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.

Let's Use Logic

MDR-TB is a multi-drug resistant form of Tuberculosis or TB. It's bad news, because it's very difficult to treat. Working in a Medical ward, I was checking over the various diagnoses of our patients and found one who was a Query MDR-TB. She wasn't, however, in any form of isolation and was sharing a cubicle with three other patients.

I confronted the Sister of the ward, and asked her why this was happening and if we could please move the patient into an (already available) isolation cubicle so that no one else catches this deadly disease. "No, you can't do that, because she is only a query MDR-TB. If she is confirmed, we will do something." I'm sorry, but my logic (which no one at this goddamn place seems to have) is that if she is eventually confirmed to have MDR-TB, it means that she had it all along and will most likely have spread it to everyone she was in contact with: patients, nurses and doctors. Two days later, her test results come back. Confirmed MDR-TB. In two days, the chances are very high that she gave it to every patient in that room as well as to the nurses treating her. Yet, we wonder why this disease is spreading so easily. I was a very good, selfish nurse and avoided that cubicle for the entire time that patient was there.

Look at me now, TB-FREE!

Casualty Catheter

In the Casualty Resuscitation Room, a Sister was teaching us how to insert a male catheter which is much more dangerous and risky. It requires more skill and care than a female catheter. She inserts it, talking the hind leg off a donkey (apparently I attract people that feel a need to speak to me non-stop), has to grab a catheter bag to attach to the pipe and let go of the pipe that was in the bladder by now. Pee rushed out and sprayed all over my uniform.

She is theoretically my boss, so it's not like I could just smash her head into a wall. All I could do was give a fake smile and say "Oh, hahaha, it's fine, don't worry about it. Hyuk." I spent the rest of the day avoiding urine and conniving over how I could take my revenge.

Chicken Soup for Andy's Soul

Max was a 27-year-old patient who had a stroke (yep, extremely young). He lost his ability to talk and he lost control of the right side of his body.

Good thing that whenever his restraints came loose on his left hand, he ripped out his drip, ripped off his nappy and tried to rip out his catheter. I actually found it extremely amusing to see a half-paralysed man showing three (big) nurses at a time who was boss. You know how you speak to animals, and babies? Not because you think they'll answer you or understand what you're saying, but just because it's what you tend to do? I did that with Max. I used to have fat conversations with him (or should I say, myself) about whatever was going on, whatever was annoying me, what was happening with my love life - it was my own personal therapy. That poor, poor man - I never know when to shut up.

One day, I was rubbing his back when he turned to me and very softly whispered, "Where's my wife?". My heart broke. After three months of not speaking, he chooses me to be the one to say his 'first' words to, and he misses his wife. I phoned her straight away and she came to see him immediately. I stood by and watched tears of happiness running down their cheeks.

Yep, the cynical nurse can be touched by simple things.

Sluice Room Sperm

Working in Orthopaedic Ward means lots of urine testing due to the high risk of patients developing kidney stones and urinary tract infections thanks to a 'wee' term called "urinary stasis" - sorry I couldn't help myself with the pun.

Myself and Cindy did urine testing together. I took a urinal from a patient and we met in the Sluice Room to do the test. I poured the urine out into a clear measuring jar and it looked a bit cloudy. We put the test stick in and noticed that the cloudiness was actually sperm which started clinging to our test strip.

We stood in the Sluice Room giggling and gagging for ages. I can't handle urine. urine with sperm is on a whole other level. Even thinking about it now - three years later - makes me want to vom all over my keyboard.

Pee On Your Own Time!

Admission wards are known for being hectically busy. You are constantly moving patients out to other wards and spend all your time admitting new patients from Casualty. The only reason it's nice is because it actually gives you something to do, rather than sitting on your arse drinking tea all day (for which South African nurses are renowned).

One day, I was working a twelve-hour shift (which, I'm sure you've established, is my definition of hell) in an Admission ward. Typical of my luck, it was coming to the end of my shift and at 18:45 I received a new patient to admit. If you work hard enough, you can finish a PROPER admission in about 30 minutes. So, I wasn't too bothered, 15 minutes extra isn't all that bad. The patient was a man with suspected Tick Bite Fever. I, being the over-achiever I am, decided to help out the doctor by drawing bloods, getting a urine sample, etc. Getting the blood was simple (I find simple pleasure in sticking a needle into bulging veins), but getting the urine was a whole 'nother story.

