the afternoon report

my taste of the afternoon duty can be summed up with this word: oh

the afternoon shift covers the 3pm-11pm hours and, typically, it drags. last april 3-5, i had a taste of it for the first time evah for my summer duty. here's how it went.

i was in nervous distress for the last week, preparing my mind and body (by snoozing for hours) for the duty ahead. monday came and i woke around ten, uptight and tense. i took a bath at around twelve, tried to eat lunch at 1, tried to relax by two and left at 2:30 for the hospital. i passed by my cousins' compound since i had to drop of something, meaning i had to pass the local 'tambays' which consisted of the pre-req adults without jobs, kids without respect and people acting like they have a life but who actually don't. my type A (all white) uniform so mystified these people the snotty kids had the nerve to ask me to 'check' them small jewels of theirs. i'd gladly check them out with my scissors but i was running behind schedule. tough luck.

aside from being the most dragging shift there is, i was assigned in the most boring ward, for the risk of being repetitive, eva. ortho ward/neuro. this is a chronic ward where patients stay for almost 3-5 months on their backside, with skitty and clumsy wire stuffs and metals sticking out of their bodies at different (often unbelievable angles). the neuro ward is really messy. this is where accident-ed people end up so expect lots of blood, gore, sweat, slime and exudates to come accross your way. ortho is better than neuro, considering that all the guys there are just waiting to bust their asses out to freedom; neuro is tedious. like, vital signs every hour, neuro-vital signs every 2, medicines, positioning, feeding...well you get the point. there was one guy who came in, and lawd he was a mess. his case required a lot of attention and monitoring and all the while he was delirious, moaning and thrashing about until he had to be restrained. those are the cases where you wish that you had a higher power to heal, to authorize medicines and operations. but you don't. it's a bummer but basically that's that.

our ci, sir joel was cool. i actually enjoyed the duty with him. plus my group was totally rad. we had fun doing things together, creating names for our patients (lapu-lapu...ahehe), helping each other out. by the second day, we had a new staff nurse on duty for the 3-11 shift and he was a great guy. he allowed us to stay in the nurses' area, bantering with the group, throwing questions at us and demonstrating the way to operate some nifty stuff in the ward. now that's a staff nurse...and a ci..and an rle group..ahehe

we ended our stint in ward 2 with a party for ourselves. ice cream, chicken, veggies and munchkins made our day (eherm night) and we became a boisterous crowd when we began taking pics (yeah, for the luv of God). hehe the nurses and the patients didn't mind. nuh-uh. not one itty-bitty bit.

glad that's over. now i can snooze once more till twelve without worrying about varicose veins. that is until next week.