Au revoir!!

I've never been good at goodbyes. The last time I had to say bye to a friend I didn't know how to react. The environment gets laced with an emotional charge leaving you numbed. I would rather meet my friends a night before than having to say good bye the next morning at the station.
But despite all that there is someone I'd like to bid adieu to as soon as possible. It's like I'm literally dying to say sayonara ,irrespective of the fact that she had been in my company for the last 12 months. Yea though our relationship has not been that pleasant and memorable throughout, it did have it's moments in the sun. And in the last couple of days as the year draws to a close,it puts me in a very somber mood, as I look back to the year gone by and the relationship we had as I say one final goodbye to her probably for one last time.

She came with a bang, with snowy flakes from heaven , the mountains with their firs drenched all white, as I looked out of my window. Yea this postcard picture perfect place was where I started my acquaintance with.At first I thought that she would be perfect, what with the almost flawless entry in my life.
But alas my friends that was not to be, like the old adage goes , looks can be deceiving.
The heartless thing gave me a choice , to be or not to be at a wedding of someone for whom my heart had lost it's direction for. This was the first dilemma in a series that would follow, that she cruelly kept on giving me.
As if that wasn't enough, to test my loyalties toward my priorities.( Talk of a jealous woman),she gave me three choices whether to take the government job handed to me so unexpectedly or keep trying for foreign shores or complete my masters in the college I always dreamed of going.Such a barrage of options left me confounded.
So with a heavy heart and leaving all my emotional and physical baggage I decided to make a sea change in the scenery, as I adopted to the hustle and bustle of my new city, away from the langley pace of life which I had become so accustomed to since the past two years hoping to get rid of her "pichha", but sadly that was not to be the case.
She forced me to say goodbye to my relatively new friends and some very good old friends probably never to meet owing to distances both physical and otherwise. Then she brought in Old friends, who entered my life like classic re-entry of the hindi movie hero , who everyone thought had died after falling off a cliff. These guys brought a semblance of sanity and order to the insanity and chaos called my life.

Couple of months following the reentry. Like they say yeh dil maange more, and so I craved for something more tangible and satisfying , so somehow she led me to this awesome fellowship that has helped me countless ways emotionally , spiritually etc.
Here she did me a huge favour because as an added bonus she was unselfish enough to help me forge some new friendships. In one of these friendships came a puny little package. And in this package I've found a friend who hears me , guides me , counsels me , making me wonder how one so small can be so bright and intelligent. Thank you dear friend and hope this friendship lasts. Here's to a friends who are rare to find, and when you combine all these rare people, this one will be rarer still.
Oh oh I digress, anyhoo here I am , at the end of the year and it has been one hell of a ride since the past 365 days. It was well worth knowing you cause if you weren't there I wouldn't there too, such was the nature of our relationship. One couldn't do without the other. Yes she made me cry , she made me laugh,she gave me moments I'l cherish for a lifetime and some valuable lessons which I'l remember lifelong , but time has come to bid goodbye to someone whom I'l never meet again. So adieu my friend 2013 . So long my friend, so long.

Colours of the female shopper..

For better part of my last seven years I've come across more females than males as  acquaintances and friends. Seven years is a really long time. But if you think I have understood the female psyche by now.Then you are gravely mistaken.There is no manual for that. They are as unique or quaint as they come.However I'm no expert on that topic either and neither do I have any intention to delve into it. But among the many things uniquely female like their elephantine memory for dates , events anniversaries ,and remembering slights of yesteryears which have been long forgotten, among others. A couple of things that stands out is their vast vocabulary of colours  and then there is their insatiable desire for shopping , it's almost frightening.

It just amazes me as to the vast array of colours they have, which for me is blue , red , green , yellow , orange ,purple and yea pink too. And additional names of colours that I know of is violet and indigo from VIBGYOR the colours of rainbow.And even then I think violet and indigo are purple.( hang on ' while I ask google. )And so this is how google answers me verbatim, "So in all due respect there is a difference between violet and indigo, violet is purple and indigo is a dark blue."So you get my drift.Consider this example, my uniform for work is a green shirt but my friend,she says it's a mixture of sea green and some other green , whose name escapes me.And here I was thinking the colour of the sea was blue.

I had the misfortune of accompanying a couple of friends( all girls, all crazy , insane shopaholics) to the mall(Big mistake; guys you better go alone with a girl rather than a bunch of girls.Long story maybe, will tell some other time.)however let's return to colours. So as these friends were going gaga over their clothes , one of them asks me ' How's the hot pink dress?'.I was like, Now how do you describe a colour by temperature is beyond me. Hot , lukewarm or cold for that matter. And woe is the man, whose woman sends him on a hunt for finding the matching duppatta, by handing him a piece of cloth ,on his grocery expedition. It's a thankless task, no matter what he does, he'll never be able to make her happy.

