Bloody Hell

I don't like alcohol. There are very VERY few wines I'll drink. These are all either dessert wines or red wines. Maybe I'm picky. Maybe I'm snooty. Call it what you want. I don't like alcohol.

Especially not tonight.

I don't appreciate being called at 11.35PM to be asked to drive an hour into hospital to review some drunk guy in his late 30s who decided it would be a great idea to stick his arm through a window and give himself a cut that hasn't stopped bleeding somewhere near his elbow.

WHAT DO THEY EXPECT ME TO DO? There's nothing major near the cut so I know it's eventually gonna stop bleeding if they put enough pressure on it and elevate it for long enough. I'm not calling a whole theater crew plus an anesthesiologist back after midnight to dig around someone's arm to burn off some idiot blood vessel that wouldn't stop oozing when I know it's gonna stop.

If I could translate all my angst about the whole situation, and my severe annoyance at having to drive all that way for some idiot fuelled by alcohol, into death stare beams ala Cyclops from the X-Men, I would GLADLY drive all that way to stare first at the stupid laceration and congeal the bleeding blood vessel, shrinking it to oblivion so it will never ever ever dare bleed again. And then, I would set my gaze on the owner of the aforementioned blood vessel and stare HIM into oblivion.

Bloody hell. Literally.

Times like this.. makes it so crystal clear to me what an idiot I am to persist and willingly subject myself to all this. A few more of these to confirm my biased beliefs, and soon, I may be outta here for good. C'mon universe, you know I've already got one foot out the door. Stop trying to hurry me along.

Shoo, Vile Bile!

Why does it happen

Year after year

Crappy workmates

My reputation they smear

I'm sick of the stabbing

The hits to the back

They act all helpful and friendly

But they're really just a quack

So year after year

I struggle and I cope

And things seem to work out

It gives me some hope

And then I forget

For just a short while

Before the next year

Again brings up the bile

So every week I wonder

And every day now too

What say I about walking away

Without anything more to do?

What a huge relief

I think that'll be

Sometimes I can't wait,

Can't wait to be free

blown away

What a day today has been
It is my destiny as I have been
I had to get at the Crowne g'day
You can meeting the press my you are
David
There's no point in continuing
Send a direct let you know get it right
Oh no
You have to get any of it and I get out

----

So much for trying to dictate through the Tab..
Let's try again, with fingers on a solid keyboard this time. The gibberish above translates to:

What a day today has been
It's one of the shittiest I have seen
I had to get up at the crack of dawn
To attend my meeting and suppress my yawn.

Oh this is hopeless
There's no point in continuing
Oh, so now you get it right
Or not.
I'm gonna have to continue this at home.

-----

So..
I get home after the meeting
I manage to fit in some shopping even - yay Ikea!
I plod off to work, sleepy
The radio warns of gale force winds up to 100km/hr today
*shrug*
So I drive along and wonder why traffic is especially bad
Things start to click when I encounter about 4 -5 different fire trucks, sirens blazing, during my commute
The radio was reporting havoc throughout Sydney, with a school having to be evacuated because its roof had been blown away.
Then I hit the hill leading up to the hospital and there's traffic.
Something clicked again. Oh no..
Could it be..
!@#$%$@$%
Of all the schools, it had to be the one right next to the hospital.
Of all the intersections they could block, it had to be the choke point where beyond that, there was only one way in and out of the hospital.
The policewoman didn't care that I worked at the hospital.
I should've said I was a DOCTOR and ask if she would take responsibility for poor patient care by not letting me pass. DAMN. My one and only chance to flaunt it and I missed it.
She couldn't care less and made me park down a side road somewhere and said I would just have to walk up the hill to the hospital. Because it wasn't safe to drive, she said.
So I was lucky enough to find a parking spot because the rest of the world was looking for one too. And then I got out of the car and walked. In gale force winds. In rain pouring down sideways because of the wind. With debris. Making my eyes bloodshot and watery. Hard to walk straight. Nearly blew me away. Hard enough as it is without the painful eyes. But with my luck, I had the painful eyes to deal with too. Was basically walking blindly up the road to the hospital, head ducked down, one hand on my hood to keep it from blowing off.
I looked like I had come from a heavy duty session of serious crying by the time I reached the hospital.
I think I would've been a lot safer INSIDE my car than unprotected and walking along the pavement if the winds were blowing and they were worried about injuries from flying debris. Especially when they were still trying to tack remaining roof back on at the school at that stage.
So I get into ED.
Funny how the boys avoided eye contact even though they were in my line of sight. Funny how they suddenly veered off to my right or left. WTF?! Can't deal with a girl who's been crying?
The clincher was that one of them decided to ignore the "crying" completely and proceeded to tell me about his patient he wanted me to review.
I was cranky by then. That didn't help. So I snapped that I already knew about his patient, hence my presence in ED in the first place and that yes, I know about the other patient too but could he please let me at least put my bag down and get the crap outta my eyes first before he continues? Geez.
I still had fluid pouring outta my eyes and was non-stop sniffling throughout his monologue. Guess it wasn't obvious.
Saline did the trick. Eyes better. Bloodshot though. Stupid hard contact lenses. At least I could see again without searing pain shooting through the eyeballs everytime I blinked. Was still sniffling. Went to see a patient. Was happy I had a plan. Was typing it on the computer. THE POWER WENT OUT. !@#$#!#$%#
Lost my progress notes. Computers were rebooting. Mine remained dead. Couldn't be bothered to reboot. Scribbled on paper. Should've stayed with paper I tell you. All this computerized notes stuff is clunky, time-consuming and useless during natural disasters.. when hospitals tend to be busiest. Go figure.
Anyway, the misadventures continue.
The ultrasound machine got killed during the power outage - wasn't hooked to the backup generator and we think the power surge killed it. Fingers crossed for the CT machine. All theater cases except absolute life-threatening emergencies were cancelled for the rest of the day.
I went to catch up with my intern. Put it out there straight up that I was cranky and summarized what had happened, be snappy with the handover. Halfway through, she stopped and asked if I ok because she realized I was sniffling every few seconds. WTF?! What on earth did she think I was telling her right at the beginning?!
Eventually got through the day and got home in one piece.
Now, time for bed so I can face the backlog of cancelled cases in theaters tomorrow.. *Groan*