emergencies kept coming into my ER door last monday night. i was exhausted and so the nurses. but we couldn't refuse all the patients. we kept helping them. pacing with time, and we worked as fast as we could so we did no harm to our patients. in our mind, we also hoped that if we could finish earlier, maybe we could steal a minute or two to rest before another patients came in. but that's just our hope. people kept coming without any rest. the last emergency patient was a 75 years old male. his family found him lying in the bedroom floor and they noticed that there's a bump in his right forehead and they couldn't wake him up. so they rushed to my ER, because he had previous history of intracranial bleeding.
unfortunately, as we did the CT, we found another bleeding (again) and this time, it was more than before. and operation was no longer an option. it was the only option to save him. i tried as fast as i could to give that information to the family without worried them any longer. i tried to get their approval without hurting their feelings. but perhaps God had another plan. the OK team came late and the neurosurgeon had left because the OK wasn't ready. the anesthesiologist also came late. in short, my patient didn't survive.
i was angry and disappointed. it was a long and hard night. i tried as hard as i could to save him, to make him proper for operation. but he didn't survive at last. i know the prognosis for him wasn't good since it was his second attack and he was old. but i thought there will be a small chance that he could survive if we operated on him sooner. that day, i cried everytime i remembered him. and i realised, i'm going in too deep. i'm not supposed to let my emotion clouded my judgement. what can i say? i was exhausted and the bad news at the end of my duty really ruin my day. perhaps tomorrow will be a better day. people have flaws and nobody is perfect. just do my best and keep improving.
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