While I was accompanying my friends I was just observing how my other male counterparts were faring in the female section as they tagged along their female companion. I could see a couple of unfortunate blokes become a portable hanger as their females delved into pile of clothes talking animatedly to each other , lost in the colours as they made one selection after another and non nonchalantly giving it to their guy to hold , quite oblivious to his discomfort as he tried juggling the clothes on one hand and the kid on the other. And all the snippets of conversations that reached my ears was, I like that mauve jacket and see that midnight black .... Omg! Look at that... And the rest of the conversation was lost as I was pulled out of my reverie by my now maniacally restless company who simply couldn't get enough of this store and now wanted to try the adjacent store.

Over the years ,their shopping has undergone a sea change first it was the local kapde vala ( cloth merchant) ,where they would just keep on asking the shopkeeper to show his stuffs and he tirelessly and enthusiastically meets all their demand, hoping for a jackpot sale but in the end they leave him staring at a heap of clothes to fold and replace.Now with the advent of trial rooms it's simply all too convenient. All they do is just try on the whole store take selfies and leave empty handed at times and at other times two hands are simply not enough.

So all you guys out there I suggest that as for the colours you will probably never remember the whole lot ,no matter how hard you try ,so just go with the flow and translate the colour in the language you understand. But for shopping there is no middle ground either you join them or you don't . As for me I've done the latter and life's been blissful ever since. 

Who's your papa ?

Someone recently came to me introducing a person by telling me to keep in touch with this person as his father is a bigshot.This statement put me into a lot of thinking, and as I observed around, I realized ,how inherent it is, for all of us to to judge a person.To make an opinion even before the other guy even gets a chance. It's like we give undue respect to a person just because his father is a renowned person or a bigshot when on the other hand we ignore someone ,who in other words is a nobody. I heard someone discussing about another person saying he is an interesting person and started narrating the person's  parents and background. Seriously, can you just describe a person as interesting because of his parents.(someone should knock some sense into this someone in the first place ,for talking about someone ,to someone, behind someone .)

We have all become so myopic in viewing people we meet in our daily lives , we tend to see them in the light of their wealth ,position, lineage and ignore what really matters.It's so easy to get lost in the mirage of external trappings of an affluent upbringing as we all swoon with our collective ooohh's and aaahh's. I mean forget the higher echelons in the corridors of power wherein the destiny of a billion people is forged ,where mai baap or mera baap is prevalent and who you are depends on who your parents were,but I am talking about you and me common people or the aam admi.We who distinguish between the privileged and the unprivileged.We go "pata hai uska baap laal batti mein ata hai"(did you know,his dad comes in a red beaconed vehicle; i.e.VIP vehicle ) The reply will usually be,kya baat hai (wow).When in fact he might be be a driver of that vehicle.

I've heard a couple of times people ask a newcomer ,who's your papa?(not necessarily in that manner). Now for me ,that's a moot question. The person is judged either way. He is already labeled from the get go.He has to live up to the expectation of what society thinks should be the appropriate behaviour from a son or daughter of, say a principal of a school.
Similarly it's the reverse too.

However what I have written is just one facet in the uncountable ways we judge people and I'm not writing this to preach to you to do this or that because even I find myself guilty of doing  the same thing.This is what is wrong with us today.We refuse to see you beyond the appearances.It's so entrenched in our collective mindset,that other guy never gets a chance. I know it's hard to break years of habit , something that is second nature to all of us which is, to have an opinion about a person, even before they get an opportunity to prove otherwise , so lets make an effort to give this other guy a break, because more often than not people will surprise you. All you ever have to do is , give them a chance.

What's in a name ?

I have been posted in the OPD(out patient department) for well over six months now and one thing I like is, calling people's names out loud as I sent them to their designated rooms.  Unlike in the inpatients ( i.e. admitted patients) where I usually refer patients by their bed number. So I have come across a cornucopia of names since then.Some name's are intriguing and interesting and some outright puerile and funny.

  Our name's are something that we all identify ourselves with. It's ours and ours alone. It's more than an identity. But what happens when your parents who are supposed to give you names ,bungle up.I mean just imagine if your name is the butt end of everyone's jokes.

I recently came across a name called 'Awake'. Man! imagine that.By the way, who names their kids Awake.  And another kid named 'Frooty '. Yea right! I had actually asked the mother and she confirmed that it's the official name. Sometimes I wonder what were the parents thinking while naming their children.It is a heavy responsibility,and it's repercussions are felt throughout the child's life. I can well imagine the years of teasing and harrying these kids might have to face. Then there are names which are exquisite and recherche` that roll from your tongue, effortlessly and fluently with poetic grace.

On the other hand take my name for example. It's ,Manivarnan Chinnathambi '. Anyone mentioned tongue twisters. Yea try saying my name slowly at first and increase the speed as you go. That'll give you a kick.When people hear my name for the first time , almost every time I'm asked to repeat my name. So there I go gracefully obliging them by repeating my name again slooowly. Then the next question that immediately follows is ,"where are you from?". Actually, I'm from the planet 'Kriptine ' part of the ' Nebula Blue galaxy' ' the planet adjacent to ' Krypton ' (Superman's planet.)

