la la la.

after a week of what i'll call impressive teh tarik diarrhoea, i'm finally doing what i was supposed to do last week - show up in icu. i can't help but whinge cos i'm dragging my ass up at 6 am-ish every morning and getting home round 7.. and i have to be in bed by 11 just so that i can get up again the next day. my day consists of trying not to fall asleep at handover meeting, finding things to do and pretending to be busy (i.e. copy patient notes), and trying to sneak back into icu without having to get buzzed in cos my keycard is only for show. i'm glad i didn't give it back last year, i get a staff discount for lunch. i digress.

you know what everyone in icu needs? a bath. they should just add soap to the sprinklers that come on when there's a fire. or soap em down first, then turn the sprinklers on cos omg the smell of sweat not to mention dried saliva/sputum/snot/gastric contents/csf.. no wonder people wear gowns and gloves. they just forgot masks. and air fresheners. and deodorants.

it's strangely peaceful in icu when everyone's stable. coma looks so relaxing. obviously, traumatic head injury and other weird and wonderful ways of achieving coma-nirvana is not so relaxing but sometimes you can just see a smile on these people's faces i should think. the down side, of course, is that your friends and family bawl their eyes out. most visitors pretty much hold themselves together when they come in. it's only when you step out of icu and see the people breaking down in the corridors that it gets depressing. i turned up the volume on my ipod and zipped up my jacket and walked damn fast. 3 days of icu so far and i've seen my first big emergency. no matter how innocuous it is, med students are notorious for breaching patient confidentiality in our zeal to show off what we've seen. i'm keeping mum. but it was damn gaya. except me. i stood around and tried not to trip people over.

lastly, if i ever have to choose between a model and a nurse, i'd go for the icu nurse. i don't see how these girls can come in here, sit in the room all day and sponge people with faeculant material coming up their nasogastric tubes. and talk to them while doing it. clearly, they do other things too, like turn on the lights, and brush their teeth for them... but watching them treat someone with such respect and care makes you realise no other stranger will ever be that nice to you. so if you're a nurse, call tim. fat people need not apply. nor ugly people.

there you have it. icu in a nutshell. the song i posted makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time. i am that emo.