cos this story jus needs to be told..

...Back when I was in the 3rd year... I dont really remember how the day began...but thats not relevant here...

My roomate.. for confidentiality purposes lets call her "Spank-a-swine"... So Spank-a-swine is very sick, i dunno what it is, she doesn know what it is... which means i gotta take her to the hospital... and going to the doctor in our hospital on a busy day means you pray time expands..

At about 11 am after a couple of classes, me and Spank-a-swine are sittin in the waiting room of the orthopaedic department among men with Plaster of paris casts which are no longer anywhere close to white, women with troubled faces holding cranky babies with runny noses, MIT 'rockstars' with compression bandages or casts with Graffiti telling the reader to "F*** OFF"...

Its almost 1:45 pm and we're still in the same spot (hey i just realised doesn it close for lunch even?) and my GIT is swirling n twirling inside me... also our clinics are about to start at 2. So Spank-a-swine asks me to leave for clinics and says she'd ask her boyfriend to come stay with her.. for confidentiality purposes lets call him "Creep-wanker" (i luv u buddy but the other choices were just too.... boring).

So i wade my way outta there n rush to Dhanvantri which is our Neurology Department..the one department where there is so much work to do it will crack your spine (hey Spank-a-swine.. you cud've been Crack-a-spine :P). Luckily (or may be not) I'm posted in the CTS ICU (cardio thoracis surgery ICU.. which in my 3rd year used to harbour Neurology patients) with another friend of mine.... for confidentiality purposes lets call her "Birth-control".

So me and Birth-control reach the ICU, n we usually treat 2 patients along with a PG, "Paprika"... Since i've had a rough day without food (which for me is very vital) Paprika and Birth-control offer to take the drowsy fella and allow me to handle this one comparitively alert patient.. all i have to do is get him to stand and pivot him onto the wheel chair... can easily be done solo if the guy co-operative.. Lets call this guy "Umesh".. for confidentiality purposes :)...

So i go to Umesh and tell him he needs to sit down and he says he wants to sleep like hes been doin all day. I coax him into sitting, telling him his family is waiting outside to see him. Somehow magically he sits and in the process stands even.. Now the thing about ICUs is... EVERYTHING there has wheels and none of their locks work.. so when he stood his bed hit the back of his knee and rolled to the wall. But doesn matter cos my man is standing now... Unfortunately just before i pivot him he realises thet HE IS STANDING and doesn want to.. knees buckle and now his face is rested on my forearm with my arms around his torso....i'd let him sit but im still holding him cos there nothing under his butt! Paprika and Birth-control rush to bring the wheelchair closer. And i continue telling Umesh to stand up atleast for a few seconds so i can put him on to something... All he says to me is "GOD IS GREAT!!!"...

Moments later i can feel something cold and wet on my forearm... i tell Birth-control that and she peeps to check what im talkin about... "HES BITING YOU!!!!!!!!!" are the next words i hear echoing in the ICU.. We put him down get him off me. Luckily it dint puncture my skin but yeah he sure did gimme a hate-hickey. :(

Anyway we take him out.. he meets family.. comes back in.. we very carefully put him back to bed... i go to keep the wheelchair back while Birth-control was still around him fixing his bed and "FIITTTISH!!!" a ripping sound is heard.. i rush to the bed to find Birth-control with her hands across her mouth.. I ask her if he slapped her or something (thats what it sounded like) and she shakes her head indicating 'No' and points at his pelvis... took me seconds to figure out what he'd done............ pulled his condom catheter and let go... ouch!

It is 6 by the time we leave the ICU.. 2 hours later than we should've left. Paprika and Birth-control force me to go to the Trauma to get a Tetanus toxoid immediately even though i assure them there were greater chances of me dying of fatigue and starvation. I enter the Trauma Centre, there is one doctor there staring at the computer screen examining some patient's X-ray... i thank god for the last thing i needed was a herd of doctors listening to my embarrassing ''history'. I walk up to him n mumble "i need a TT".. "why?" (still lookin at the Xray)... "Got a bite".... "What bit u?"(raises an eyebrow n gives me a crooked smile..) ... "patient". In seconds i have no idea from where half a dozen doctors appeared around the counter with similar raised eyebrows and crooked smiles like Bell's Palsy was suddenly an epidemic!