Another thing I come across ,when I tell my name,is that I get to hear an assortment of names as I see people try miserably to get my whole name right in the first go. It's more like a polite name calling. I remember being called 'Manivarium' by a friend as she attempted to speak my name.( I don't fault her though , she is an 'angrez',read British, after all.) Then there is 'Maniva' and my all time favourite is "Manivarachitta  blblba what ... Could you repeat that again."

My 22 alphabets name sometimes runs out of boxes in forms so I always count the boxes before filling them up ,you can't go asking for extra boxes in a form now.Can you? It's even bigger pain if there's a straight line in the name column of a form. On a straight line I go all bold and nice with the first part of my name . Then on coming to second half I realize I am running out of space. So I cramp the letters so closely, they are almost jam packed. It reminds me of the Indian Railways; wherein the first  of my name is like like A/C coach all spacious and beautiful and the second half like the general coach with bodies all cramped together and an arm here and a leg there poking out from the windows.

So for practical purposes I use the name ' Mani ',usually for non official and informal situations. However even then too people write my name as 'Manny ' ,Money and 'Moni' but rarely do they write 'Mani'.So at the end of the day I have come to realize and accept that my name's distortion is here to stay ,maybe will be remain so in the future too.Like the lines from Shakespeare's famous play 'Romeo and Juliet' ,in which Juliet Capulet speaks the following lines to Romeo Montague .
"What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes       
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name...."
So ultimately whether I am called 'Manivarium or Manny or Money it really doesn't matter because who I am as a person will not change with the names that I am called. So all you out there, if people don't call your name correctly, just chill; and join the club of people who oft repeateth Juliet's question"What's in a name ?"

P.S. : So dear readers , How's your experience with your names?

To Her ,With Love

I was in a dilemma for quite sometime.It was about whether I should write on what I just wrote. I was hesitant infact even now I'm not sure how to proceed. I was more concerned as to how my readers (which mainly comprises of friends and well wishers) will perceive me after reading this. But then I see the title of the blog it's ' My Ramblings'. That's what gives me encouragement as I write this out to my girl who I have to yet meet, because these are my thoughts and my ramblings.

Hey/ hi /dear
In this world of chats and SMSes where the English language has been battered beyond recognition and the meaning of conversation just lost with whatsapp,BBM (to name a couple.) Here's me making an attempt to to pen my thoughts in some coherent and 'proper' English I'm not sure how to begin,however let me begin as I tell something about myself.
I don't know who you are ,where you are from ( and no I'm not quoting any song you might have heard of ) but I know you are there.
So going by my looks I won't take your breath away , I'm no Clooney or Ian Sommerhalder for that matter and neither am I as dorky as I look on my blogger profile. (That's a selfie I took out of boredom.) ,but yes; I will surprise so much so , that you will be left catching your breath.You'll be so out of breath that you will become hypoxic and might require oxygen therapy.

They say first impression is the last impression , I'd beg to differ. My friends say I came out as reserved , arrogant and a hard nosed person when they first saw me or rather met me but when they warmed up to me, they say I'm not what they thought I was. Yes I do live up to the above mentioned adjectives occasionally but then name me one person who is perfect. My personality is something that will impress you once you get to know me. So you won't be impressed from the word go like the immediate effect of an anaesthetic drug but I'l be like an antibiotic ,you'll have to take the whole course to see the effect.

Talking of antibiotics reminded me that me being a nurse is an added advantage for you ,I can tell your temperature, pulse by just holding your hands. Now how cool is that !! And God forbid,but if by any chance you fell sick. You will have your own personal nurse to take care of you. Now that's a good deal right. One personal nurse always there for you. Seeing the skyrocketing healthcare costs it will be a win-win situation.Also I don't want appear tooting my own horn here but a few friends can guarantee that I am quite good at what I do. Not that I would ever want you to be sick.

Also you might be a fan of dance shows and dance movies, yea I can watch them. And you might have some of the most graceful dance moves but I dance squat. Picture a guy getting electrocuted,yea that would be me ,while dancing. I have a couple of friends whose dance moves will mesmerize you and they can vouch for me that I have two left feet when it comes to dancing. So what if I can't dance ,you can always teach me and believe me I've always been a good student. But even if you don't dance, we can learn it together.

I am a vociferous reader. I read anything , from coffee table books to fiction even the news that is on the paper bags made of newspaper. So you won't be needing to watch news.As a kid too, I loved reading so much that I had made a slit in my school blazer, adjacent to my inner chest pocket to accommodate an extra book ,as our weekly allowance of one book was insufficient for me. So you can understand my relationship with books.

I can cook a mean dish of chicken sometimes. It's only sometimes as,  it's not always that I make a lip smacking gastronomical delight, it's a series of hits and misses. So hang in there and you might still get something that I call as 'the taste of a lifetime' when I'l reach that zenith in the 'art of cooking.'

