Internet at home is lagging, so much so that it's getting frustrating sitting here infront of the computer. My blog page doesn't look quite right either.
Facebook takes such a long time, every time i press "home" it gives me that lightning white blank with the word "Done" at the bottom.
All the more i find spending a minute trying to see the updates irritating as it takes an eternity before i can actually see them. So, for those i haven't been sending emails/messages to for a long time. This is the reason why.
How I'm able to sit here and type all this with such patience, even I am amazed.
Well, typing is one thing, pressing the link "Publish" and being able to see my new post in a matter of seconds, like how blogspot has always faithfully done for me, is another. I'm gonna copy this entire post once i'm done with it just in case Molly, my internet connection, decides to give me another one of her surprises by giving me a blank or that famous internet error page. Molly acts up once every now and then, i think she's throwing one of her tantrums again.
I was thinking, work is getting rather hard, being able to breathe a huge sigh of relief amidst the scurry of it all can be considered luxury in itself.
What i was thinking and have come to realize was, i don't nurse my patients. I nurse their files, their papers, their charts. I have got sometimes up to 10 files to update. 14 during night shift. Following the changes and treatments rendered to each individual patient. Scribbling my nursing notes. Speeding around the ward, grabbing more papers, attending to calls from pharmacist dept/clerks at the children's emergency, following up on doctors' orders and actually MAKING them happen, attending to patients and their parents everyday needs and wants. Funny how they tell everything to the nurses, their demands but go completely mum in front of the team of doctors complete from the graduates fresh out of med school right up to the big shots. Consultants in other words, who all spends at least 5-7 minutes standing in front of the patient sitted on his/her bed discussing among themselves on the proper treatment plan based on the current condition/blood and other tests results.
Funny how when the team moves on to the next patient and they look at you, doe-eyed, wanting more out of you and the only thing going through your mind was, "didn't they already explain"
Time.
I never have time to nurse. I never have time to sit with the little ones and comfort or play with them. I never have time to poke or tease the older patients, the way i do with my younger friends in church. I never have time to encourage a parent or to allay their anxieties or worries. I'm always wishing i had more time, until i move on to the next thing i've gotta do at work.
I can never put in words what we do during shift either. When people ask, i talk about the regime, what we basically do, but somehow, when i say it out, it feels like i have the time. All the time i need to do and make a good shift.
What you see on the tele is ideal. What you pen on papers are the ideals.
But we deal with humans, with children, with fussy, fidgety children who are scared to be where they are. A glimspe of our cream white and they start screaming, syringes on our hands are enough to make some of them go berserk. Trust me when i say i had to pin myself on a crying child. Trust me when i say i have done it a million times i no longer feel bad. With parents, who cannot seem to make decisions or who just don't know how to. We deal not just with one, or two, or five. How many have i spoken or come in close contact with, to how many have i had this nurse - patient relationship with? So many, those from just three to four weeks back are a blur.
So, coming back to the ideals.
I think they're all just perfect little words typed onto Microsoft Word by some genius who either has never worked as a small fry nurse in a general hospital or clearly has forgotten how is it like to work and wish it could stop.
Facebook still hasn't given me the page i want to see.
