random bits

So today was a really random day for thoughts.

It all began with me having to catch a bus home for a change, as my car is at the mechanics. It was a welcome change to my usual routine though, having a car is a luxury really, being able to get straight from A to C (without having to stop, get off at B redirect to D go back to C...like a bus might do for you) is a luxury we take for granted sometimes. Seems like its been ages since I last caught a bus, there was a time I loathed buses, never on time, always full etc etc...But today I really looked foward to it. There is something about catching a bus that makes one feel more sociable as a human being.

For me, to get to the bus stop I have to walk through a little mob of shops. There is always such a great atmosphere round this particular street-very diverse- there are grocery shops and clothes shops and random little secondhand stores and cafes, the German bakery, a French ingredients shop, Indian spices galore, Mediterranean coffee, the list goes on. The bustle of people leaving work, doing grocery shopping, school kids rushing home. The grocery stores all trying to sell off their produce -half price in light of closing time nearing (I succumbed to a bag of mushrooms and beans!!) You feel like you are part of a larger living thing, everyone contributing to its motion.

Which brought me to mushrooms, when you buy them fresh they are always covered in specks of dirt, like they had been freshly plucked out of the earth. My family has always taught me to cook mushrooms with just a quick wash at first- you need to get rid of the big pieces of dirt but save all the 'vitamins' etc!! LOL! My husband on the other hand 'insists' that all earth grown veges that can be peeled must be peeled so that every trace of dirt or brownish tinge is removed.Hmm...seems a bit pedantic to me!! How harmful could a few specs of dirt be?? I was just watching on TV last night a cow chewing into a root of something, swallowing what looked to be handfuls of dirt as well- they seem to manage ok!!Surely our guts are more robust then we let them be. But then again, we are not cows whose main diet consists of grass and probably dirt!!LOL!

The bus was not surprisingly way off schedule. I was waiting for bus 43, which is meant to circulate every 10 minutes...I waited from 4.15pm to 5.10 pm before one showed up, meanwhile about 8 buses on route 45 went by!!Anyways, the bus trip itself provoked many thoughts. The bus driver, to the frustration of his passengers took a good 7 minutes helping a limping old lady on to the bus, step by step, all 45 steps!! he he! Its things like this that warm the heart, and remind us that we are all sociable caring beings you know? these days I am sure we hear too often that people are becoming more and more self centered and lend a helping hand less ( more-so in these developed countries) but every once in a while you see things like this that remind us that we actually are courteous and caring people.

On the bus itself, so many different characters. There was another limping lady, but she obviously had an injury to her ankle. What was interesting was that she had sneakers on that were at least 3 sizes too big. Was it so that she could wear those very fluffy socks and make a cushion-like sole? Was it comfort? Or was it just that she didn’t have any shoes of her own so was wearing her husbands???Hmm...we will never know. Lots of other people who looked like they had just finished a tiring day at work, or a hard out day at school. A young group of brown boys got on the bus later, an interesting mob. All very clean cut, with big diamante studs on one ear and slightly blonded Mohawk haircuts!! They made me wonder where they would all end up. Made me think of those days in secondary where everything surrounded being cool. Half of them had a palagi chick hanging off them- that is probably the coolest accessory item at the moment for them LOL! (No offence to any palagi chicks!! he he!)They all sat in front of me, and as you do I eavesdropped into a conversation (well, the whole bus eavesdropped really) which was also heartwarming. One kid was asking the other kid ( both brown boys) why he waited so long at the bus stop when he obviously could have caught a whole lot of previous buses, his answer was that there was another boy, Samoan kid, fresh off the boat ( just come from Sa) who he walks to the bus stop with. they live in opposite directions, but this new kid goes to the bus stop and tries to catch rides with people who drive by, heading the same way as he (people he knew obviously, like his neighbour, the priest etc) So the kid on the bus, waited until the new kid could find a ride home, before he caught a bus in the opposite direction. Doesn’t that storey just wanna make you go 'awwwweeee'!! Kids are so innocent. I remember in year 8, one of my friends had a bit of an emergency with an unpredicted womanly function (you all know what I mean) and she was like "do you wanna walk me home??" at like 10am on a school day, and I remember being like "hmm, yup sure" this was at leififi intermediate, two hours later her dad happened to be driving home for lunch and picked us up half the way up vailima!! And gave us a bit of a telling off. To us, it all made sense, we needed to go home so we just walked, we had each other what could possibly go wrong??!LOL...those were the days.

