I've been posted to the casualty department of Chitageri Govt Hospital since the last 15th, and this was the posting that I dread the most. I lost 3 kgs prior to it cz I was thinking obsessively too much. So on the first day it is decided that I shall do 8 days of day duty (8am-2pm) and 8 days of night duty (8pm-8am) alone, all by myself. *plays All By Myself in the background*
For the day duty it was okay eventho at times it'll get like really super busy, esp when the cases are medicolegal cases in which I have to record the occurence precisely while checking the patient's vitals and decide to which dept I should refer this case to and at the same time write in the mlc register and police intimation book. Goodness me. The first day there was a mass casualty of road traffic accident involving 12 people and I was basically running here and there to complete all the things that I needed to do plus the earful of complaints from the patients and the attenders that I was working wayyy too slow. People, I don't have centipede hands. Like seriously. Even a centipede would have trouble doing all these alone. Alhamdulillah the CMO (casualty medical officer) that day was very helpful and helped me with the registers, too. Nearing afternoon some of my friends came to help with this and that, and nothing but thank you could slip from my mouth again and again. I still feel so grateful that they're nearly always there for the rest of the 7 days of my day duty.
Then comes night duty. Everyone was aghasted that this malaysian girl who knows only a bit of Kannada language was posted alone for 8 days. However the night duty nurses are very friendly and helpful, and the CMOs who were on night duty were, too, alhamdulillah. Only twice my friends came by for like two hours to see how I'm doing and helped, the rest of the nights I managed alone. I didn't sleep at all during my duty, I'll cover my sleep after I went back to my room in the morning. For the last two days the CMOs were so impressed that I could managed alone (cz last two nights were the busiest since my night duties ever. I even ate for sahur in between of checking patient's blood pressure) that they shaked hands wimme in the morning saying they're proud of me. Well, to say the least, I wasn't at all, and I couldn't have managed it without the help of the nurses, and most of all the strength in me is only from Allah. Plus I just had a bike fall two days back too, where my left shoulder feel like bursting all the time and my hands tremble everytime I squeezed the air in the ancient sphygmomanometer. It really wasn't me. It was Allah's blessing that I really could still work and breathe.
Amongst the popular cases during my casualty duty are insecticide poisoning (self poisoning, suicidal attempt) and assault cases, besides the occasional snake bites and road accidents. I really can't help feeling annoyed sometimes at the rate where the poisoning cases are coming to the casualty. But I need to remember that I don't know what the person had been through that lead them to depression and drank poison, so I have to treat them equally to be fair. Really tested my temperaments. Some cases that I'll remember for a lifetime is a large bull gore injury, I think the lady's liver was torn also. The wound was so big I couldn't believe my eyes. And then there's a case of road accident where the skin of the man's left thigh was totally stripped off along with some muscles, ergh. The blood from the leg alone is about a bucketful. There was one self inflicted injury too where the man tried to slit his own throat by a big knife and the family found him bleeding in the morning. The guy only slitted his skin, tho. I guess he must've whited out seeing the pool of blood or maybe he was evaluating his life and then he thought, eh, living wasn't so bad tho so he doesnt continue up to his windpipe or something. Gory. Last two nights I saw a case where the guy cut his whole forearm (multiple cuts) under the influence of alcohol. And he was really irritable he nearly hit me. Crazy.
So! Tonight's the last night of my duty and I hope it'll go well, ameen. Finally I am finishing this lonely and eventful duty! I couldn't even believe myself, but I did. Thank you Allah. Thank You . I rely most on You during these hard times, and I guess that's what Ramadhan is supposedly to be about. To have complete reliance on Allah without expecting anything from others. I feel like my relationship with my friends had also improved, alhamdulillah. My support system. I so love you guys till we're old and wrinkly.
Now I gotta get ready.
Till then!
Assalamualaykum. :)
