grey clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

Did you know, that there is wild rosemary growing all over Pompeii nowadays? It's beautiful and it smells unbelievable. I've been there in March and it was impressive.

Half moon run - Full circle

Half Moon Run - Full Circle (Official Video) from Half Moon Run on Vimeo.

I like this song.

Bad Timing

Actually I like it, that I can turn on the radio at in my room at the intensive ward. I mean, if you cannot talk to your patients (or you can talk to them but they don't answer to be precisely) it's nice to have some music on.

When my patient died a couple of weeks ago, there was a song on the radio which did not suit the whole situation overly well.

It's by a German singer I dislike and the chorus goes something like this:

"And every breath you take dangles on a string.."  The whole song is totally whiney and it was just so inappropriate..

Well, better than "Highway to hell" I suppose but still..

Dissonance

There's a new Internist at our ward, at first I thought he was really nice and a good colleague but slowly it turned out, that he seems to be pretty sneaky. 
Saying stuff and then denying he ever said it and so on.
My colleagues are really annoyed and start giving him hard times.
I don't do that but I also notice that I am extra watchful. Being careful with my documents etc..
Sad to say but you never know..

Good thing in my night watch:

Singing  "I follow rivers" in a duet with my colleague D.
We both can't sing to save our lives but he is one of the few people I know who love to sing at work as well.

Most favourite song at work right now:

 

Do less, enjoy it more

Best decision since Abi: reducing my full time job.
So stupid that I did not have the guts to do it earlier.

A friend said to me: "Wow, you look like you've been on holiday. You look relaxed and calm and pretty gentle. Suits you."

And I feel like I'm on holiday all the time. I get enough sleep, I have time to do all things in my apartment I've been planning for ages (like getting curtains..), I meet family and friends more often.

I hope it will stay similar when I start at Uni.

Motivation

Yesterday I made a cake for my colleagues and, without bragging, I have to say that it turned out pretty amazing. (Melted Toblerone anyone?)

So I stored it in the fridge and started working, when J., one of the Docs, came in and said:
"Uh.. I will have this very uncomfortable talk with relatives today and my motivation already dropped below zero.."
so I replied: "I made a cake. It's awesome and it will cheer you up one bite at a time. You wanna see it?"
and he grinned and said:
"Show me. I wanna see it."
so we walked into the kitchen and he said:
"Wow. I think I can go back to work now, looking forward eating a piece of this baby."

Oh and this happened:

I had one awake patient who was slightly demented and confused from time to time (speaking of an suitcase with 28.000€ and stuff).
It was an isolated room where you had to wear a surgical mask etc
and I entered and he made the sign of the cross and looked scared and I said:
"Hello Mr. X, don't be scared, this is your nurse Tiny, I've been here yesterday, do you remember?"
and he squinted and said: "Please show me your nose."
So I pulled the mask a little bit down for a second and he smiled and said: "Ahh, yes, now I know. I recognize you!"

Funny little Grandpa.

Quote of the day

“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.”

 

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Lip-reading

We have this patient, he's at our ward for over a month now.
The first days I really thought he would die but he recovered slowly but still he's a very bad case for nursing care. Can't move his arms and legs and stuff..
But he's nice.
I suck at lip reading but we get along pretty well. One day he had a cannula in his tracheostoma which made it possible to speak (but this is too exhausting for him, so we can only talk for a couple of minutes)
and he said: "This only happened to me because I smoked all my life. Fucking smoking."
I did not know what to say, I mean: It's no secret that smoking isn't very healthy, right?

So over the last week his condition worsened again, he's too weak to speak, his eyes are closed almost all the time.

Yesterday I helped my colleague who was taking care of him.
"Hello, it's Tiny, do you remember me? You're not feeling to well, aren't you?"
Head shaking.
"Do you remember how we talked last week?"
Nodding.
"Next week we can chat again, alright? I hope you will feel better then."

I know that this is not true.
 I think he will die.
And I think he knows.

But he smiles and opens his eyes for a second and tries to say something.

And even though I suck at lip-reading I recognize two words:

Thank you.

Four years ago

While I am writing this, there's a song on the radio and the lyrics go something like this:

"..and it's alright, as long as I can stay with you. And it's alright, as long as we are together."

Today I skipped through our local free newspaper (which I normally never read because it's mainly advertising and other boring stuff.).
But today I read it and a death note caught my eye.
It wasn't a real death note, more like some kind of "In Memoriam" I can't find a proper translation.

