Meeting with reality
I had a meeting with reality today. My first day of clinical compensation duty has started (less serious than it sounds) and it felt good being back. Being back at the hospital also means that one gets to see some pretty nasty things as well. I met a girl today, she's in my age and got a probable diagnosis of Hepatitis E.
Now, Hep.A and B are the one's who every one knows about since we usually take immunization for it. But hep. E is more rare, spreads via the blood, attacks the liver and has no cure.
Being in a hospital puts your life into perspective sometimes. And I sometimes wonder why we have (or at least I have) to be reminded every now and then of how lucky I should be that I'm not one of those people who daily struggles with very a infectious disease or deadly sickness. That we're one of those who struggle through career and family life while another can only dream about one. Some people need a wake-up call in form of an infarct in order to stop bad habits.
An older woman sleeping next to the girl at the hospital got discharged against medical advice since the family apparently decided that it was not worth the medical expenses they had put out in order to keep her there. Maybe they were one of those thousands of families who goes completely bankrupt every year due to the way to high medical expences than the family can't afford. It was a weird feeling seeing the nurses slowly but steady removing all the devices from her bed side. The last one the respiratory support which was kept till the moment they shifter her to the car. Knowing that she won't make it for long without her reapiratory support at her present condition...
An older woman sleeping next to the girl at the hospital got discharged against medical advice since the family apparently decided that it was not worth the medical expenses they had put out in order to keep her there. Maybe they were one of those thousands of families who goes completely bankrupt every year due to the way to high medical expences than the family can't afford. It was a weird feeling seeing the nurses slowly but steady removing all the devices from her bed side. The last one the respiratory support which was kept till the moment they shifter her to the car. Knowing that she won't make it for long without her reapiratory support at her present condition...
And there we walk, from one bed to another, the nurses and I, talking about the future, gossiping in Kannada, laughing to the doctors bad handwriting and hide behind lockers when the X-ray machine is going wild. Does one have to be cold hearted or warm hearted in order to function in this environment? Maybe good at controlling when feelings are needed and not...
Peace out and enjoy the weekend people:)