I swore under my breath, got my shot n walked to Cosmo (cafe close by) where Spank-a-swine and Creep-wanker were waiting for me.. The last thing i remember was resting my head on its cool glass table......

Two hearts, One soul......

Now im back home from Manipal, "totally lost dunno what to do" kinda situation... parents r dozing, da cable isn't working, im too lazy to do any outdoor activity at the moment n nobodys online.... At times like these i relive good ol' days... okay so im still mentally in Manipal, i tried not to believe it but i ws just caught sleep talkin.. STOP THINKIN :P, i was only taking patient history in my sleep.. was dreaming about some housewife with heel pain... now it makes sense to me, cos everytime i asked her a question i wudn get a reply :S... i figured she was Mallu... oh damn! i hope i wasn acting it all out in my dream like i usually do with Mallu cases..parents will think im possessed :O

Okay okay deviating from the topic, come back now.. i jus realised im never gonna get patients who're cranky housewives with 15 family members or farmers hit by their ox/fallen off their tractors... all ill have to deal with will probably be software engineers who need posture correction, overworked working women who'l have no time to bitch abt their daughter-in-laws to me (those cranky housewives.. awesome fun!)..

Anyway im here to tell you about one of my coolest patients during my surgery posting... that ajja was hilarious.. he used to make my day :)....so the situation was i had jus returned from home after a long vacation and a crazy bus journey, reached back just in time to grab my lab coat n rush to work.. i was so hungry, sleepy n tired n had all new patients cos i was gone on a long leave... i was thankful cos wasn really feeling too chatty that day.

So i enter the L3 ward, walk up to the skinny old man who was a post-op case of stomach carcinoma. I start giving him the usual "deergha shwasa tokolli ajja.. mooginda tokoli baayinda bidi" (take a deep breath.. inhale from ur nose, exhale from ur mouth) command... Little did i know this ajja was the talkative sorts.. he started telling me about his cancer and how the doctors removed a part of his stomach n how his "tube" hole (oesophageal opening) has become small so he cant eat anything big n solid..... i "hmmm"ed him n continued... finally he was so frustrated he stopped me n said "Why r u makin me do these exercises??!!".. i said "see u're taking really small breaths, u need to take in more air so u can get well soon"... he looked at me like i'm some idiot n said "but i told u!!! my hole is small!! i cant take big things inside!"........ we looked at each other for about 10 seconds.. me trying to figure out what was his problem..... him, i dunno probably wondering which planet i was from.... I finally realized may be i knew what the whole misunderstanding was all about.

i sat down next to him n said "ajja there r 2 bags in your body.. one for ur food, one for ur air... 2 tubes carry those 2 things separately... ur food hole is small.. ur air hole is still big.. so breathe".... he looks at me like i told him Man was a Monkey (shudve tried that) or that the Earth wasn the centre of the universe... he looks at his chest which is pretty much only ribs n says "LOOK AT ME! im so small.. I HAVE 2 BAGS.. AND 2 TUBES!! where is there place for it to fit in here??" (i was so tempted to tell him he had 2 bags for air alone, but nah!) Anyway he believed me cos well i had the white coat on... so that was Biology class 1.

Next day i go meet him-treat him, we're best buddies by now... we go through the whole routine of exercises n chit-chat about which patient/nurse/doctor did what to which patient/nurse/doctor and when i was auscultating him post treatment he asks me "what do u hear through the stethoscope??"... i was flabbergasted hearing him use the word "stethoscope" and not "steth" as most doctors around say it... I tell him doctors use it to listen to the air you breathe in and ur heart beat..... he then asks me "why do u hold my wrist then??"... im tellin ya that ajja was so curious n smart if he had the opportunity he'd be a famous doctor today.... I say "to feel for ur heart beat (im not so good at the medical kannada terminology so i figured heart beat, pulse beat... whats the big difference)"....
His eyes got bigger than his face when he said the next few words...... "NOW U TELL ME I HAVE 2 HEARTS!! :O :O" :D :D :D well took me a while to explain the anatomy n physiology but he finally got it... :D

:( shucks.. i miss the hospital!