Was walking down the path along KKH towards the bustop yesterday when walking slowly in front of me was a family of 3.
Dad, little Boy and Mum.

Dad puffing a cigarette
little boy about the age of 4, bouncing along inbetween them
Mum puffing a cigarette
Give it a few months, the boy would be having one or two of these:
URTI, Asthma, Bronchitis, Bronchiolitis or Pneumonia and the sweet boy might need up to 8 puffs of Ventolin every hourly.
Who knows, the boy might just have been discharged from the hospital, previously coming in for those very reasons!

Hey, these are all facts, researched, found, stamped and proven. So i shall and will not sugar my words.
You are adults.
Fully capable of rationalizing and making decisions.
If you choose to ruin your lungs despite knowing the harm you're causing yourself, that's really fine by me.
But do not bring along the lungs of your young ones.

I see that you do love your little kids. You may be judged by many, one look and people talk. But there's no doubt the sincerity you have towards your children. The way you put your hand on your kid's head, gentle, assuring. The way you smile at your kid, like any proud parent would.
So, my plea is simple and clear.
If you do love your sons, your daughters then
Protect your kid's health.
Protect your kid's lungs.
The consequences of the choices you make, does not only affect you now.

My first round of nightshift went okay too. I will get used to working nights soon enough. It's quieter, i get to sit down at the nurses counter, eat chips and maybe if there's really nothing to do, go online.

Went to church straight from the hospital.. and if i had reached home an hour later yesterday, i would have been awake for 24 hours for the first time. Yeap, it would have been the first time 'cos i never liked staying awake the whole night.. Shee needs her sleep. Shee must sleep. If not Shee turns into an ugly, grumpy monster.
Of course the moment i stepped home, i couldn't be bothered with trying to stay awake an hour longer to reach the 24hour mark.. knocked out almost immediately the moment my head touched my pillow up till 9pm when Raj woke me up for dinner.

Saw this cute picture while searching for pictures to add into my slides on 'Dengue Fever'. To think that i would be done with Microsoft Powerpoint the moment i start working. Sister wants her ward nurses to get more CNE points by giving in-services/presentations on relevant topics to our fellow colleagues. I'll be doing my presentation this wednesday.

Baby. Diaper. Nurse. Stethoscope. (:

Things that are currently so familiar.

the day off was great (:
woke up real late, bummed at home and was out of the house by 430pm to meet my prudential advisor first (who happens to know Chris and Quan, what a small world) before meeting
HW(nb)C for movie and dinner. "WAAAALLLL- EEEEEEE" was a good, cute show. Agree with Manda, for a show with no dialogue for the first half, it's not bad.
The simple dinner at the foodcourt was yummy, eating with good friends make it all the yummier.

The tears i cry because of it.
The smiles i make because of it.
The laughs i have because of it.
Nursing.
It's a ministry.
A ministry i'm placed in.
Lord help me love every bit of it.
Even the nitty-gritties. when things don't go smoothly.
Still, let me enjoy what i'm doing.
When i'm sad, when i'm tired, when i'm pissed and i fume
Still, remind me, that you've placed me in this ministry to love.
I want to love.
I want to care.
Let all that i give to my patients, come from my heart.

I will be starting my night shift this coming friday. whoooooo.
My first night!
they said that allowance for working nightshifts are good, especially if you're working nights on weekends.
Including tomorrow and wednesday, i would be working 4 days a.m. shift straight.
Tiring!
Noticed a trend on the workflow. Mornings gets extremely busy on mondays, picking up on tuesday and wednesday.. and towards friday, work slows down, and sundays are usually quiet sundays.
The same way too, noticed a trend in our ward census. When it's school holidays, there'll be less children in the ward.. and when school starts, more gets admitted. So, ill be looking forward to a relatively quiet November and December.

Had to write and submit an incident report yesterday (my first incident report and i don't wanna write anymore too). One 15 yr old patient threw a chair at my patient, causing a bruise on her thigh area . Thank God it was just that kiddy-plastic chair. Seriously, kids these days.
Informed the unit nurse manager of the incident, she told me to prepare the report, call the security up and she'll come by my ward soon.
She came confidently asking for "Minnie, the nurse who called her up earlier".
"Sheela" and "Minnie" hardly sound alike.

The higher-ups have discussed and thought about making my ward an adolescent ward.. and with the current group of teens 'residing' in my ward right now, we nurses were discussing that we need a police on stand-by. On saturday alone we called up the security countless of times.

Been bumping into alot of my woodlands sec ex-classmates/peers/seniors recently, and all the time i'm in nursing uniform.And i meet them either in the ward or in buses. Last month, an ex-classmate's niece was admitted to my ward. One/two weeks back i bump into Zakiah (: missed you too! we really did not have any time to talk, the wave of people behind were pushing me to move towards the rear of the bus. And today, a *coughgoodlookingcough* guy one year my senior visited a child in my ward.

I cannot wait for DAY-OFF on thursday!!!!!