Was recently called at around 2 am to the recovery room to check on a post-op patient whose BP was going down. So I ran up, wore the very sterile (hee-hee-hee) hospital gown, and put on a shower cap/shoe cap on my head. Oh what the heck let’s just get this over with—what’s with all this pagpapanggap for sterility? If we really want to be sterile the persons in charge would really need to spend for it—get some huge human ultraviolet bombardment chamber or something. Or I don’t know, maybe at least some running faucet water and some soap? Maybe I’m missing some vital point in this argument, but since I always get lupa and kuto on my hair I don’t think so.

And so I came in and looked at the patient who wasn’t actually mine with multitudes of confusing peripheral and central lines sticking out. What should be a straightforward incident of shock was complicated by the seeming congestion and severe metabolic derangements blablabla that will bore you cold. In confusion I called up my co-resident Graciepoopieloop on the phone. She sounded quite cogent and clear-headed when she said, “Hello?” so I fired away in a whiny voice:

Me: Graciepoopieloop!!! Pano yun kung nirefer for hypotension post-op kasi 2 liters blood loss and 3 liters ascites intra-op pero binigyan din daw ng furosemide habang nasa operating room pa kasi daw nagcongest kaya nga sila nagpa central line malamang dahil sa 4 units of blood kamusta naman tapos ngayon hypotensive pero natatakot ako magfluids ngayon kasi yung CVP 20 by the way totoo ba talaga tong CVP na gawa sa popsicle stick and wala naman syang crackles pero prominent ang neck veins and isa pa yung CVP line na lang ang available line for potassium correction yun yung pwedeng 10 meqs per hour right?

A question salad if there ever was one, to which Graciepoopieloop had only response,
Graciepoopieloop: Ah ganun ba…. Ah… Ah… basta pababain lang siguro ang fever…

She might as well have replied with, “Gee whiz! My favorite cake is blueberry cheesecake!”
To wake her up I screamed, “DAMN IT GRACE!!!”
I don’t know, I just feel like Jack Bauer whenever I scream “damn it”.

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