Movies ,I rarely miss one. I watch even the boring ones and with fifteen minutes into the movie , me and my crazy friends are raring to leave the theatre. Though for records sake I have left the theatre only once. Also ,to be frank I have to yet watch a horror movie in a theatre. (I watch them in my room on my laptop) Maybe I'm waiting for you so that we'll both watch it together, holding each others hands and getting scared together.

I know I'm not a perfect person.I have a number of quirks and I have no inhibition in telling them. I have anger at the tip of my nose. I am trying to shift it down to my toes though. I laugh at the drop of a hat. Na not really. That's an overstatement. I don't laugh that easily. Just the other day when everyone was guffawing at a joke. I just didn't find it funny. I just smiled. Laughter is rare. Also my friends say that I over think and over react but with you on my mind I'l hardly find time to think of anything else.What say. Also I am directionally challenged. My left is right and right is left and vice versa.And if we ever get lost in the wilderness then ,God help us.  I am also called the Lord of Destruction as I have a penchant for dropping or breaking things. So keep all the fragile things far away. Ask my roommate who is also my very good friend from college he'll give a better description.

As I was reading what I had just written, I realised that I was writing only the negative aspect ,as if I'm trying to pawn off a beaten down car.But that's not the case. I just want you to prepared for the 'not so good facets' as you discover the good aspect. Moreover I also don't expect you to be perfect ,yea I know you will have your own set of quirks and idiosyncrasies ,cause that's who we all humans are. Imperfect beings who are a work in progress. And all I hope is that you are worth the wait.

Hopefully yours .....

The Death Care

Let me at the outset apprise you all that this post is related to death and dead people ,so all who are squeamish, depressed or disgusted ; read no further and the rest of you go ahead and enjoy(If not enjoy,then just read.). Also let me add as an afterthought that I respect the dead and by no means do I intend to disrespect them. So here I go...

Death is something we all have encountered at one point or the other in our lives. For me it's a professional reality, and a hazard for the people I take care of in my professional life. Especially during my time working in the ER (emergency room) . And one thing we do as a nurse after a person dies is death care ,in laymens term 'bag em and tag em'. Well it's not as simple as it sounds.

I still remember as a nervous first year nursing I was called by one of my interns( now you see interns are the super seniors and the rank highest in the student food chain and first years like you all know are the zooplanktons and phytoplanktons of the student world. Yea the lowest. ). Anyway there was this patient that had died and the bed was screened from all sides with curtains. Unfortunately for me I was in the line of sight of the intern ,who called me to help her give the death care. That was probably my first encounter with a dead body of a person who I didn't know ,that too in an enclosed space. (Man !! Having watched so many horror movies , I had a flashback of some of the scary scenes.) I had a tingling sensation at the back of my neck , a chill spread all over my body and the hair on my hand were all upright. I would have died of a heart attack had somebody touched my shoulder at that very moment. However, after the initial shock, there I was warily looking around as I gingerly held the hands and tied the thumbs together over the stomach , then I bound the great toes together. (We do this because the body goes into ' rigor mortis ' ,which means the body becomes stiff after few hours.)The intern on the other side was busy removing the catheters and tubes. Finally we took a white sheet which we called 'mortuary sheet ' or in common parlance shroud and covered the body and secured it firmly by tying the head end and foot end. Then ultimately we 'tagged' the body ; i.e. we wrote the patient's name and number.
Finally it was all done. I returned tired and famished to my room after duty but still I couldn't shake off this weird feeling of being watched by someone, as if someone or something is there behind me, it sort freaked me out. This unexplainable cloud hovered my whole being for quite some time ,something akin to a bad hangover.Thankfully after a couple of days one fine morning all was back to normal.
Well after that experience as long as I was a student nurse I didn't give death care I would just scurry off or appear busy. But that was eons ago almost like a lifetime back when I was a novice and wasn't responsible for some ones life. As  I mentioned earlier that I worked in the emergency and have seen many deaths, I have lost count of since the first one. Many have come and gone whose mortal remains were deftly 'bagged' by my now adept hands as their spirits left their corporeal self for the other realms.

Life is all about hits and misses and so is death you can cheat death once or twice but ultimately it catches up with you. And since we are talking about death and all ,let me narrate an interesting near death incident where this patient came unconscious ,no respiration ,no heart rate , most probably in respiratory arrest. He was immediately intubated ( a tube was placed down a throat connected with a bag to pump air into his lungs.) Then one of the doctors checked the pupils , they were pinpoint,(pinpoint pupils is a classic evidence of opioid poisoning), and the history of the patient also corroborated the fact that he had opium overdose so he was given the antidote 'naloxone' . You won't believe what happened next. Here was this guy with tubes in his mouth , not breathing on his own and unconscious at that. On injecting the the antidote this guys just gets up with a bellow and and pulls out his ET ( endotracheal tube) and the tube in nose ( Ryles Tube) and removes his cannula before anyone could react. You can imagine the shock of all the people in the ER that day. Well ,that guy was darn lucky. I hope he mends his ways or there will be no next time for him. Then there are cases where a person who was just perfect a while ago , is now collapsed . Yea people, the uncertainty of it all. Life's like that.

