Analgesics

Poyi and i spent this morning at HDU. Pain management sister, Amanda taught us. she has 20 years of nursing experience and 9 months at this job. she's one of the most, prob the most, passionate, dedicated and professional nurses ive met. seriously, i take my hats off her. oh, and she's not one of those bully-junior doctors sorta person. to be honest, i havent heard much about it, nor seen it. maybe, maybe not.

so back to the pain rounds- mainly PCA management, epidurals, pain assesment, palliative care, oh and definately- back pain. its chronic and everywhere. the hospital where we were doesnt have an A&E,so there are hardly any acute pain patients. most of them in the HDU are post-op. and the ones we saw today happened to be CA patients. there were so many.

there was C. 28 years old, testicular teratoma,gone through chemotherapy. just had a left nephrotomy, and his notes said "poor prognosis". he was sleeping so we didnt see him, i just took a glance. he looks really young.
and M, 40s. cervical cancer gone out of hand. she has almost everything taken out of her. her mother, i dare not guess how old, called to ask how she was doing.
and the list goes on. most of them were on sky high doses of morphine and opiods, and complained of soreness everwhere.

u see them, immobile on their cribs, as if they were locked in. they look at you with sunken eyes that tell you they have been through an ordeal over the past few months. and they ask you "when will this end?". a malaysian SHO i met said to someone, "slowly but surely." i think he was struggling for words. i wonder if its something i would have said. it isnt right to give false hope, is it?

most of the time, i stood at the side and offered a smile and a hello, and a thank you. im still figuring out how to respond to people who are in this sort of agony, who are this helpless, who are.... vulnerable.
i dont want to say "it's gonna be okay" and walk away, because its not gonna be.
not when someone is dying.
i dont want to be overly emotional till it causes me to be irrationale.
but i want to be a human with a heart who will make a difference to someone who's going away.

not responding to vulnerability, gives a pain that no amount of morphine,( or fentanyl ) can relief.

this evening, i bumped into K, again. we started talking. the usual introductions. and somehow we talked about God. oh, because my name is sarah. that was alright till he offered to walk home together. (the weather is a good excuse). but he hopped on the SRC anyway. K was nice in my most humble and wise opinion. somewhat harmless but ure nv too sure. however, over friendly. either that, i was paranoid. and there was a period of awkward silence. i dun like that kinda vibes, cause i roughly know where its gonna lead. and my defences kicked in fast, i felt to vulnerable. not because i was afraid of physical harm, but of something else inside, i cant figure out what. and to be honest, i dont want it to matter.

times are just different now.

and it's been a really long day. night world.