It's about a woman who died four years ago.

The text said:

"And there are always somewhere marks of her life and her love.
In loving memory, your husband H. and your children."

I knew her, she was my patient when I was a trainee. She had cancer and got really confused in the end because there was cancer in her brain as well, she was the one who talked to the alarm bell, thinking it was a telephone and there was some sort of foreigner on the phone. I wrote about it years ago.
I remember her husband. We stood in the hallway and talked about her condition and suddenly he started crying silently, sobbing and wiping the tears away and it really broke my heart because you could feel this mans despair and how much he loved his wife.

 Obviously he still loves her and I don't know whether to find this sad or beautiful.

Memories

Oh wow, this was one of my favourite songs when I was like eleven or twelve years old.
The remix is pretty awesome, makes me wanna go out and dance to it.

Such a joker

Me: "... (Name of our Greek Doc), shall I get you the OptiGo? (portable ultrasound device)"
Doctor: "Tiny, you're such a sweetheart. I used to call you an angel but you're not blonde anymore."
Me: "Um.. You never called me angel."
Doctor:" I meant to do it, I swear. Oh and you're blushing, hahaha."

:-P

Und raus bist du.

Colleague: "..and all these corpses here.."
Me: "Wow.. You're having faith in our patients, don't you?"
Him: *staring at the wall with room numbers and patients names on it* "Well.. Let's see who will bite the dust pretty soon. Number one, two, four, eight and ten.."
It sounded a bit like: "Eeny meeny miny moe-"

Bad news: He's probably right.

One of my favourite docs seems to have a hard time at the intesive ward as well:
"I'm pretty sure there's nothing left of his brain after they reanimated him for thirty minutes. Hopefully we can cut the cords soon, it's an affront against humanity what we are doing with people nowadays, goddamnit.."

Link love

Hiraeth  I think this is pretty relatable for anyone.

The most beautiful abandoned places on earth

16 Steps for getting rid of your crap, it's hilarious.

All you can do is feel..

Hey,

I've had night shift this week and it's been pretty exhausting because I started working at my new job (which is something not hospital related) and the nights were rough.

One night I received an emergency patient who was slightly awake when he arrived but his whole left lung wasn't working and his general condition worsened so we had to put a tube in his airway. (One of the docs called his daughter whether this was okay or not, because he was suffering from cancer and it was not clearly what his attitude towards intensive care and being reanimated was..)

Long story short:

At three am his wife and daughter (a nurse working two wards above mine) came and started to cry when they saw him.

His daughter looked at me and cried: "I'm sorry, I did not know what to do, when the Doctor called me I suddenly stopped being a nurse and I started being only his daughter.. I just don't want him to suffer, oh my god.."

so I hugged her slightly and said:
"I know you don't want your dad to suffer and you don't have to feel guilty. Everybody would've reacted this way. In a moment like this you cannot think, all you can do is feel."
She held her head against my shoulder for a moment and then turned around to her mum, which was silently crying next to her husband, caressing his hand.

"Mum, he is not feeling any pain at the moment, they made him sleep and they are looking for him, don't you worry. " She was back in her nurse mode.

He died yesterday evening because the cancer already destroyed his lungs and his brain and there was no chance for him, so they turned down the whole treatmeant. My colleague said, that he looked peacefully when he died surrounded by his relatives.

But being in this situation made me notice something:

I'm feeling symphathy and I'm feeling and acting mild and gentle again.
It's been a long time since this has happened  and I thought I lost this part of me but I think it's been there the whole time, only covered under cynicism and despair.

I guess, I care again.

Hospitalism

Patient shouting everytime the monitor of his neighbour gives an alarm:
" YES! Come in!"

beep beep

"YES! Come in already!"

beep beep

"It's open, come in!"

beep beep

" ... (Name of wife), open the door!"

So I entered his room, smiled and said: "Hey Mister X, is everything alright with you?"
And he looked at me, obviously pretty surprised and answered:
"Fo sho'."

XD Geez, in a hospital everyone is fucking nuts after a while, the only difference is the name badge.

Don't make me do it.

Dear colleague L.,

good for you that your last night shift for this week ended this morning.
You were, no lie, so close of getting a punch in the face from me, you have seriously no idea. 

