Late Night Ramblings from the Emergency Department

Night #2

It's 4:30am.  That alone should give you an idea of the state I'm in.  Imagine if you will me typing this up in a slow, slurred drawl, eyes closing lazily, the slightest hint of drool out the corner of my mouth.  It's my second night in this seven night stretch in ED, and all in all it's been (let's not jinx it now) pretty quiet.  There's only two patients in the department and no one in the waiting room.  The nurses are looking at trashy online gossip, the med reg is working on yet another admission, and me, well I've decided to keep a running commentary on all these crazy happenings in blog form.

With all this spare time on my hands, and because I care about you all so very very much, I thought I would try to squeeze in another post before my trip up to Sydney.  Please don't be expecting anything too brilliant.  Like I said, I will be hard pressed to cook up a decent meal this week.  No matter how well adjusted you are, nights will always throw you off kilter.  When do you sleep, when do you wake up?  When do you eat, and what meal should you have?  Is it breakfast at 8pm?  Or should I be eating cereal before I go to sleep?  And yes, all of my dilemmas are centred around the base functions of eating and sleeping.  I would throw sex in there too, but we all know that's not happening.

So I awoke at 6pm yesterday evening to discover that my flat was completely devoid of any food.  I didn't even have any of the basics like milk, bread, cereal, BBQ shapes or chocolate.  I made a quick run to the local Woolies where I ran into my night reg, who presumably was also doing a last minute diner dash.  It was late, I was lazy.  I picked up the basics and a few other ingredients to throw a sneaky dinner/breakfast together.

Cheater's Pasta

I feel extra naughty about this dish.  It's basically instant spaghetti with Leggo's stir-through sauce, and the only thing I did was throw in some mushrooms, capsicums and chilli flakes.  I wouldn't normally put a dish like this up here, but I'm a bit short on options this week.  The photo looks pretty good though.  I took a leaf out of the ol' Donna Hay presentation files and did the whole twisty pasta thingy.  Anyway, it was good.  But next time I promise I'll make my pasta sauce from scratch.

Night #3

6:00am.  Another good night.  There is only one patient in the department who I'm a bit stumped on, and will have to wait until morning to get some advice.  Nurses are doing their thing.  Miss Night Meg Reg is off seeing some sick patients on the ward.  She is a looker that one.  I wonder if she's single.  Unlikely, the good ones never are.  Don't worry, she doesn't have my facebook so she will never read this blog.

There has been no cooking tonight/last night.  I got invited over to a BBQ at the medical students' place where there was backyard cricket and rissoles a plenty.  Is it wrong that a 2nd year resident feels more comfortable hanging out with the medical students than his colleagues?  Maybe all those women were right, maybe I am immature.  Or maybe they're just stupid-heads.

I have arranged to have breakfast with Matt the resident this morning after my shift.  We are totally gonna bro it out over poached eggs and wilted spinach.  No coffee for me, I need to sleep today.  Maybe I will invite Miss Night Med Reg to join us.  It will be fun times.  I'll take photos just so I can have something to put up here.

Night #4

Over the hump.  Any motivation I had to do something productive during the day is rapidly declining.  I forgot to take photos at breakfast, but look at what I ate after I woke up!

It has been a while since I've devoured a good Whopper.  Normally I'm a KFC Zinger fan, but Hungry Jacks was on the same side of the street on the way home from the shops.  Yes, I am even too lazy to cross the street to go to KFC.

There is a new med reg on tonight.  Mr Night Med Reg is not as attractive as Miss Night Med Reg, but he is quite lovely and helpful.  Still, I miss having something pretty around to look at.  It just makes for a more pleasant working environment.

I have been eating left over pasta for ?lunch for the last couple of nights, but tonight I am having Campbell's Country Ladle canned soup.  All the staff here agree that Country Ladle is the canned soup of choice for canned soup connessieurs.  Although I quite like the Chunky Fully Loaded soup.  Afterall, this fully loaded man needs a fully loaded can.

Night #6

The last couple of nights have been fairly hectic.  Walking into a packed emergency department at the beginning of your night shift gives you a sinking feeling unlike any other, except maybe a post-take patient list the length of your arm.

There is finally a bit of down time in the department.  The nurses are sitting around chatting about their kids, about houses, about recipes.  I keep myself occupied by checking facebook on my Android and playing late night 'Words with Friends'.  I'm getting absolutely slaughtered in most of my games, though surprisingly I'm beating my ex (that doesn't sound right) who is a whiz with the words.  I'm guessing lucky letters has a lot to do with success in that game rather than actual knowledge of words.  Give me a good game of Scrabble any day.

Night #7

IT'S THE LAST NIGHT!!!  And it really couldn't have come soon enough.  The last few nights have been hellish, and I've realised I've made quite a few errors.  Nothing that will turn out too serious I hope, but it's still a horrible feeling knowing you've made mistakes with people's health.  This job can be quite taxing physically and emotionally.

I think that may be all I have to say for now.  Thank you for reading all these crazy late night thoughts of mine.  Looking back at what I've written, my mind appears to be quite disjointed and unstable, but I guess we already knew that.  And it hasn't been a great week for food.  Cooking was relatively non-existent, and my meals, well let's just say that Hungry Jack's had a few friends over.  However now I can look forward to a week of deliciousness in Sydney.  Photos, reviews, and more general randomness to come soon!


Addit.

So I woke up late before leaving for Sydney and had to rush out of the flat.  After getting lost a couple of times (stupid Google Maps) I finally arrived, only to find out I did the whole 7 hour trip with two odd socks and my underwear inside out.  On the up side, I did end up beating my ex in Words with Friends.  Suck it Addy!  (Still sounds wrong)