Days at work

Gosh what a week! I arrived at work and it's total chaos. Nurses and doctors are running around, four patients are lying in the hallway as there is not enough room. New patients are arriving, others are pressing the alarm button as they need help and the doctors ask "so can we do a round now?". Crazy! As that was not enough...one of the nurses came in to work the evening, she had quiet a bit of a pain in her stomach and during the round the doc said to her "you are walking like an appendix, let me examine you" ... two hours later, she was walking around in her patient clothes awaiting surgery. In the end we all could not but laugh. How ironic... Later on she sat in the office in her little, white patient outfit and the i.v dripping nicely into her veins, giving the nurse that came in as a replacement a report about her patients.

The next day it was just as hectic. I didnt manage to go to the bathroom or eat. Everyone was running around like a duracell rabbit. Thank god that those batteries last long! Even though the work is stressfull there are some moments that you never forget. Like two of my patients that we were "finished with" and they were being signed out from the clinic. There she was in the hall and i in the office preparing the medications... "Regina..." i heard someone calling me. I approach her, took her hand and crouched next to her as she was in a wheel chair. "Thank you", she said. "Oh its nothing", I replied "thats why we are all here". Then she smiled a tired smile, as she is very weak, fighting metastatic cancer. "I am going to the palliative care now, but I want you to know that everything you have done, i and my family will always be grateful for. I will always remember you". Just as she was sitting there in her wheelchair awaiting her paperwork to be finished, a man passed by in the hall smiling. He was signed out from the clinic on his way home. He stopped. He expressed his gratitude and said that he will finally continue with his life now after two weeks in the hospital. I smiled and wished him all the best. In that very moment it hit me..there they where standing next to each other in the hall, two people that really touched my life. Two people standing next to each other, one on the way home the other one on the way leaving this world...