However, I don't want to end this post with a philosophical thought, or something along those lines because death is something we know and it's a reality we all have to face.But I'd like to add that , Yes , I might have been perturbed and distracted with death in the early phase of my professional life, but as time has passed by I have understood that it's an inherent aspect of my work and I have to do it with the same sincerity and professionalism with which I deal the other aspects. Like they say 'it comes with the territory'.

 

The link for the pic    

http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02450/PATHWAY2_2450532b.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/9796968/The-Liverpool-Care-Pathway-to-dignity-in-death.html&usg=__aAu-bOz9WhO5zGqb8aT8i-BfPng=&h=387&w=620&sz=52&hl=en&start=7&sig2=HqbdDzTmqjtsWAomA6fWUw&zoom=1&tbnid=q5YmR8_bt6j0oM:&tbnh=85&tbnw=136&ei=NFtrUqiFI7COiAexqoGABw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Ddeath%2Bcare%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG%26biw%3D320%26bih%3D496%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&sa=X&ved=0CDMQrQMwBg

Follies of a fool!!!

Hey guys this is my first attempt at a poem ,so bear with me. Feedbacks will be appreciated.

            FOLLIES OF A FOOL

There was lonely fool,
He was as lonely as one can be,
He never loved nor was he ever  loved,
And lonely was all he could ever be.

So he sat one day and cried out loud
To the almighty God said he,
'How can I ,O God love thee,
When I don't know what love is,
Show me what love is ,cried he.

The fool searched high and low,
For love that no one did show
And his life seemed bleak,
For love was what he did dearly seek.

So one day after all his search with no success
Just when he thought it was a futile excess
He saw this person who met his eyes.

As time passed by,
Into days and then into months
They became as thick as thieves.
So the fool being the fool he was
Mistook the friendship for something else,
And lost what was something pure and selfless.

So off he ran to places as far off as he could
To seek again in places he thought he should
He went across the seven seas
Braced mighty winds and breeze
And reached a place where all find what they seek.

There he saw a maiden,
Who made his knees lead laden,
She batted her eyelids and shook her hips
And he skipped a heart beat and forgot to breathe.

The fool that he was couldn't stop himself
From doing what came naturally to him
Oh the follies of a fool.

He lost his heart his heart ,
He lost his soul ,
And was on the verge of loosing his sanity,
When out of the blue ,
She left him in a lurch,
And he was left holding an empty heart.

He cried and cried for endless days
Till there no more tears,
He was back on his knees ,
Back to where it all began,
With eyes pointed towards heaven
He cried , ' Oh God !!!
'Where art thou now'.

That's when he heard God say
"You have searched in all places you can,
But never once did you
look right next to you ,
where I was always there,
I loved you even before you were conceived,
I love you , I loved you and I will always love you,
I love you the way you are,
All you have to do is come to me."

Birthday Musings !!!!

I'm 26 years old.Yea right !! 26!!!  
I was painfully reminded of how old I have gotten,when a week before my birthday, it was announced in church that I would be celebrating my birthday in the upcoming week. So after church a couple of people from the youth were sitting together when one of them joked'Everyone is invited to Mani's 35th birthday'. To which I replied 'no it's the 31st'. And guess what? To my horror and dismay one of them (don't know about the others though) actually believed that I was 31 years. Dang man!! I had to spend quite some time after that in front of the mirror assessing my face from different angles.And all I could find were three lines streaked across my forehead(the after- effects of years of useless worries). Then there was this time ,a couple of years back when  one of the patients asked me how many kids I had. I literally laughed out loud. I mean granted I had an overgrown facial hair at that time and presently an invisibly receeding visible hairline but still guys we have to draw a line somewhere!!!
         I'l let you all onto a little secret. My date of birth is not the actual date. The thing is that, there was no official record of my birth. So for many years I had no exact date to celebrate. It was only when I was required to officially have a date of birth for my matriculation exams,that I was given a couple of dates to select from. I guess 8th October was easiest to remember. But that doesn't diminish it's importance as I eventually found out.
      And right from the beginning I had no special attachment to the tradition of celebrating birthday.But all that changed in college. Thanks to my friends ,my birthdays became a special event in my life. One which I could look forward to. It's mine to do what I want to do, regardless of what others have to say. So since then I give myself on this day first priority. But like they say 'excess of anything is bad' , which I found out the hard way when I was almost run over by two cars at two different places on my birthday just because I was giving myself priority or when I almost fell from the escalator being lost in my world of thoughts. But that's just me being me.                          

Anyways having celebrated my 26th birthday a couple of weeks back, made me introspect my life retrospectively. I realized my life has been one hell of a ride ,and not everyone gets to live it. It's been a life worth living,with amazing blessings from above. And I'm thankful for the good as well as the bad pages of my life,because that's what has shaped me into person I am today. But that does not mean, I'm all done with my life and I have reached where I'm supposed to reach. No!! definitely not. There's lot more to come. So life' I have a message for you', " Bring it on"!!!....

