And On the First Day

I was asleep for the daytime part of the first day of the new year.

Too much partying. Only it wasn't me that was partying, it was the rest of the city.

The fun started on New Years Eve at around 9am when I trudged off to the ER where I stayed until around 4pm. That morning was arm morning, everyone who came in pretty much had a broken arm of some sort (it's amazing how they come in groups like that, the last shift had been head injuries).

After 7 hours in the ER, I left and headed to an internal med ward where I was from around 5pm until about 7:30pm, the doctor took me around and we talked to the patients mostly and looked at some x-rays.

I stopped by my room on the way back from internal med to have a quick dinner and wish my parents a Happy New Year. At around 9pm I headed back across town to the ER where I stayed until 8am.

What a night. After the head doctor found out I can suture (which I can do pretty darn well at this point thanks to a few great people- you know who you are) he put me to work. I sewed up around eight people; one of which took around 2 hours because I had to pick plastic shrapnel from his hand and put in around 63 sutures (a new personal record). Guess what! Holding on to a firework as it explodes, not a great idea. I also got to use a nerve block technique that I learned when I was out west, because I was pretty much left to my own devices- firework guy really appreciated it.

http://drsimonmorris.com.au/

I think they kept purposely giving me the annoying, talkative, drunk, patients though. I can understand a lot of what's being said depending on the person and the conversation. But, because I have a tendency to miss key parts of conversations, the people who talk a lot don't annoy me nearly as much. On top of that my speaking Polish is kind of terrible. Conversations in a medical context are pretty much limited, to "sit down," "lie down," "Okay," "Do you have pain?" and "finished." If anything the patients were probably wondering why in the world I wasn't saying anything.

By the time I left in the morning, there were no patients. I think we did pretty good!

I was feeling pretty good until I had to take the bus home from the hospital and discovered that my route wasn't running this morning. It ended up taking two buses and an hour and a half to get home.

I didn't sleep for well over 24 hours, but it was the best New Years/ Sylwester that I think I've ever had!!!