Anyways so I get home, and am reminded that I live with boys. I.e. bought a new loaf of bread this morning, the whole thing is gone on return home. Boys aye...

women can multitask but can you be in 3 places at once??

so today was just a nightmare from hell. It all started with my work pager going off wildly at 7.15am this morning. No I was not at work, I was brushing my teeth ironing a shirt and trying desperately to find the damned thing to turn it off before it woke the whole household! Later I find out it was some nurses up in the 'day procedures unit' ( not my usual workplace) calling just to "warn me" that there were a whole heap of patients being brought in that day for random procedures that 'I' needed to come sort out as nothing had been done for them.( I hate people who call to 'warn me' I am going to have alot of work- i dont think you can quit prepare yourself for it so I would rather be knowledge free and happy and then sprung on, then sulky and still sprung on!!LOL) Cloud hanging over my day number 1. When i got there, the operating theatre also started calling me about a couple of other patients that I needed to sort out, one of whom was a samoan man who was expected at 7am and had not showed up by 8am. this was the phone call I made "Malo, Miriama??" ( patients wife ) reply "yaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn.....haalloo??" "Miriama, o le foma'i mai le falema'i le vili atu, e le'i o'o mai lou toolou ae o loga ta'otoga e fai nei i le afa a le sefulu, sa tatau ona lua o'o mai e le'i ta le valu"....reply " giggle giggle giggel...Ui!! se...ua galo fo'i...oi, le'ai ...e le'i faimai a se'isi ma te o atu"...uhmm..like i just saw you yesterday and not only wrote down where and when to come but told you how to get there in the lifts.. anyways...after much exchanged words along the line of you need to get here and get here now or you will wait another 6 months on the waiting list for the operation, they managed to get into the hospital. Giving me exactly 10 minutes to do 100 things that had to be sorted before the op...grrrrrr( cloud over my day number 2) ...meanwhile...my poor boss is doing a ward round of patients that goes..see one patient..stop....stare at wall for 20minutes wait to me to come back ...then see another 2 ..then stop again as i run off again...my pager is going off continuously..its the pharmacy calling about someones meds being out of stock, its the lab saying i had to repeat some bloods cos they lost them..its some random nurse somewhere saying she didnt know how to get a patient to a clinic appointment cos its across the road etcetc etc..uhmm like why are you calling me?? do you want ME to carry them over??? its the receptionist chasing me up on nonurgent paperwork, its my other boss ( i have 4 bosses) asking me to do some work that they really need to be doing themselves that i cant say no to cos its my boss ( grrr) its a nurse ringing to tell me they accidently pulled out someones IVline so i needed to come put another one in...someone cant pee and needs a catheter...someone has a sore back someone has a fever someone is crying and locked themselves in the bathroom and wants to talk to me..someones family wanting to see me about whether i have considered putting their mum in a rest home ( uhmm hello..dont you 'the family' people need to sort that out- if you dont want to look after your mum anymore- YOU find a resthome for them!) ..anyways, as the day progresses and i am being pulled in several directions..i become more and more short tempered..poor bored orderly trying to make small chat and crack jokes with me " he he..you docs always trying to look busy eh..but really aiiiii!"...wanting to strangle his neck right now..no maybe bash his head against window..no no..stop it!!! anyways manage to get most of my crap sorted by 5pm...had lunch at 3pm which wasnt a good idea cos by then i was starving..went down to cafe and stuffed my face silly..then walked around feeling 9 months pregnant thereafter...console myself with knowledge that i have been running around all day and probably burned off as many calories as I ate ( yay!!) hehe!!..check on all our patient before i leave..no one has died ( phew!!) and everyone is stable ( double phew) no one wants to talk to me or needs things done..wow, i cant believe i sorted everything out..i feel like i have just walked through hell and back. hopefully tomorrow is a better day!!!!

striving for tranquility...