Sleep and Night Duties !!!

It's night time and the first thing that comes to your mind is the sleep. Oh yea the irresistible urge to fall into the seductively waiting arms of sleep.Most of you if not all of you will understand this allure of sleep.
Right from the start sleep had always been my Achilles heel.Nothing could pull me away from my time with her. There were times when I had slept across my bed with shoes on just because I was too lazy or tired and didn't want to waste my time with sleep.
My upbringing was in a foster home with 35 other kids. So we had a daily timetable to follow. And everyday dinner was at 8pm which was followed by a study session for around two hours usually upto 11pm and as usual my head would be deeply buried in my books, fast asleep. Time and time again being caught sleeping head down I developed the art of sleeping while sitting without nodding off. With only one drawback, I left my jaws hanging wide open . And one day I found my mouth filled with a fistfull of salt as I was caught sleeping during the study hour. Since then I might have left many habits but the jaw opening remains.
So you can understand my state of panic when as a student nurse I was posted in night duties that too for a week. Which meant 12 hours of work while the world slept. I was not prepared for this but there was no way out. And to top that our hospital had this strict 'no sleeping on night duty 'policy. At first I did all the work that was assigned to me.Then came first onslaught of sleep I resisted , then the second,I maintained a stoic appearance. Then finally the on the third onslaught I was standing there like a zombie with bloodshot eyes. I was actually standing and sleeping. Thankfully the nurses were always there to help me out.One gave me a dark corner with a table to put my heavy head down which was getting heavier by the second. And this other time I was given an empty patients bed with curtains all around.Yea as a student nurse I somehow managed the night duties thanks to the nurses.
But then came the time when I started work as a Registered Nurses. I worked in the Emergency Room along with ICU for over two years. So as long as there was work to do in the ICU or a patient in the ER, I was wide awake. Sleep was no where near ,but dang,  on a slack night I would sit on a chair fast  asleep in my old position. Yea sitting in a chair with my jaws wide open. A couple of times I have found biscuits and gauze deposited in my mouth by my fellow nurses as I wake up with a start.
One good thing though, in the night duty is the potluck dinner. The nurses on duty bring an assortment of food as we all share a sumptuous dinner in the middle of the night. It's like a mini picnic ;only the eating part.
Anyhow I just had night shift last week in paediatric oncology. And as I was taking a round around 2am I realized how peaceful everyone looked while sleeping without a care in the world.Well that's what sleep does to us. It just lulls us into a world without care full of peace and rest.
But as for me and my struggles with sleep they will continue. Though thanks to the place where I now work, I get to sleep in between for two to three hours during the night that too lying down on a nice bed. Life couldn't be better !!! Eh!! What say!!

The Intensive Care Unit

                  PROLOGUE
Joe was running very late. He had promised his girlfriend of two years the surprise of her life. A well thought out plan to execute the perfect proposal. And with lots in his mind he was racing through the rush hour traffic at neck breaking speed nearly missing a car .

Mark was working as a nurse in the local hospital for over twelve years. Happily married with three children,Mark had chosen to settle in his hometown after marrying his childhood sweetheart,who is now a full time mother.And today just like any normal day Mark got ready to go to work the evening shift in the ICU. But today he was running slightly late and on the way he nearly had an accident as a maniac on a bike almost had a collision with his car.  
                       JOE
Where am I .And whats that beep beep sound. Why can't I move myself. Am I dead? No!!! that can't be. I can hear voices talking in hushed tones.The last thing I remember is the blinding glare of an oncoming vehicle as I was riding my bike.  And that jarring alarm again. What's that.....Am I floating....  
        
                    MARK
Patients assigned today bed 3&4. Ok let's see. Bed 4 , Joe a  25 year old male patient with history of road traffic accident on the ventilator. Oh oh a busy shift today then huh!!! There goes the ventilator alarm again. Seems the patient is awake. Inj. Midazolam 4mg stat.Sleep away...

                 JOE
What's that gurgling sound.Cough! Cough!! Oh what the hell!! What is going down my throat. Ssss!! What's that sound. Thank God it stopped. And as I  try to look at myself. Which is difficult as it is with this darn thing around my neck. I see tube coming from my nose another one in my chest and a tube for my pee.I see this machine right next to me making a slight huffing noise along with a hum as it tries to take air in and out my lungs , With tubes going from my mouth and into the machine. The gentle whirr of this thing next to my bed and the soft beep beep made me realize that I am in trouble ,deep trouble. Only the regular beat of my heart which the monitor showed in the form of sound gave me a reassurance albeit a weak one that for the time being I am alive.
                     
                       MARK
Well , let's see the orders. Hmm suction PRN(whenever necessary), sides q4h(four hourly I),IV fluids,ok on inotrops too. So blood pressure also to be maintained. I have to change his sides and giveback care too. It's definitely going to be a hectic shift. Time to  suction him. I hope this kid survives. If not hang in there my friend till my shift ends. Thankfully my other patient on bed no.3 Mr.Smith is stable. He is on some oral meds.So not much to worry about him. He will be shifted out of the ICU tomorrow anyway.

