Izzy & Noah ✔️

Fifty-Three: Embracing Monday Chaos

I look at the name board and see that it says M.D.

Darkness falls over my eyes.

I swallow saliva.

He came back.

It was not long ago that he arrived in a bad mood, but what has happened now?

We pour coffee and sit down in an empty chair.

The room is small but comfortable.

The walls are white.

There is a cupboard in one corner and a fridge in the other.

And a big board with the names of the patients on it, so that you can hand them over every day at the end of the shift.

The handover goes something like this: you say what you have done with the patient during the day; if the person handing over does not know the patient, it is good to say why the patient has been admitted, what are the special features, what is the plan.

I am thinking about becoming a doctor.

I think about life and how short it is, because the boy is only a few years older than me.

I remember his mother saying one day that he was the least demanding baby, always very independent, but now very dependent on the help of others.

How does life suddenly change?

I sit and sip my coffee in silence.

I try to shut out my thoughts.

It doesn't work.

This kind of work pulls you in, how well you start to be aware of everything.

Sometimes there are tears, sometimes there is helplessness, sometimes you feel that you're not enough, that I can't do it anymore, that it's not working.

But at the same time, it is a special mission to be there for the patients, to help them, to relieve their pain.

A colleague from the night shift handing over patients.

When it comes to M.D.

Her voice trailed off.

" Worsening, blood in the stool, difficulty breathing, more shortness of breath. He was given dexamethasone and morphine. The dyspnoea is gone. His saturation is good. His mother is with him. Maybe it would be good for someone to talk to the mother today, to tell her that the situation is serious and that it can get worse quickly," she says.

These are good sisters, our middle sisters in the department, although they are older ladies, but like the Bible, they are full of knowledge and a sense of when someone is going to get worse, when someone's condition is going to change, when someone is going to die.

These are experiences and it takes time for you as a new staff member to acquire them.

There is something that they teach you in the salt, that you go through in the exercises.

The second thing is that when you get to your home department, that's where you're going to work for the rest of your life, unless you change your mind and go somewhere else, which happens quite often.

Because there is an effort, there is a pace, there are things that are sometimes painful.

Especially when a young person comes in who is terminally ill, preferably with small children.

Then it gets really painful. It is difficult for everyone involved to see that suffering.

Suzy nods. "I agree. We should talk, I think the situation is not the best".