The Butterfly Hospital Saga pt2

After my first day in the triage area, I figured I was a liability to everything the nurses believed in, and that belief stems from 'Saving Lives'. I can hardly translate Mandarin for the nurse as my proficiency in the mother tongue is best kept elementry. I stutter during enquiries and I leave out details which require a higher understanding of the Chinese language to grasp. Even American pre-school ghetto thugs can string more perspicuous Mandarin sentences than me.

Seriously, this guy told me a whole bunch of crap about what was wrong with him and the only thing I understood was him saying 'lung cancer', or at least what I think was lung cancer. Medical documentation of the patients history is important, but hey, if you cant say it in English, then it's not important enough. If something really mattered to me, I'll learn to say it in at least 4 different languages. I can say "wanna fuck" in at least 5. You should to, you'll never know when it'll come in handy.

Well if you can say "I love you" in many different languages.. Yippie Ai Yay, bring out the champagne glass Cassanova, that just means you are a flirt. I only need to say it in one.

The Observation Room Story

Im not lying about me being a horrible medical practitioner, my friends reading this blog can atest to it. I always find ways to skive and chances to get out of the room to galavant. Hence, I always volunteer to push the patients up to the wards. For reasons..

a) Its one way I can constructively contribute to society and not endanger anyone's life.
b) The nurses at the wards are NYP attachment nurses
c) Usually Farah will be the one pushing the patients up. Anytime spent with her beats watching old people soil themselves.

Anyways, there I am, instructed to watch over patients. This is easy. Considering that most people in the observation room are usually sleeping, semi-conscious or unconscious, babysitting semi-corpses is as easy as winning a retard at Tetris.

Its all good until some of these assholes decide not to sleep. I get pissed at anyone trying to make me earn my keep and test my medical aptitude. Its unlucky enough that they got injured, but its downright calamitous that they got injured while I'm at the hospital. Usually, when these patients who choose not to snooze call for help, I'll get someone else to tend to them. They get medical attention and some other nurse gets to clock on-job experience, quid pro quo.

This lady neglects this rule and she pays the price.

She signals for my attention. I look around the room, no nurse in sight. I decide not to go over, just in case this is serious. She signals again to show that her canular has blood backflowing into the tubing. This is not too serious yet. I reassess my limits, I might be able to help. Just as I will myself to go over, she lifts up to show that her canular is actually detached, which means I have to perform intravenous on her. This is too serious, I decide to pretend not seeing her. Another high point of my life.

In the 15 secs of her frantically waving to get my attention (Oh, the woman cant speak, probably cos she has no teeth) and me pretending to look busy consolidating the pens on the reception desk, some courageous nurse moves in to tend to her. Brave, this guy has to be from Griffindor.

The other thing was that I spent a bulk of my time standing around the hot receptionist, so much so that I was oblivious to the mise en scene of the place and the operational proceedures. Once, this stretcher bed came in with a female patient on it and they had to hold it because there wasn't enough space. I spot a place over at the other end of the room and surmise that all nurses are blind. I go over to help them.

Me: "There's a place there..I'll take her."

I grab the bed and start pushing. A friend, Ryan, comes over to stop me.

Ryan: "Where you going?"
Me: "Over the other side, there's so many slots there. I can't believe how blind they are.."
Ryan: "That's the male section, you can't just put her there.."
Me: "What are you talking about?! There's a female and male section??"

I look around. Holy molly! He's right! And I thought the reason why I always stayed on the female side more because the lighting was better.

Ryan: "What have you been doing these two days bro..?"
Me: "I don't know, but I do know that the receptionist is hot!"

The Urethra Catheterization Story

In case you guys have no idea what this is, this is one word you hope will never be used on you. I swear, for a guy this is the most painful experience you'll EVER be faced with. Thankfully women get to claim giving birth and boyfriends cheating on them to be their most painful experience.

Basically what they do is they stick a fucking bubble tea sized tube into your urethra. Guys you might want to drop your pants and imagine that straw fitting into that tiny hole you have at the tip of your penis.

This nurse comes to tell me that their is a catheterization being performed soon in one of the theatres and encourages me to take a look.

She: "This is will be a good experience for you, you'll never get to see it done else where."

That BITCH! She ruined my day.

I go in to see this man in his 60s lying on a bed, naked waist down. The doctors and nurses prepare some stuff as all the other attachment personnels like myself piled into the room. This is great, everyone is excited over the shrivelled penis. Then I see the tube..

At the point of the them FORCING the tubing into the penis, everyone starts wrinching in agony. We feel it. I've never seen a semi-conscious man put up a greater struggle than this. The nurse tells us, "This is a very painful experience.."

NO SHIT NANCY DREW!! I figured that out myself.

The tube starts filling with urine and some of it sprays onto the bed. The man is still moaning agonizingly as his penis shrank from a 3inch flacid to a clit sized lump hidden behind his bush. This is horrible. Imagine what it'll take to do it, especially when there's about 3 different female nurses hands on your dick throughout the process. I tell them,

Me: "I want you to fucking shoot me if I ever need to do this."

Others

A few other incidents made my time there very memorable.

1. Having to help this guy to the toilet to pass a dump and collect his urine sample. Many words to express my disdain for medical work, Worst.Job.Ever.

2. Pushing a guy to the operation theatre myself. This guy is SERIOUSLY hurt from a traffic accident and his face has shred of skin dangling off it, so much so that I didn't want to push the bed too fast in case the skins flew off. This is not funny, he looked like he stuck his face in a juice blender.

I may be talking crap here, but you should have seen me when I was asked to do the job. I almost felt like vengeance of the medical ethics was taking a cheap shot at me. The whole time I refrained looking him in the eye, largely because I didn't know if he still had one. The face was quite re-arranged.

When I did push him into the theatre, I couldn't figure out how to open the door to come out. If you've never been in one, just to inform you that as retarded as I may be at times, there is NO door knob. I start feeling the wall for a switch then break out into a little dance infront of it wondering if it had sensors. Then I start flipping the swtiches on the wall..

The faceless guy starts moaning loudly. The flickering lights must have scared him.

It takes me 5 mins stuck in the hell hole to realise that the small black door stopper like ball at the lower corner is the switch.

Note: Remember kids, if you are ugly, getting into an accident involving your face is a good idea. That way, medical coverage can subsidise your plastic surgery.

3. Trying CPR on a dead person. Not as amusing as I'd imagine it to be.

4. Everyone was hyped on watching live medical procedures like laryngoscopy. I on the other hand, cannot comprehend the excitment in this.

They: "Hey I heard there's going to be a emergency case, ETA 5 mins."
Me: "Wooo yippie this sounds good. I'll be at the canteen, call me when its all over."

Obviously, I make the right choice. The guy apparently dies on arrival and the guys ended up having to put him in a body bag.

Disclaimer: No patients were harmed in my tenure at the hospital. If you guys are curious, its Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Well, except for the poor old lady.

You guys hate me, don't you.