You're giving me the handover of a patient of who I will take care in my morning shift, while I simultaneously check the oxygen parameters (horrible, the oxygen and the carbon dioxide parameters already crossed), the vital signs (horrible, almost no blood pressure, the patient is very cold, only about 35° C) and the electrolyte balance (horrible: very, very high potassium, very high blood sugar, the PH is 7,06) and while you talk, the patients oxygen saturation drops below 85%. 

We (one of my very experienced colleagues and I) get everything ready for an emergency bronchoscopy, I grab the emergency drugs and you fuckhead dare to say: "Well, can't I just give you the handover for the other patient before you guys start all this, cause: I wanna go home and sleep.." 

Later, after you left and we saved the patients life by getting big clots of old nasty blood out of his lung, which already clotted one tube of his bronchia. I check the monitor and notice that the patients state of health has worsen since three o clock at night rapidly. And you didn't do anything useful, you prick.

The very next morning, you tell me you already washed one of the patients which is obviously a lie because the patient is still dirty (old blood, lymph dripping out of several tiny wounds and you did not change any wound dressings because I always sign my wound dressings discretely and I have a certain way of folding pads. So you actually faked a document by putting your sign under "Washing the whole patient" "Cleaning mouth and teeth" "Changing the wound dressing" etc etc..

and, to put a cherry on top, you dare to be rude and disgusting by saying things like "You're really good in bed, aren't you?"  while I was like "What the actual fuck? Excuse me?!" 
L., even if you were the last talking and walking being in the whole universe, I would rather turn into a nun than to talk about that, or, perish the thought, actually perform anything more intimate than a handshake with you and I prefer to skip the handshake as well, thank you very much. 
If you continue on being like that and doing things like that, I am going to talk to my boss and if you still not change your behaviour, I am going to sue you, because you're an asshole.

Yours contemptuously,

T. 

Rant over and out.

So, to get back to something nice, here's a nice song I really like.

Pre- Tavi

It's half past midnight or something, my favourite internist comes in and says that we will receive an emergency patient from my old ward. They are already reanimating him.
I have to prepare everything and then we wait in front of the elevator (which is in front of our team desks, monitoring so he sits on an unused bed covered in plastic foil while I walk around, excited (because you never now what to expect when they come in while reanimating someone) and pretty amped by all the coffeine.

Then they are finally there, a female doctor, a male doctor, an intensive ward nurse and a nurse (which I really liked) from my old ward  and of course the patient, a 89 year old male, looking pretty dead already (they said that he was turning rosy again, duh, the only one being all rosy was the intensive ward nurse sitting on him, reanimating the shit out of him)

We do all the stuff we have to do in an emergency situation and I wonder how calm I am.
Usually I feel like I am getting ventricular fibrillation too but this time, I already now, that nothing much can go wrong because I know we won't save him.

He already had one phial  Atropine, seven milligramme Adrenaline and some other stuff, I don't remember. They shocked him once, oh god, and what else..

The docs seemed unable/ unwilling to deceide whether to continue or not  and although I said: "Well.. just think about his prognosis even if we would get him back.. He would be braindead." they were murmuring into their phones, talking to their senior physicians, so finally my colleague P. screamed:
"Will you pricks finally stop now." and to my young colleague: "Stop it, I say!"

He had been reanimated for over one hour and twenty minutes. It was pointless.

Later that night, around 3 or 4, his son and his wife came to say goodbye.

An old little woman who was in shock and looking so lost and forlorn, it really made me sad.
My colleague P. said: "I am sorry for her, just imagine they had been married for about sixty years and suddenly he is gone forever with no chance of saying goodbye or anything like that."

I think it's the worst thing if you lose someone so suddenly and you cannot stop thinking about all the things you wanted to say and do but there is no turning back.
It's all impossible in the blink of an eye and you have to live with this feeling.

But they had a whole life together and they had children so I guess that's how life goes.
You live ... and then you die.

The Postyr Project - My future self

I met myself last night staring at a window..

I'm not afraid, I'll make it through  as my future self.

We'll be okay, just keep it cool..

In the twinkling of an eye

"This is for you - because you are nice."

Broke my heart, he's dead by now.

All photos made by Tiny (2013)

1 hour

This morning an old lady came as an emergency to our ward, reanimated, covered in blood and some other  nasty stuff. Everything was pretty stressful, she had no pulse, no blood pressure and we continued doing the CPR. My team leader was bagging her (Intensive ward slang for ventilating the lungs with an Ambug Bag, we don't do the mouth-to-mouth sort of thing, it's gross and highly unhygienic) and I hopped on the bed and started reanimating.
At first it was pretty exhausting, suddenly it turned easier. I think I broke a rib. Or two.
I looked at her face and seriously, it was distorted in agony.
We tortured her while trying to save her life.