The patient told me he needed to pee, which was awesome because that way I could kill two birds with one stone: he gets relieved, I get pee. I bring him a urinal and go back to file auditing. I could see he was having trouble, so I left the room to give him some 'privacy'. I got back to him five minutes later (most likely because I was trying to convince permanent staff not to leave me alone in charge of the ward) all cheerful *time to go home* "Mr. Peters, are you done?". He huffs and puffs, still holding the urinal to his groin and squeaks out "No." I learnt a little tip to turn on a tap to help someone pee, so I did this while sneakily looking at my watch. It had already hit 19:20. Behind the closed curtain, I could still hear Mr. Peters huffing and puffing. I stood for another five minutes, looking around the room, peering out the window, trying not to whistle, hoping for a miracle in the form of a Golden Shower of pee. Seriously, its 19:25 - he can pee on me if he wants, as long as he pees. No such luck. I go up to him, and ask what I can do to help.. WHYYYY OH WHY DID I DO THAT?! Mr. Peters says: "I'm just struggling to hold it, can you hold it for me?" I thought he was talking about the urinal which I immediately grabbed, but noooo he needed me to hold his penis. Yep, you read that right. So, I awkwardly grabbed a pair of gloves and gently gripped his manhood. We stood there for close to 10 minutes waiting for him to pee. My free hand was force-feeding him water and diuretics in an attempt for some gold beneath the rainbow.

A couple different positions and tactics and he still hadn't peed. It was past 8 by this stage and eventually I thought "Screw it". I work too damn hard just for a freaking drop of pee. I left him with his urinal and with the situation now the responsibility of night staff. Believe you me, by that stage I needed to pee like a hippopotamus and ran back to the nurse's residence clenching.

Night Duty Nightmare... Again

As has already been established, night duty is where the real shit goes down. Cindy and myself were in a Medical ward together and were honestly the only two staff members awake. The permanent staff who are IN CHARGE find their sleep more important. Of course, with this luck, lots of things went wrong but we loved every moment of it.

I had a semi-comatose patient falling in and out of consciousness because his blood sugar levels were extremely low - I couldn't even get a reading on the machine. This is never good because they go into coma and ultimately die without immediate interventions. So, you have to do everything you can to keep that person alive. I put up numerous 50% Dextrose in 50ml (sugar water) through his IV line every five minutes and his blood sugar levels would just not increase. Next best thing, is to get him to drink it.

That's right: get a semi-comatose man to drink sugar water. So there I sat with a 50ml syringe filled with this potent sugar water. I put down the sides of his bed, jump onto the bed and cradle his head under my arm and on my lap. Every time he'd gain consciousness (even if only for a second), I would quickly push some sugar water into his mouth. Oftentimes, he would quickly close his mouth - which makes me think he was totally faking it - and the sugar water would run down onto my nice new pants. Other times, he would take the sugar water into his mouth, start breathing through his mouth before swallowing, and spit the sugar water all over me.

I honestly think I ingested more sugar water than he did. Plus, after the amount of his saliva I must have swallowed, we may as well have been French kissing. Eventually, after much fighting the system, and trying to learn Zulu words to tell him what to do, he got better.

I left the patient, smiling in his bed, with my pants stuck to my leg, and an eye sealed closed - all thanks to the sugar water - while swearing in Zulu.

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.

Maggots for Breakfast?

I once had to change an old man's nappy, before transferring him to a different ward. So, I take off the dirty nappy and open his legs to wipe him and I see holes in his 'gooch' area opening up - they must have been about 4cm deep and I could see into him. That's generally not a good thing, what with all the TB, sputum, vomit and crap found in a Medical ward.

I opened his legs wider to further inspect whatever damage was present and maggots started running out of the holes and started going everywhere. I gagged. I went to call the Sister-in-charge and she tells me, "Just close him up with a new nappy and take him to the other ward." I do as told by my senior.

