Bad Day....:(

Ok, i'm still in Queen this week...and today, i hate my boss...not for the person he is...but for the things he put me through today...grrr!!! i know i may end up sounding petty but i don't really care...at the moment, i'm tired and i feel like being a 小人 and bitch about people...and i don't care if someone actually tells my boss about this..in fact i hope he'd actually get to read this...uughh!!!

Anyway, i woke up late this morning..well, only 15 minutes later than usual...i was too tired from yesterday's locum which was from 2-11pm...and i was post call...and the bloody locum was so busy that i was cursing Pang for making me take that locum...i vowed to myself never to do locum there again...i wasn't too late to work...well, about 20 minutes late...the morning wasn't too bad in ICU...boss made me put in a femoral catheter for an uncle which i finished in about 15 minutes while they were still doing rounds...even put in an art line for that uncle...

Somewhere towards the end of our rounds, while we got a surprised visit from one of our ex-patient, we encountered a jerk of a consultant who works in Singapore (he is a relative of one of our ICU patient)...who marched in and exclaimed to our visitors that they shouldn't bring camera into the ICU and take pictures...the bloody jerk didn't even know what was happening...and he passed comments as if he owned the ICU...and he was actually telling boss how to treat his relative and telling us lowly MOs about how unethical it was to ask family members to donate blood to replace blood that was used on patients...so Pang and I were having a good time bitching about the jerk...and as if encountering a jerk wasn't bad enough, there's more to come...

There was a patient (let's call him J) who was supposed to go for CT mesenteric angiogram today...but the appointment was initially at 5pm...and boss said i had to escort the patient..and i'm supposed to go off work at 5pm..and i don't get to claim overtime for the extra hours i put in..and despite my being single, i don't like staying in the hospital any longer than i'm supposed to...just a little background on J...he's 35...somehow managed to acquire haemophilia which caused his coagulation profile to be deranged...was having per rectal bleed for the past 1 week...and we're talking about massive bleed that requires massive blood and blood product transfusion...like about 12-16 pints of packed cells and 2-3 cycles of DIVC regime per day...so i would say that transfering him to SMC for CT was actually not the most brilliant idea...though J did seem to have stopped bleeding when we saw him this morning during rounds..

Anyhow, somehow, the HO managed to bring forward the appointment to 3pm...so i thought well, at least i won't have to stay till after 5pm...hah, no such luck...by 2.30pm, we still couldn't get an ambulance to take us to SMC...reason being, the only available ambulance at that time had non-functioning wipers..and the driver claimed it was raining (at the said moment) when i looked out the window and saw clear blue skies and not a drop of rain....lovely!!!...then the stupid attendant was missing in action and the HO had already escorted another patient to SMC for CT scan earlier...so great!! no one to go get J's blood from the blood bank...and we definitely needed lots of blood for him if he were to survive the trip to SMC....so guess who had to become an attendant and go collect the blood? of course Pang doesn't get sent because boss loves Pang...so that left me!!! and boss sarcastically thank me for going to get the blood...and i replied...oh boss, don't thank me..it's my job!!! in the sweetest and most sickening voice possible...(grit teeth)...

By the time we finally left Queen it was almost 4pm...and as expected...J re-bled again by the time we were halfway to SMC....all the transfering and bumpy ride would have dislodged whatever clot that was tamponading the bleed and so by the time we reached SMC, we could have been escorting a patient with post-partum haemorrhage and the scene wouldn't have been so bloody...i was worried J might not be able to withstand the procedure (thank God it's CT and not MRI)...but we persevered and went ahead...we transfused blood while waiting for the CT...and thank God the whole thing probably took only 10 minutes...but transfering the patient and settling him down probably took us an hour...and the portable monitor went hay-wire and we couldn't get the arterial blood pressure...it was quite chaotic...

I called Sharon (who's on call in SMC ICU today) to ask if she had available bed for this patient.. thank God she did...and so after many phone calls (between me and boss, boss and the radiologist, me and sharon, boss and on call specialist..etc..), it was decided that J would be transfered to SMC ICU...in the hope that since he was there, the surgical team would decide to go in for op...the CT scan showed that there was extravasation of contrast into the small bowels at the proximal to mid-ileum region i.e. he was bleeding there...so after we brought him up to SMC ICU in one piece, we finally left SMC...we only reached back at Queen almost 7pm...

And as if that wasn't bad enough...i went to my car and found Karen's car parked behind my car (i parked at Karen's place) and she was out for dinner...i think i was just too tired and numbed or else i would have just broke down in tears...thank God Karen's housemate was around so i took her car keys, drove her car out of the way...and finally, i got to go home....well, after i went to refill my car at the gas station....

What a long, long, long day....and i still need to do my laundry...it's been piling up the whole week...sigh...on days like these, i really wish this wasn't the life i lead...i can't wait for my next holiday....