The docs kept on discussing whether to continue or not.
Someone said: "Dude, she's 84.."
one of the Docs said: "I mean we are already reanimating for an hour straight or so.."
(45 minutes on the normal ward, 15 minutes at our ward)
When I heard that, I knew she was dead already.
Even if we would've managed to get a pulse and some blood pressure, her brain would've been damaged irreparably.
If this would've been one of my relatives I would've told the Docs to stop immediately and to fuck off.

Two minutes later she was declared dead, two hours later a colleague and I took her down to the cooling chamber.
She looked peaceful then.
I think it was the best way this story could've ended. 

Little things in life

Some months ago I stopped at the house of a colleague in the morning to pick her up to work, it was 5:15 or something and still dark.
She sat down in my car and we started, not talking pretty much because we were both still sleepy and daydreaming about how work will be today.

"If you don't like the music on this CD, I can turn on the radio or something."  I said.
"No, thanks, the music is fine. I always like your choice of music, it's very peaceful to sit in your car with you."
I think this was a pretty weird compliment, but I felt flattered.


 My friend Fabulous F. gave me a journal for my birthday, it's the Journal of Awesome and you have to write down stuff that was awesome or fill in little questions like " What was the most awesome part of your week" etc.. it makes you noticing the small things a little more.

When I was in my future garden (yay! Awesome!) rambling around, looking at the tree and the weeds growing there, thinking about how much work it will be to turn this wilderness into something you can grow vegetables in, but suddenly I heard music.
I hold my breath for a couple of seconds and had to smile because somewhere near the garden someone was playing the clarinet, I recognized the famous song from "The Godfather" and "Que sera".


Last Saturday I was standing at the beach in Amalfi, Italy and looked at the sea.
 It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to.
Do you know those little moments, which last just a second or two but make you feel so alive, so present and remind you of the here and now, that you feel simply overwhelmed by life.
I think those moments are the ones, which will last. Which you will remember when you are old.
I told my friend: "You know, when we are old and demented, I hope, when I see pictures of the sea, that I will remember this. I really hope that these things are going to last, no matter what happens."
She smiled at me and I think she understood what I meant.

Sad but true.

"Holding on is tough. Much tougher than letting go or simply quitting."

-Anonymous

The XX Chained

Beautiful.

Beware of the nurse

Nightshift after my vacation (which was soooo good), my colleague P. (old nurse, very experienced and probably the most sarcastic, tough as nails person I've ever met. I am slightly scared of her^^) talks about a young Doctor, which I already know from the cardiology ward.

"Well, I can't remember his last name, so I always call him A. Asshole."
"You don't call him that when he is around, do you?"
She laughs and I get the feeling that she does, because she is giving a fuck about other peoples opions.



Dr. A did not listen to her advice and waited to long with putting a tube in a patient, which of course pissed her off.

"So I said to him, next time I am going to sue him at the medical association for being a stupid dickhead."

Finally.. it seems like the worst part of winter is over. I seriously couldn't wait just one more day.

I feel like I need to get out of town for a couple of days.
Being an adult sucks sometimes.

Yesterday evening I've been to the park near the hospital with a few of my favourite collleagues, where they meet sometimes after the late shift to drink a beer together.
It was warm enough to wear just a sweater and I sat on my engine hood and looked up and the stars blew my mind.

One of my colleagues told me, how work and renovating his home for 1 1/2 years bound him so much, that when he walked his dog and he crossed a bridge, his only reason not to jump down was his worry that his dog wouldn't find the way back home alone.
I'm glad he didn't do it, because he's a very funny, warm hearted and clever guy. 

Life is difficult.

Unfinished things

Found this in the list of unfinished blog entries. I don't know when I wrote it but it made me smile for a while:

This weekend I worked with a colleague I like very much, she is young, pretty cute and has not been a nurse for so long just like me.

Tiny: "I wanted to become nice again, like I've been before the traineeship."
Colleague: "Really, why?"
Tiny: "Because working in the hospital made me pretty mean, I think. So I wanted to become nice and sweet, like before."
Colleague: "So?"
Tiny: "Then I saw the patients and thought.. Aw.. Fuck that."

She laughed.

I am posting all the stuff I wrote but never published and I can totally see the changes.

