Saturday, October 16, 2010

Suction Scourge

Picture this scenario: You're a student. You're a nurse. You are allocated to work your first day EVER in an operating theatre. Exciting times. We all thought we were big shots. We took some photos in our scrubs and were loving that we could for once wear amazingly comfortable shoes to work. We slipped on our hats and booties and watched while some incompetent morons put the booties on their heads..

It was this first day that I met Sister Zee as well, just by the way.. She didn't seem quite so insane on first impression. However, when she handed out meatballs with maggots in them to her colleagues for lunch, I started to catch on.

Anywho.. My story takes place in an operating theatre working on an old beggar whose diet was so poor that his intestines were necrotic and dying. Parts of his intestines were black. *shudder* When the surgeons realised what they were dealing with, myself and Ariel had to spring into action and set up the suction unit so that they could start suctioning all the crap inside the guy. Now, bear in mind, this is our first day, we don't even know what a suction unit looks like, let alone how it works.

Good thing Sister Zee was there to help, screaming at us and telling us we are all morons. Nonetheless, being the geniuses we are, Ariel and I figured out what the unit looked like (we found one pre-assembled). We gave the unit to the surgeons who started doing their thing. Standing at the back of the room, making "I'm going to vom vom" faces complete with finger in throat, we heard a commotion at the bed. The suction unit was full and dangerously close to overflowing. Shit. Sister Zee was shouting. We panicked and stood dead still not quite knowing if we should find another suction bag or run for our lives.

Zee threw a bag at us and we ran forward and tried to replace the bag. Except we weren't quite smart enough to know to turn the suction off BEFORE changing the bag. We ripped the suction tube out and the guy's rotten intestine juices spilled out all over the suction unit and the floor. Like I said, we are geniuses. We get the new bag in, and all is calm again.. Except 2 minutes later, another bag is full - but we didn't realize. By the time we turn around, we find that it is overflowing onto the floor and starting to spray out. Intestine juices were everywhere, including on the surgeons shoes - which he didn't find to be particularly amusing. This only made us laugh harder, so while trying to suppress our giggles, we stood at the suction unit changing bags regularly every 2 minutes, before they got even close to full. Although, admittedly, there was a little part of me that wanted the same thing to happen every time. It's always fun for the person that doesn't have rotten intestine juices all over them.