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Night and Day, |
night and day
 general comments If you have just joined us, welcome to my dutch attempt at über-fanfic. This is the realm of my girls, Kai and Piersen, perfect strangers who have managed to stumble into each other's paths by chance (or is it...?). This is going to be a long voyeuristic eyeball at their lives, their characters, and the way things begin to take on an inexorable momentum when they step into each other's lives. The emphasis is on 'long', so something this drawn out might not be everone's cup of tea. This is a work in progress. And as much as I'd love to devote hours and hours to writing everything down, real life intrudes on my life with dismaying regularity. So if you're still with me, I hope that patience is something you can spare as well. I'd appreciate any comments or feedback you might have. Heck, even if you don't have any feedback, drop a note anyway at fastenyourseatbelts [at] yahoo [dot] com. I'd love to hear from you. update notes 300704 Welcome to the new address - sorry about the abrupt domain shift, but I needed the change, and it lead to some enforced time spent house-keeping. I am sorry if this inconvenienced you greatly; I'm glad you've found your way here. Why not take a seat with me, and pour yourself a nice tall glass of something - I'll be sticking to my milk and cookies. Yes, I've been trying to channel my childhood, seeing as I've been sick of being an adult lately. And now that I am taking a mental health week, I will be abdicating rational thought and responsibility for the duration. Perhaps it was that lapse in rational thought that has me still stewing a little in residual guilt. Yes, I have bought a new laptop. A ridiculously expensive object of incredible beauty that I hope is fairly functional as well. *laughs* No, I am enough of a geek to appreciate the brains behind my new Vaio, but I am still enough of a girl and a SonySlut to want to squeal everytime I lay eyes on it. Could I afford it? Yes, probably. Did I need it? Probably not. Did I want it? Oh yes. Talk about retail therapy - my credit card still hurts. Oh well, it's mine now. Go away, you insidious worm of guilt burrowing away at my conscience. I squash you. The past few months have been a little draining - chalk it up to a mid-working year slump for me, but for a while every day was a struggle. Manning the Emergency department in Winter is a thankless experience - ambulance trolleys line the corridors, patients are grumpy at having to wait so long to be seen, only to be sent back out to the waiting room to wait a bit longer after their assessment because there isn't a single bed in the hospital. Doctors are grumpy at having to take three times as long to assess a patient because there is no bed, and the waiting room is just so full. The techs in the lab are grumpy because of all the stuff they have to process urgently, and the radiographers are pissed because we had to use their trolleys as beds to put patients in. In the end, though everyone was treated, no one was really satisfied. It felt a little relentless. It was probably the robotic nature of things that led me to take this week away from work - I was worried when I found myself just not caring anymore. I was a right cynical bitch, trying to run the unit overnight with an intern that disappeared off somewhere, three ambulances arriving all at once. It's not good to dismiss pain or suffering, but when everyone around you is suffering in varying degrees of severity between whinging and practically dying, I guess I couldn't be at all places at once, as much as I wanted or tried to. So this is the "Regain My Sanity" week, where I get back in touch with my Inner Child (trampled on so badly, poor thing), my empathy for my fellow human beings, my optimism for all that is beautiful and good. I will be going to Broken Hill in a few weeks (for those who have been around for a while, you may remember that I was there two years ago as a student), which is yet another change in scenery that I am looking forward to a lot, and I hope will rejuvenate my love for the job. For those who don't know, Broken Hill is an old mining town in the Outback (not a term I myself use, but for ease of understanding for all your folks overseas), fairly well removed from major cities. The medicine there is interesting and challenging, and I think I'll have fun out there. Aside from planning for my three months away, there is little much else going on. As if on cue, every body system decided to go on strike the minute I go on holiday and not before (where I could have taken some much appreciated sick leave) - I am slowly convalescing. Meanwhile, my days have been peppered with sleep, Law and Order SVU re-runs (Alex, I miss you so much) and studying for my exams next year. At least, that's the adult talking. The child wants to take a year off and leave the job behind for a while. I want to study again. Go enrol in Columbia, live like I've always lived in New York and study a totally non-scientific subject because that's what I've always wanted to do. I am caught at the cusp of my dreams and my responsibilities - with applications at Columbia due in a few weeks, and medical appointments for next year due at the same time, I find myself doing a bit for both but committing to neither. See how the adult just creeps back in here? Go away. There are children at play here. Anyway - in the time I've been hunting for a new place to park my site, I've managed to do some writing. Here's the completion of page 17 - hope you enjoy. In case I don't get a chance to drop in before I head off, have a great few weeks. Until next time... 300504 Wow - almost half the year has gone by, and what do I have to show for it? Not too much, I'm afraid. Hope this finds you all well. Life in my side of the pond has been pretty uneventful - and I'm really liking it that way. I've embraced my inner homebody, and have spent much of my past week off doing all the little things around the house that I've been needing to do for ages. One of these is getting my photos from my last India trip to Jammu&Kashmir scanned and put in a flash album. It's taken me forever to do, though the computer bit