                      JOE
As I come slowly out of my drug induced slumber. I see this nurse talking softly to the patient next to my bed who seems to be in a much better shape. Oh oh there goes the alarm again from the machine which I think is the ventilator as I overheard while the nurses were talking.Darn there goes that thing down my throat.That was  uncomfortable,but I think the nurse knows what he is doing. Anyhow!! Where are my parents?How is my girlfriend taking all this in? I hope I get better. There's a lot left for me to do.

                  MARK
Another half an hour and my shift will end uneventfully . Hang in there Joe for a couple of days and you might even make it.Just then the alarm of the monitor that show  heart rate of bed 4 goes off. I think he is crashing. I see the on call doctor rushing to the bed along with a couple of other nurses. Immediately we disconnect the ventilator and connect the AMBU (it's a bag like structure which we connect to a tube that goes down a patient's throat and squeeze it as air goes in ). One of the nurse started a CPR (unlike in movies this one with both hands) . The doctor gave a series of stat orders . Inj atropine stat,inj adrenaline stat blah and blah which were immediately followed . As we all frantically made a joint effort to save the kid.One of the doctor said it's a VT (ventricular tachycardia- an abnormal heart rhythm which can be corrected by giving shock) on the ECG/EKG(It's a waveform representation of the heart beats). So we brought the paddles from the crash cart ,charged it ,shouted all clear and gave a shock of 300 joules.No effect,so the CPR continued.
 
                    JOE
What is happening ,I wondered as I saw a flurry of activity near my bedside. Doctors and nurses running around. Someone was loading injection into a syringe ,other was giving CPR,then there was someone I guess the doctor giving terse orders and finally the shock. It went for almost half an hour but it seemed a lifetime as I saw a bunch of people desperately trying to bring my heart back..... I stood over my lifeless body till I no longer could as I heard the doctor say 'time of death 8:15 pm' ....

                

       

Smile Please !!!

There was a time in my life as a teenager when my face in all my  photographs would be like this ('_')  , yea right! a pair of eyes looking blankly at the camera minus the smile.As a teen I was an angry guy. Just cross at the world ,at people,at circumstances, at everything in general.By principle I found it very difficult to smile. Even a 'smile please ' would elicit a forceful pulling of my cheeks backwards. I would literally say 'cheese' in my mind to bring out a smile and if there was any delay in clicking the pic I would have to start the process all over again. I had real anger issues which I was unable to express it. Anyhow I have come a long way since then and have mellowed down a bit. And as time passed by, several experiences have taught me to smile and appreciate  it's beauty and see it's presence in everyday life.Just the other day in the mall I saw this middle aged couple. Where I saw a big smile on the lady's face as she stood on the escalator while her husband held her steady. From the look of things her first ride on an escalator I guess.But the smile absolutely priceless.                             I recently did this one week experiment, in which I passed a smile to everyone that met my eye in the course of the day. Be it a pretty girl, an old man, kids or  strangers.And guess what everyone  almost 90% of the people returned a smile except the pretty girls and those characters resembling Scrooge from Charles Dickens 'The Christmas Story' ,who were perpetually nasty and angry by force of habit.(BTW a couple of pretty girls did smile back ) .So the take home point for me is smile,smile and smile,nobody gets offended when you smile.                             We all have problems, some huge and some very small. That's what life is all about , one giant roller coaster ride with its ups and down. But all that should not bog us down. A smile is what tells us that it will be all right when our world seems topsy turvy.When we see our troubles we should see it in light those having a bigger problems than ours. At my workplace I see lot of kids with cancer on a plethora of chemotherapy and countless pricks for the IV cannulas and blood tests .But despite all the pain these kids give one of the most beautiful smiles.It's an humbling experience.It happened with me as one day I was having an exceptionally bad day at work and then out of nowhere I see this small girl ,diagnosed with cancer , her hair all gone and she gave me one of the best smiles of my life almost angelic.It was as if to say there's more to life than a bad day at work.Just a gentle reminder as to how inconsequential my problems are in the whole scheme of things.                                                We all smile for different reasons.We smile to acknowledge someone we know,when we remember something funny,pleasant or memorable and for countless other reasons. Nobody teaches us to smile.It comes naturally to us.But for those who want some reason to smile.I'l give you some.So here I go.                  Firstly it's less work.I had once read somewhere that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. So if you frown more you end up working more. So all you lazy bums who have an aversion to hard work.Here's some good new. Start smiling or else you inadvertently end up working hard.
            Secondly it's free. Yea you heard it right. It's absolutely free.It costs you nothing .You give one and you receive one back too. Now that's a good deal ain't it.You smile freely and you get one back for free. So all you cheapsters. This is something that should drive you ecstatic.  
            Thirdly it's a life saver. Many a times I was saved from a potential social embarrassment.When I smiled at my friend and he pointed a wayward cumin or a notoriously resistant piece of food stuck in between the gums and teeth.Phew! disaster averted.
            And finally its aestheticlly pleasing . We humans are very visual beings.We like something that is beautiful and easy on the eyes. Imagine seeing a body rotting and on the other hand imagine a baby smile. Yea,you see your different reactions.That's what I'm talking about.Hmmm I hope you get it. So all you people keep smiling (like my friend says) you never know who might fall in love with your smile.

