Formalin

One day while working in theatre, I was allocated to the breast theatre which consists mostly of mastectomies. As a useless and mostly worthless trainee, my job was to take the breast from the surgeon and prepare it for histology by sitting it in Formalin.

That's all very well and good until I received a breast that can only be described as gargantuan. This thing must have weighed over 10kg. I carried it away with my arms buckling under its' weight. Luckily, a colleague, Henry, was there to help me. I put the breast into a plastic bag. Usually we use a syringe to fill the bag with Formalin but considering the size of the breast, that would have taken longer than the surgery itself. So, Henry and I did what any logically-thinking person would do. We lifted the huge bucket of Formalin and poured it in straight.

We underestimated the flow of the Formalin and ended up filling the bag to its' brim with it. Now, Formalin burns like a bitch, your eyes water, you can't breathe. As we were panicking, trying to close the bag, while crying tears of what I imagined to be blood, I (of course) got the giggles. And, in walked Sister Zee.

I don't know what she expected of us, but it's not like we could pour the now-used Formalin back into the bucket. I stood there laughing (and crying) while Formalin kept sloshing out of the bag onto the floor with every moment my body made. I noticed Sister Zee had watering eyes and she promptly left the room.

We eventually managed to tie off the bag, and returned it to the surgeon with it bursting at the seams with one random, huge boob floating within it. I walked out of theatre - with my head held high - before the surgeon got a chance to ask questions.

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.

Sister Zee

Theatre was interesting for a number of reasons. I had to work 50 hours in theatre, which I completed recently. On our first day there, after orientation about where everything was (which I couldn't care less about considering I didn't want to fetch anything - I just wanted to see blood and gore), a sister came up to us and introduced herself. "Hi guys, I'm Sister Zee." She seemed pretty cool. It was only later I realized that she suffers from raging Bipolar Disorder. She can be heard screaming from the opposite side of the theatre at some unwitting student nurse, she can be heard making orgasm noises when the electricity goes off (which happens unsurprisingly often in this hospital), she can be seen throwing things like Pencil Drains at nurses..

On a boring Sunday, with ZERO cases for theatre, my fellow colleagues and I sat in the recovery room. I played Sudoku for a while and then had wheelchair races with Ariel, while the others watched a movie on a laptop. Luckily for us, Sister Zee was on a warpath and found us. "THERE ARE SEVEN OF YOU SITTING HERE! There were five of us. THERE'S LOTS TO DO! There was nothing to do. EMPTY THE SHARPS BUCKETS! Done already. STOCK THE TROLLEYS! Finished. NEXT TIME, YOU WILL BE THE PATIENT! THAT IS MY SINCERE PRAYER - THAT NEXT TIME, YOU ARE THE PATIENT!". Is that a threat? We later saw her sitting in a chair rocking backward and forward, whispering, "Next time, you'll be the patient" over and over again. Maybe it isn't Bipolar as much as it is insanity?

Just one look at her eye make-up and oily skin and you would swear yourself to celibacy (whether male or female). Although, from the orgasm noises, I would say she must be pretty damn good in bed.

A week or two later, Sister Zee was looking for some fellow nursing students who I know for a fact piss off back to their rooms and sleep for most of the day when they should be working. They magically arrive back at work when it's time to get signed to knock off for the day. Sister Zee informs me that they are useless and in their rooms "wanking" when they should be working. "NEXT TIME, THEY'LL BE THE PATIENT!" I get the effing point, woman.