itself was easy enough. Much of the time was spent on cross-referencing all the little bits of notes I've kept from my trip against by travel diary, just to make sure I've remembered everything correctly. It's taken me two whole days, but it's done - and it feels like I've re-immersed myself into how incredible it was being in such an awesome place. If you have a moment, feel free to drop by and have a look. Being Autumn (my favourite season), I couldn't be totally disgusting and stay indoors the whole time. The weather is at its best - bright sunshine, and enough cold at night to make you want to bundle up with a wee dram of something nice. Funnily enough, it's also an awfully nice time to go to the beach - though I haven't been quite up to swimming in the freezing water. I'm sort of organising my life at the moment, and I'm standing at a bit of a career crossroads. There's a lot of planning to be done, and on one hand I'm working on it, and on the other I'm in total denial and not doing anything about it. If something concrete actually happens, I'll be keeping you updated. Meanwhile, I prepare to wrap up my stint in Intensive Care, and put on my shin-guards ready for 10 weeks in Emergency, through the Winter time (the worst time of all to be in ED). Wish me luck. Oops - nearly forgot. A small update. It was hard to write for various reasons, but I hope it works for you. If it does, or doesn't, or whatever, feel free to let me know. 260404 What a godawful week. I look back last week on my mention of "extremes of emotion", and feel it like it was a throwaway line. During the last seven nights, I found myself being continually confronted by my own mortality, and the nature of my own existence. Life is so precious. It's incredible - or incredibly dense of me - how often I need to be reminded of that. Reincarnation or no, a life once lived can never be re-lived again - at the end of the day, don't we all have regrets? Aren't there things we want to know, things we want to say or do in this short flicker of time that we own? Perhaps not, if the time of passing was of our own choosing... but how often is the choice ever presented to us? I take stock of the patients from this past week: Four patients - young, previously well even if at varying levels of good health - suddenly suffer a catastrophic event that brings them to ICU on the cusp of life and death. No one is ready for that final moment of truth - so many have fear in their eyes, even as you try to calm them during the periods of lucidity between violent bouts of CPR. It's okay, hang in there, your family's on their way. You are cared for, you are loved. Don't be afraid. Goodbye. The things I heard as families cried, while I sat apart from their grief staring at the inevitable paperwork: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish. I love you. What if there were no "what ifs"? Each day is in the blood that stains your clothes, unable to be washed away - a map of trials and triumphs, whispered truths and pain. There is only one indelible chance - and no room for complacency or regret. I tell myself to take it, seize it, Own it - yet in an echo of the panic I saw in eyes before the eventual calm, I find faint traces of that same paralysing fear grip my heart. I spent today immersed in family and friends in an effort to instantly reset my body clock. It felt good to be in their grounding presence again - even if it took a while for everything to percolate through this thick blanket of exhaustion pressing down on my head (34 hours awake and counting). I'm almost done with my rounds, but I couldn't retire for the night without at least stopping by here first. It's been good to reaffirm the important things and people in my life - sitting here, acknowledging fears and truths - and feeling my heart become a little lighter, a little more free in the process. 190404 Amazing how a week can pass by so quickly. I'm counting on the successful reversal of my sleep-wake cycle as I begin my week of nights (starting tonight, actually - good morning), and the fervent wish that there aren't won't be too many people falling sick this week. I had the great fortune of seeing Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind last week. There is little doubt that Mr Kaufman is a creative genius; but even knowing this I was completely undone by his latest cinematic venture. I'm sure it's hardly a spoiler when I say that the movie deals with memory as one of its major themes. A difficult, ephemeral subject to tackle - but so admirably explored here. All its fragility, its preciousness, its fleeting, fluid quality is played out on screen at times so subtle, then other times so comically in-your-face that one could not help but feel a little existential leaving the theatre. I won't say more, lest I give something away (or put you off with my pseudo-intellectual diatribe). But I will link to this picture - a publicity shot from the website, which was a lingering symbol for me. Two people - at once comfortably and trepidatious, trusting in the surface of a frozen lake cracked like frosted glass. Did I mention you should go see it, if you haven't already? *smiles* A touch of housekeeping issues. I've gotten a lot of "Failed Mail Delivery" messages in my mailbox from people I've never even heard of before, let alone sent email to. I think someone may have hijacked my email addy and header details. I'm sorry if you've received mail from "me" that had spam or worse attached to it. The way to be really sure that email is from me is 1) If the subject heading was yours, and I'm replying to your email, and 2) my heading structure for updates is usually Title Update, and the Page (like N&D Update - Page 17). Nothing about viagra, or enlargement of anything, thank you very much. Anyway - perhaps I've pre-empted myself. I've managed to have a little of page 17 written. Not too big on plot or character development, but it feels like there were a few people I haven't seen in a little while, and it was high time to bring them back. I've also done some minor tweaks to page 16 - no major changes, but a few re-wordings were done. Hope it works for you, and I'll see you in a week or so. 120404 Happy belated Easter, and very