New beginnings ????

 Boy time does fly by. It's like poof and u miss it.It's been six months since my move. My life has been a blur since I moved from  the idyllic,picturesque ,small , sleepy little excuse of a town in the Himalayas to the City Beautiful.                            Let me tell you a little about my life in this new place.  The place where I now work is a behemoth of an institution and my previous workplace is not even a fraction of it. (Though if not for financial constraints I would prefer to  work in my old place at any given time.)Here a sea of humanity comprising of doctors, nurses,paramedics ,students, technologists, security personnel, patients and relatives (the list is almost endless ) converge , each with their own purpose.The emergency rooms are never empty , corridors never silent,  OPDs teeming with people jostling for their turn. Weary , despondent, frustrated and worried people all around everyone with their own set of problems. Just reminds how apt the first few lines from the song 'sea of faces' by kutless is.I see the city lights all around me / Everyone's obscure / Ten million people each with their problems . But still I'm amazed at the sheer number of people that are treated here. From the rarest to the commonest ailments are dealt with. Sometimes people ask me how's work ? Well I don't know where to begin from ?                              Hmmm so that was a small description about my work and I might have painted a very bleak , sad, dismal picture but that's not all to my life here. I have a bunch of friends who have energy equalling a group of rambunctious school kids , who laugh out so loud as if they are without a care in the world . Be it at some random stranger's mistake of placing his foot in a dustbin while crossing a low lying fence or being the only people to laugh out loud in a full cinema theatre. They are the ones who helped me settle effortlessly with getting a gazillion paperwork done which is a must when joining a public sector and countless other ways ( thanks guys !!!). Sometimes these guys can be so mental they will drive a normal person insane.Also guess what I have become a bit deaf too. You might be wondering how . Well most of my friends if not all of them have a penchant for talking so loud as they have amplifiers attached to their larynx or voice box . But that's who my friends are. A crazy lot each with their quirks and uniqueness.  And yea other than that loads of movies, KFC , coffee and fun; reminds me of college days minus the studying and classes.                                   Anyhoo!!! Coming to a new city , new place , new people is always difficult . Whenever ever I come to a new place ( this being the third city in seven years) I come with no expectations only with the thought of an opportunity for a new beginning, a fresh start. But then believe it or not I make the same mistakes all over again. Try as I might I inadvertently end up doing the same bloopers, blunders , errors, fallacy ( or any other synonyms u might fancy ) and that's why ??? in the title . So here's me crossing my fingers, toes, heart , eyes , or whatever there is to cross and hoping against hope that this might be the beginning like never before. 

OF VEINS and CANNULAS.......

 It been over two years since I've completed my nursing training and since then I have worked in the ER or the Emergency room for over more than a year and after puncturing numerous veins over a span of two years and finally learning to put in cannula without puncturing the vein( though I do have a bad I V  days from time to time) I have developed a sort of morbid fascination with the hands and the veins that courses through them. Many a times if not mostly during a conversation with  I find my eyes wandering towards people's hands and wondering how easy or tough it might be to put in a cannula. Though for records sake the toughest ones are the infants and toddlers (And I have a personal rule of not more than two stabs for kids.) Well some people have large veins and some have barely visible vein some straight and some convoluted ...oh oh there I go again. :) ;)

PAIN AND THE EMERGENCY ROOM

Being a nurse in the ER or the casualty or ED, I come across different patients in varying stages of pain. Some come clutching abdomen, bent over accompanied with 5 relatives literally picking the patient off the floor into the ER gurney, then there are people who come howling with pain literally screaming with anxious family members worrying their minds off along with ours and they have to be forcibly be evicted out. The other patients in the ER casting curious and worried glances wondering why we aren't doing anything for the poor patient in pain.
I often am amazed at the way some people come with stoic expression hardly showing any emotion or letting out any sound to show pain, its only after the examination; palpation to be precise that they evict some sort of a sound or expression to show pain though they might be in agony.
   Well pain is synonymous to the ER.  90% of the patients that come are in some sort of a pain be it a broken bone or a dog bite or abdominal pain or chest pain anything you can think of. And then of course you have some people fake severe pain for analgesia Its not always easy to tell but then someone who comes on a regular basis with the same pain with stable vitals and gets relieved with one particular analgesia .These are some of the signs  to watch out for.Then there are some who come in the middle of the night with headache and fever and want it to be taken as a life threatening emergency. Why dont they just take a paracetamol!!!!
But , at the end of the day its always a wonderful sight to see a patient leaving all smiles and thanks form the ER