Beautiful words

I like this song. And I like the band's name. Do you know these certain words, you like saying out loud because you like the way it sounds? My favourite English word is cellardoor but Lumineers is also great. I think my favourite German words are... Hmm.. Abendrot (afterglow), Heimweh (home sickness) and .. certainly a few more. Also, there are some names I like saying out loud but mostly because I relate something positive with the persons who are named that way.

Someone placed this little paper ship on the counter of "my" room in the hospital (read: The room in which I take care of my patients).

I don't know who it was, but I think it was a cute gesture.

Procrasti- naw I'll finish this tomorrow

Never ending story of my life I suppose.

So instead of cleaning I'm randomly browsing the internet, of course only doing some research to present you entertaining stuff.

Like this:

Did you know that the word Atelphobia describes the fear of not being good enough.

Relatable, damn it.

Wow.  Super sad.

You go, fuck yeah.

So, I am  totally going to do this.

Messed up

Sorry, I must have messed something up, I tried to post some of the things I wrote ages ago but suddenly they appear on top instead of the correct date.

So:

How was your day
Random mobile photos
and  Doing the right things

is old and not up to date but only for pure entertainment.
The newest blog post is this one.

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
Vaclav Havel

Doing the right things

It's been a while since I had time to write.
I mean sitting down, thinking about everything that comes to my mind and then writing something I hate and which is total crap, throwing everything away, starting to think again, maybe writing something new..
You get the idea.
So yeah it's been a while.
The last few days I had much time to think.
And I thought a lot, I guess.

Today I talked to the wife of a former patient on the phone.
She called me Nurse Tiny instead of Trainee Tiny (yeah, I like it and I got used to it since almost everybody calls me so) but I tried to correct her.
She answered: "I will call you Nurse Tiny to congratulate you for your exam, it's so great what you are doing."
(Little fun fact: I've never ever seen her or talked to her before.)
At the moment I'm not the nurse I wanted to be when I started working in hospital.
Definitely not.
Not even a little bit to be honest.
I get mad in a second.
Old people annoy me (nearly all of  them).
My back hurts like a bitch because there is no one who helps me to lift this 120kg monster up.

Random Mobile Photos

Saturday evening

Saturday evening II

The devil in the coffee machine

The abandoned ward

The abandoned ward II

How was your day? "Okay."

First shift after my vacation.
Morning shift, getting up at 4:30 am,
we (my instructor and I) have to take care of three patients, one is old, awake.

One is a man, born in the sixties, he is braindead. One of the neurologists showed me a few signs which show you that someone is braindead, for example the "Dolls eyes phenomenom",
His girlfriend or partner or whatever should be asked today if it's possible to take his organs.
I don't know what I would say.

Yes? No? No idea.

Update

Things aren't going so well lately and I have to confess that saying this still feels totally sugarcoated.

What I can say for now:
I finally decided to give up my dream of becoming a doctor since yesterday I received the negative answer concerning getting into Uni this year.. or next year.

So, skip the little future doctoresse.
 Maybe it's the future petite sans-emploi.
Ok maybe it's not that worse but saying that I am slightly broken-hearted, is still bragging at its best.

Fuck it.

Retrograde

Intense song, made me shiver on my way home this morning.

9:03

Yesterday two patients at the ward died.

Their hearts stopped at 9:03.

One colleague joked that they died togheter so they don't have to leave this world alone.
This made me really sad.

In the end, you die alone, no matter what.

I helped on of my colleagues who took care of the dead male patient to pluck out all the catheters etc.
And he (the patient) just wouldn't stop bleeding. Seriously. It was horrible.

My colleague said: "I hope you are not too sensitive."
and I replied: "Why? What do you mean?"
He answered: "Well, I don't wanna wait until this fella here finally stops spilling his lifeblood all over the place, so: Yeah, never mind, ok?"

Then he plugged in the aspiration catheter we usually use to remove mucus and pus out of the patients airways, into the hole the interventional lung assist left in that dead mans groin.

I felt a little sick in that moment.

I am sorry I can't help you

I am busy with one of my patients.

Behind the privacy curtain the other (awake and slightly demented) patient wants something.

I stand next to his bed and say: "Look, I am wearing gloves and the plastic apron since I am busy washing your neighbour. But when I am finished, I will be there for you, alright?"

"Alright" he answers, while I vanish behind the privacy curtain again.

"And I am sorry I can't help you over there." he adds.

I smile a little bit.

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.