heartfelt thanks to everyone who have been so wonderful as to write in to say hello. It's overwhelmingly touching, and feels like finding a long lost treasure. Thank you. Speaking of long lost treasures - I have just returned from a three week traipse through the USA (not quite long enough for a sojourn, but longer than a whip-around, I guess). I hadn't realised how it it had been since I was last there - being back, it was like peeling back a near-opaque film from an old photograph, only to find colours more vivid than one remembered. California was an incredible spring palette of crisp green, almost-fluorescent yellow and intense blue skies. Now I know how the whole myth of the Californian summer has come about - it's all real. Following the Pacific Coast Highway up north from LA has taken me past rugged beaches beautiful in their loneliness, the most intense array of wildflowers and forests that filled your nose with the bright smell of pine. I've rarely had the opportunity to travel to the States anytime outside of Winter, so the surprise of warm Spring weather (and all the blooming that came with it) was simply spectacular. Unfortunately, the same weather did not extend to New York; although the appearance of snow is enough to keep at least one traveller happy amidst a few million or so locals, waiting for the end of a long, tired Winter. I spent a lot of time walking - I love walking in Manhattan (not to mention the subways have always brought out a latent claustrophobia in me), and I got a chance to really commune with the different areas in the city and soak them all back in. It's been quite a few years between visits (18 hours by plane plus layovers is part of the reason) but I'm keen to make more regular stops now. More than the places, though (mountains and cities really don't change too much) - the best thing about my trip, and the part that I will treasure most - is the people along the way. In all my travels, Americans are amongst the most gracious and generous hosts I have ever encountered; I've been bowled over by the lengths that friends new and old have gone through to show me around, and the offers of hospitality extended to me (from many of you, in fact) have left the most indelible mark - a sense of wonder at (to paraphrase what a friend had predicted me) the ecstacy of friendship. Which makes coming back to work all the more difficult. *laughs* Intensive Care is a completely different brand of medicine (also known as Expensive Care - seeing as I spend 12 hours a day ordering obscure tests and discarding equipment). Everything I thought I knew about clinical practice is turned on its head - turning a rather cocky JuneBug (who thought she was rather more-than-competent) into feeling like a novice once again. It's a branch of medicine that I fancied myself getting into at some point in the future, so I've tried to find my feet fast - though nothing can really prepare you for the extremes in both the science and the emotions involved. The rosters are arranged so that one works 14 hours a day for seven days, then you have seven days on call (in case the other poor resident becomes sick). I have 6 patients at the moment, and inevitably one develops some fondness for them (seeing as I spend more time with them than with my family or friends!) - which makes it at once easy and difficult to take care of them. I have a mother of two young chlidren who is critically ill in a coma after a catastrophic bleed in the brain. In the three days since her admission, her large extended family has kept a constant vigil by her side, speaking with her apprarently unresponsive body, standing by her side to hold her hand for hours on end, praying for her (and getting me to join in whilst I'm doing her bloods or lines). I know that the neurosurgeons found a lot of dead tissue when they operated to remove the blood clot from the brain, and that the degree of swelling was so much that eventually the brain would be compressed against the skull, slowly causing her to stop breathing. There was really only one thing to tell the family, barring a miracle - that's our job, isn't it? I guess they've been hanging on to that infinitesimal chance, because they refuse to give up even as I saw physiology take is inevitable course. It's awful to be so unremittingly pessimistic about her in the face of such constant hope, but as the translator of her clinical signs it seems all I could do was to repeat the same message, even as I silently echo their prayers in my mind. For what it was worth, we gave her another two treatments to reduce the brain swelling, to see if that would slow or stop the progressive compression. There wasn't really that much to lose at that point - even though she was still breathing on her own, her pupils had become fixed and dilated - a grim sign. The prayers grew in intensity over the last two days - I didn't realise the significance until yesterday, when her pupils became smaller, and reactive to light - a tiny miracle on Easter Sunday, or at least, a small grain of improvement. I'm not overtly religious by any means, and I still can't see her regaining any meaningful independent function, but it did make me stop and give thanks nonetheless. So happy Easter, indeed. I've got a few tasks set for me week off - first is to actually get around to unpacking (!), then I'm going through my mailbox to reply to mail received in my absence. So if you haven't heard from me for a few weeks, expect a reply soon. Oh, and of course I'll be working on page 17 (and tweaking a bit of 16, which I realise now has a few bits and pieces misssing). Another thing - having not visited my website in a long time, I now find that they have inserted ads as well as pop-ups, none of which were there when I last looked (granted, that was a long time ago). If anyone has a good web hosting service with fewer of these annoyances that they can recommend, I'd be grateful for any suggestions. Oh, I have a few photos from my trip as well - just so you're not just taking my word for how beautiful it all was. Feel free to take a look - or better yet, get out there and see it for yourself if you get the chance (Californians, I envy you).
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