How is my night?

Last night I was dealing with 2 deaths in red zone ED itself.

As contrary to what others believe that doctors are acclimatized to death, what I can say is, I have seen death in the past 2 years more than most people in their lives, but the scene of family members weeping in front of the cold body lying lifelessly is still not a good sight to me.

There is an old aunty who was involved in a road traffic accident, and sustained multiple extensive intracranial hemorrhage.

Her conscious level started to drop after few hours, and by evening she is already not responding to call.

'Ma, I am back to see you', uttered her son who rushed back from JB to see her one last time.

There was no response from his mother, not even a single sound, except for the constant beating sound of the cardiac monitor.

The woman died 3 hours after being sent to the ward for comfort care.

I wondered how many of us would be saying the exact same words when we are back to see our parents?

Saying it for a thousand times when they are gone does not make up the time loss when they are still around.

Another one was an Indian gentleman who has a wife and 2 children, suffered from heart attack.

We were starting chest compression from the moment he entered the ED door upto the zone itself, as he were already lost his consciousness before arrival.

He did not make it.

Heart rate and pulse oximetry not recordable.
Breath sound and heart sound could not be heard.
cardiac monitoring showed asystole (flat line)
blood pressure unrecordable.
pupils 5mm/5mm fixed and dilated.

As I penned down this routine words which is not something new to me, family members rushed in.

I did not talk to them. As I believe no words can replace a living man.

I was observing from afar, saddened by the harsh fact that we cannot save all lives, and eventually everyone will have to return to their creator.

I do not believe there is any doctors who are good in dealing with death, maybe not from my experience.

Life is temporary. Death is inevitable. 

'I am busy'

'I am busy'

Perhaps the most overused words for me, with such under rated meaning behind it.

When 'I am busy', I am spending 30 minutes taking blood from a difficult patient, with constantly cursing and screaming directly at my face.

When 'I am busy', I am tracing an important CT brain for a patient, as I am worried bout the outcome of the fall from 2 storey height that he had.

When 'I am busy', I am attending an unstable patient, whose blood pressure is constantly low despite giving high noradrenaline support.

Yet there are people who will say words like 'There is no such thing as too busy to reply a message, it just depends on your priority'

While some seem to be offended, it is actually quite true. Priority always comes first. And when you are dealing with humans who have excruciating pain, your priority is to win the deal between you and the grim reaper who wants to suck the life out from your patient.

Thus, the word 'busy' seems to not able to compensate the daily warfare happening in the hospital.

It should be replaced by:

- I was having a back-breaking call last night attending to the non-stop admissions to yellow zone

- I skipped my lunch as my 30 minutes early referral to ICU is more crucial than my rumbling stomach 

- I was late to home 2 hours as the patient decided to vomit blood and life out, right before I stepped out from the hallway

If you have been through what I have been, you will appreciate life and understanding more about suffering.

But fortunately, if you have also not been through what I have been, look around you, you should be grateful =) 

Who is your best friend?

Who is your best friend?

A question that is asked way too frequent.

The older you are, the wiser you become, and so they said, which is partially true.

As I continue to grow in the society, I realized that this question, which I can easily answered if you were to ask me 10 years or 15 years ago, is not an easy question afterall.

I have friend AAA, the friend who is aggresive in learning, believing in focusing on self, who constantly improves oneself. Whenever opportunity strikes, I am humbled to learn together alongside him. This makes him my best friend when I am learning while working.

I also have friend BBB, the friend who believes in work-life balance, the one who will not give extra effort once past her working time, which is not wrong afterall. This makes her my best friend, as she is the one who constantly reminded me of the life after work, that we do not dedicate our lives to just work, and life's too short not to enjoy with your love ones.

Not to mention friend CCC, my best friend when it comes to dealing with my hard times. He may not be physically with me all the time, but he assured me that he will be there whenever I needed advice or help. The one whom I will forget when I'm in my comfort zone, but will only remember when I'm down, and he doesn't mind!

Also friend DDD, the one who is way older than me, who constantly enjoy food all the time. I may not be a food lover, but I can't deny that sometimes a good meal with good companion is all I need after a long day work.

How bout friend EEE, the one whom I seldom meet, although we stayed not far from each other, the one who constantly shared the same beliefs and ideology, who believes in inspiring young people, our juniors, as life is not just about living with ourselves, but to interact with others.

And not forgetting friend FFF, GGG, HHH and so many more, who will only appear at certain times, a certain moment in my life, a certain place which is unpredictable, and at a certain stage of my life..

But one thing is always certain, we not only grow physically older, but our minds grow mentally wiser day by day.

Who is my best friend? This is a question way too easy but too complicated to answer.