In the other ward, I informed the staff about the maggots. Their jaws dropped and I swifty got the hell out of there before they could change their minds about accepting the patient.

I now wish you all a very pleasant breakfast, lunch or supper. x

No Crazy for Me Today!

Myself, Cindy and Ariel often sit outside the main entrance of the hospital on concrete steps. Firstly, because the cafeteria smells like shit and secondly, because the Canteen only sells Food Poisoning. The psychiatric patients on the second floor often look down at us sitting in the freedom and tend to take a liking to me and wave at me constantly.

I kept seeing the same patient for a couple of weeks. He would wave at me every time he saw me and he would gesture over and over that I must come up and visit him. No thanks, not ready to be murdered today! I haven't seen him in a while. Maybe he was discharged. Or paralysed by a tazer or all the anti-crazy pills. Or sitting outside my bedroom window right now, watching me.

The Psychiatric Ward is very interesting and very scary. Rebecca and I would often sit outside the Psych Ward during a tea break. We would sit watching the patients walking around expressionless, take photos, prod at them with a pole.. That sort of thing.

These patients often try to escape through a locked gate (get the logic in that?) but this doesn't turn out well because security guards beat them down with batons. If the patients aren't running at the gate like a battering ram, they are running up and down the corridors with security guards chasing after them. Those bitches are fast.

Once, I had to enter the ward ON MY FREAKING OWN. I walk in and a big, sweaty man runs straight up to me, introduces himself and gives me the biggest hug. He smells like baby vomit. He then grabs my hand and gives me a tour of the place. "This is where we eat, this is where we get tazered, this is where we can smoke, this is where the elephants eat the pineapples.." I'm pretty sure I had a couple tears running down my face at this stage. All I could think was "I don't want to dieeeee!". I eventually got away from baby vomit guy and walked towards the nurses station. The really crazy patients are locked in their rooms behind bars and all you hear is simultaneous screaming and laughter.

I think I need to be admitted there after that experience.

A Buttocks Bomb

Giving an enema is high on the list of things that no nurse ever wants to have to do. Now that I'm higher up in the nursing ranks, I have made a promise to myself that I will always delegate the job to a junior.

You lift the buttocks with your non-dominant hand and insert the enema with your dominant hand. You then have approximately three seconds to get the hell out of there to avoid being, um, sprayed/splashed/painted/decorated.. Whichever way you view poo.

When inserting the enema, you sort of feel like a member of the Bomb Squad. You never know when she might blow.

Agnes

My first night EVER in Labour Ward would just have to be dramatic. I seem to bring drama with me wherever I go.. Throughout most of the night, we heard a woman screaming and swearing next door - but I wasn't too bothered - it's not like she was my resonsibility.

At around 02:00AM, they transferred her to Labour Ward. "Agnes" was kicking up a fuss, screaming and going on and on, but I was busy watching deliveries and wasn't really involved. I started getting worried when I didn't hear her screaming anymore, so I went to go look for her. I find Agnes in a bathtub, full to the brim with water, lying spread-eagled - one leg hanging out of each side of the bath. She just stared at me with blank eyes. Knowing that she was a bit of a psycho, I felt geniunely concerned for her, so I pulled up a chair next to her and delved deeper into New Moon.

After about an hour I realized that with my luck I would be performing a waterbirth, so I thought it best to check exactly how dilated she was, etc etc. Agnes gives me permission (which is a miracle, because no one has been allowed to touch her up until this time). So, there I am.. Bending over a spread-eagled woman, with surgical gloves that only go up your wrist so far, performing a vaginal exam. Disgusting water was running into my glove, but her position at least helped me get a good idea of the fact that she most probably wasn't in labour - however, I was still new to everything at this stage and wasn't sure.. It was at that stage that I realized the water was ice cold, and I convinced Agnes that she should go lie in her bed. She agreed.