Another one bites the dust....
That is, another long day at work. 15 hours today, after a very tiring weekend of travel, and some busy days to start the week off. Some health freak in the hospital ( he he...hmmm) decided that all softdrinks except for the 'diet' versions, should be removed from the cafeteria. ( ie no coke, no lift no sprite..just that lame diet imposter stuff) Not only that, but they decided to ban 'v' drinks as well cos they are too high in sugar, and the sugar free version is too high in caffeine. to top it off, they have made it so staff can no longer obtain coffee at the cafeteria on our meal vouchers ( cafeteria coffee that is, not exactly 'fuel' or anything fancy) ...now my question is, in my fifteenth hour of work, when the mind and the body are saying "sloooowww dooowwwn....sleeeeppp ttiiiiimmmeee"..what am i supposed to do for a perker??? Dont really know if that sugar free preservative free artificial colour free chewy bar ( imposter candy) is really gonna do the trick. I know thatsupposedly we should be rolemodels for our patients and embrace this healthfreak type lifestyle, but seriously, how many people give a crap what i put into my body, frankly up to now no one has ever asked me. they are usually far too sick to care. So for now I resort to shooting outside for a sec or two..let the cold winter breeze stunn me back into the midst of an adrenaline rush. hopefully that keeps me going til the clock strikes the fifteenth hour!!!!LOL

ponder this...

so today I had to 'give somone bad news'. In my training years we actually get educated how to do this well, we are given tactics, we are taught how to read certain ques and give people time and space to digest the information etc...but it still eats me up inside when I am the bearer of bad news, I can never help but feel I have failed someone even though I know there are situations where nothing more can be done.I guess that is the samoan in me, the people pleaser. Today I had to tell a samoan man, being the only samoan speaking member of my team, that he was dying. No he does not have cancer or some mysterious disease, over the years his kidneys have been failing , slowly but steadily. yes he has known about this, he slowly has noticed he can walk less and less of a distance, and little things like doing the washing have become more and more of a chore,slowly he has given up social things like community gatherings and visiting friends....but as it was secondary to his diabetes and long abused lifestyle..there was little reversibility of the damage that was found much too late. Now it has gotten to the stage where it is life threatening. The debarkle however is this. Renal dialysis today, in this modern world, is geared just for this type of problem.It acts as a stand in, not so perfect,mechanical kidney for you. If you think about it , it probably is just a means to prolong the dying process, because if you stopped it,death would ensue quite quickly, but with it, people are actually able to live decent lives for a period of time, be it a few more months, years and maybe longer. The problem is- this elderly softspoken gente man, tells me he has been on a 'visitors' permit for the last 10 years...(he is actually an overstayer) his entire family have moved to nz and his children are now actully citizens. His applications however have been declined becoz of his poor health. The government is not willing to fund for him to go onto dialysis.They understandably prioritise the allocated funding to their own citizens. They will fund non-citizens to have 'lifethreatening' treatment, i.e if someone got hit by a car, no matter what citizenship you are you will get the operation...but in his case...going on dialysis is not a 'lifethreatening' procedure. The hospital already knows about him, he already owes them $10,000 for an operation he had on his neck many years ago. And they stand tall in their policies. This man does however have the option to go home ( to samoa) and have dialysis as we now have a dialysis unit, this treatment will buy him a few more good years and who knows maybe even longer...but, this man has no more relatives back home.Every single family member is here, and once he leaves the country..there will be no way he can return . So he has been told of all of the above, and very quietly after thinking hard tells us he choses to stay in NZ....he wont say it, but he has chosen to die. To die a slow and painful death. His children who are all tearful by this point in the conversation..ask again and again if there is nothing else that can be done.I feel terrible.
Now after much correspondance with the physicians, the managers, the social workers, the lawyers....the decision has been made that he will most likely recieve dialysis...probably because no one wants to be soley responsible for letting him waste away when we actually have the means to treat right here, regardless of the arguements to ration resources and costs etc etc..however the unspoken words are that the hospital will still make him pay, his children at present all work minimum wage jobs with each one contributing to his earlier debt, who knows the new burden they will take on now..i have recently heard a similar story of a man who ended up dying anyways, whos family struggle to pay a $300,000 dollar debt. Shocking isnt it. What would you do?? Would you want your whole family to relocate and start their lives over??and what if you cant even afford to do that ( as this family ) I feel like this man is making the most selfless decision a human can. He doesnt seem like a pessimist who is just 'givin up'. He thought about his family, he thought about the costs, he considered what he will have to endure and suffer, and he put himself foward as the one who would suffer.