Thursday, April 22, 2004
Circle in the Sand
It seems the ATLS course comes complete with free and lavish dinners pegged to the end of the day.
After ten hours of (stimulating! exciting! fascinating!!) lectures, though. I don't have the energy. To socialise over a dinner.
Too tired.
Must. Finish. Last 6 chapters in manual.
3 hours of sleep is a bad thing.
*****
Why couldn't med school have been this well taught? Learning can be fun! Even ten hours of lectures. Amazing.
I should have read the whole damn manual last week. sigh.
*****
He had actually become quite accustomed to the daily flow of thoughts, and little laughs. The reprieve feels... strange.
He wonders quietly at the silence - too much info, perhaps.
*****
The Reaper's Shade
Death has never really held sway over me. It's not that I feel young and immortal, or that I don't feel like I belong in Death's domain. If anything, I often feel old. heh.
I've just never really feared it. One suspects it has to do with, once upon a time, losing oneself.
Were the moment to come, I felt, I would face it down with quiet resignation. But with my head held high. A Graceful death. Even if it was going to be messy. Or painful.
And there have been brushes. To make me realise that somewhere inside me, I really feel this way. Not just brave words.
So why is it, a fortnight ago: waking from my drowsy slumber head fast against a glass panel on the tube train, I felt the cold chill of fear in the pit of my stomach at the sight of a large, unclaimed suitcase on the other side? Fear enough to make me toy with the idea of getting off the train at the next stop.
I didn't, in the end.
*****
Did I mention...
Cannulating and bleeding the young male trauma victim the other day as the nurses applied CPR. Two needles each side, the beginnings of an emergency thoracotomy.
Sustained Pulseless Electrical Activity.
Call it.
Young, twentysomething male. Good looking. Looks a bit like Prince William. Now gradually turning blue about the lips as CPR is stopped. White about the hands. A waxwork effigy.
Wrong. So wrong.
No, I probably didn't. Y chromosome.
*****
Sadness
From the Fire Angel's blog -
She watched him calmly as he pulled out his camera and asked for a last photograph of her. She didn't flinch or grimace as she forced herself to smile at his request.
What he was wearing, what he was carrying, the way he held out his arms and the expression on his face permanently seared themselves into her memory as he asked to hug her one last time, though she would have without him asking.
The intensity of their last embrace left its mark on her soul as she kissed him on his collar as they hugged. She refused to look at his face as they let go, fearing to burst into tears in the hotel lobby.
As she walked back home after she waved goodbye to the bus disappearing into the distance, she received a text message from him one last time, and no longer held (back) the floodgates closed as she trudged uphill, the late morning sun burning a tan into her neck.
She will never see him again.
Paths crossed.
Paths lost.
Waters closing over.
The slightly salty tang of tears.
Is this what happens - when you run out of questions. And answers?
Be well, my friend.
My door is always open to you, as well.
It seems the ATLS course comes complete with free and lavish dinners pegged to the end of the day.
After ten hours of (stimulating! exciting! fascinating!!) lectures, though. I don't have the energy. To socialise over a dinner.
Too tired.
Must. Finish. Last 6 chapters in manual.
3 hours of sleep is a bad thing.
*****
Why couldn't med school have been this well taught? Learning can be fun! Even ten hours of lectures. Amazing.
I should have read the whole damn manual last week. sigh.
*****
He had actually become quite accustomed to the daily flow of thoughts, and little laughs. The reprieve feels... strange.
He wonders quietly at the silence - too much info, perhaps.
*****
The Reaper's Shade
Death has never really held sway over me. It's not that I feel young and immortal, or that I don't feel like I belong in Death's domain. If anything, I often feel old. heh.
I've just never really feared it. One suspects it has to do with, once upon a time, losing oneself.
Were the moment to come, I felt, I would face it down with quiet resignation. But with my head held high. A Graceful death. Even if it was going to be messy. Or painful.
And there have been brushes. To make me realise that somewhere inside me, I really feel this way. Not just brave words.
So why is it, a fortnight ago: waking from my drowsy slumber head fast against a glass panel on the tube train, I felt the cold chill of fear in the pit of my stomach at the sight of a large, unclaimed suitcase on the other side? Fear enough to make me toy with the idea of getting off the train at the next stop.
I didn't, in the end.
*****
Did I mention...
Cannulating and bleeding the young male trauma victim the other day as the nurses applied CPR. Two needles each side, the beginnings of an emergency thoracotomy.
Sustained Pulseless Electrical Activity.
Call it.
Young, twentysomething male. Good looking. Looks a bit like Prince William. Now gradually turning blue about the lips as CPR is stopped. White about the hands. A waxwork effigy.
Wrong. So wrong.
No, I probably didn't. Y chromosome.
*****
Sadness
From the Fire Angel's blog -
She watched him calmly as he pulled out his camera and asked for a last photograph of her. She didn't flinch or grimace as she forced herself to smile at his request.
What he was wearing, what he was carrying, the way he held out his arms and the expression on his face permanently seared themselves into her memory as he asked to hug her one last time, though she would have without him asking.
The intensity of their last embrace left its mark on her soul as she kissed him on his collar as they hugged. She refused to look at his face as they let go, fearing to burst into tears in the hotel lobby.
As she walked back home after she waved goodbye to the bus disappearing into the distance, she received a text message from him one last time, and no longer held (back) the floodgates closed as she trudged uphill, the late morning sun burning a tan into her neck.
She will never see him again.
Paths crossed.
Paths lost.
Waters closing over.
The slightly salty tang of tears.
Is this what happens - when you run out of questions. And answers?
Be well, my friend.
My door is always open to you, as well.
