in the business of saving lives..

I've only got one more week to finish my internship weeks in Paediatrics, and boy i'm i glad!
The other day, i was in our acute room... (that's like the Paediatric E.R. at this here district hospital) and i was thinking..

"hmm we must have gotten really good at this."

Gotten good at this, you see, since, it had been more than a week since a child passed away! A personal record, that i felt quite proud of. So there i was, happily remembering that i had only slightly more than a week b4 i was done with screaming babies and endless ward rounds every single morning!

I don't know if i imagine the headache, lakini, i suddenly felt like a pile of bricks had dropped squarely on my head. The nurse i was working with announced that "the child there in the corner doesn't look too good", and as i glanced at the said corner, i could see the mother sobbing and this one dedicated father holding the oxygen prongs on the child's nostrils.

"Oh dear!" My worst moments in the ward usually start this way. Well, actually they start something like... "Daktari, mgonjwa hapumui!" And right there, u've to jump on your feet and do something, anything... usually heroic, heroic-like or somewhere in between.

Back to the story. So this particular kid was gasping at every breathe it could muster, and after 11 weeks in that ward, you can almost tell how long one has to live. A very unnerving skill, and for this kid it wasn't very long. The child's dad didn't make it any better when he confided in me that this was his only kid, and only 1 year after he was born, it would be cruel for him to join his maker.

Time was of the essence, and i proceeded to fix a line. As expected, the kids veins could just not be seen. But we did not give up. Pricked and poked his arms, his hand, his scalp, his neck.. yet nothing. Things seemed to get frantic, the mothers sobbing only got louder, and everyone else held a deathly silence. (deathly, how apt!) .. strapped his leg to look for a vein there. Don't know if it was luck or 11 weeks of experience, but we got it. Felt like time for a war cry just there.

Victory was ours! Having given starting doses of some acute drugs to help the child breathe better i left, felt a bit like i was walking on air. Another young soul saved.

The evening was young and we had been invited for a dinner organised by a drug company to launch a new product.. (more like bribing us with food.. but that's a story for another day.) And we ate and made merry.

I wasn't on call that night, but i really wanted to know how the child i had left earlier in the acute room was doing. When they say life isn't fair, they really mean it. Being a resource poor setting, our 'mortuary' (prior to a body getting to the actual hospital mortuary), is an isolated bed,(or is it cot) placed near the door to the acute room, just as one gets in. And like a really bad movie, was the body of that kid, wrapped in a leso and labelled with his name, well in sight for me to read.

Uuuh!! It's a nasty feeling that. Yo' only consolation is that you did the best for the patient, and many others have survived, thanks in large part to yo' efforts. But ooh! it ain't consoling.. ..not one bit.

Laterz,
aNGuiShEd mEDiCinEmAn.