I walk naked Agnes to her bed, cover her with warm blankies, and start giving her a back massage. She demands that she wants cream for her massage, which I didn't have, so I ended up using Obstetric Cream which is what we use for vaginal exams. Lord. A sweet doctor came to thank me for keeping Agnes calm, and told me I'm helping everyone out so much. I turned my back on Agnes to get more "cookie juice" as we call the cream, and suddenly hear the slap of barefeet on hospital linoleum. Agnes, heavily pregnant, was running out of the room. I ran after her, and grabbed her, but I wouldn't describe myself as 'strong' exactly.. So Agnes wrestled me to the floor, and kept running - out of labour ward, into the main corridor of the hospital, past security guards, past waiting families. Behind her were about 10 nursing staff, and 5 security guards, screaming.

It took all 15 of us to take her down.. Maybe she is a steroid freak? We got her back into the ward. Progress. The registrar (one of the main doctors of the hospital) came to see what the commotion was, and was promptly attacked by a coke bottle-wielding Agnes. Agnes then grabbed a paper punch and threw that at a nurse. Someone accidentally fell against the light switch and plunged the ward into darkness with a psychopath on the rampage. When the light came back on, there was Agnes making a run for it again, trying to crawl through an open space in the doors.

Eventually, we got her back into her cubicle and held the door shut. I looked through a crack in the door and saw her pick up a huge metal chair which she threw at the door.


This was the weapon of choice. When Agnes hadn't tried to kill anyone for a couple minutes, I entered the room to find her dancing a traditional Zulu dance around the room. She screams at me "I WANT PETHIDINE!" (a painkiller). At this stage, she was all maxed out on Pethidine and we couldn't give any more, but she went insane, screaming for it. So, I did like in the movies and gave her a sterile water injection to really test the Placebo Effect. Well, let me tell you, it worked like a dream. She slept for an hour and all was good in the world again.

I was working in another cubicle when in runs naked Agnes, grabs a delivery pack saying it's her baby, and runs off. I was starting to get pissed off, walk out to go find her and when she sees me, she puts the delivery pack down, takes my hand and says "Come". I didn't want to die, so I obeyed her command. She climbed onto bed, and made me massage her. I then decided to have a 'talk' with Agnes. She apologized and gave me chills down my spine as she said, "Don't worry, I'll never hurt you, you're my favourite. I had a dream about my baby, and she looked like you. I love you." Greeeeeeeeeat. Psycho now thinks I'm her baby.

Needless to say, Agnes went nuts a couple more times that night, which resulted in me giving her two doses of Haloperidol (an anti-psychotic) which did not work; we restrained her by tying her down to the bed with the help of every security guard in the hospital and I watched while she spat in a security guards' face.

After approximately 5 hours of drama, it was confirmed that Agnes was in fact, not in labour, and was in Labour Ward for no good reason. Where's my noose?

Colostomy Sex

A colostomy is basically an opening through your stomach straight into your intestines, rather than you using your bum to go to the toilet. It happens after bowel surgery, cancers, etc.

There was a patient with a persistent infection of his colostomy which is quite unusual. I had never before seen an infected colostomy. Doctors couldn't understand what was going on - the nurses couldn't understand, even if they tried. The doctors started running tests, such as pus swabs, to see what bacterium was causing the infection..

What did they find, you ask? Semen. That's right. Semen.

The man was offering his freaking colostomy for sex, in exchange for money.

Sex with intestines. WHO DOES THAT!?

RESUS!

In the hospital, when someone shouts "RESUS!", it means get your ass into gear and start CPR. The important thing to know is that you cannot perform CPR on someone who is alive. They HAVE to be dead - which apparently, some fully trained nurses don't even know.

So there I am, working in a Medical ward. I heard "RESUS!" and start running to the room like a child hopped up on cocaine, only to find one of the highest ranked nurses performing CPR on a patient who was very much alive. The sight of a nurse, sweating and puffing while performing sub-standard CPR on a live patient who is trying to fight her off is an image that makes me sleep well at night.

Trust me, someone putting their full weight (and she wasn't a small girl) behind their hands, performing chest compressions on your sternum at a rate of around 100 pumps per minute, is fucking painful.

Afterward, the nurses all celebrated (in the form of an extended tea break), the fact that the patient survived. I didn't have the heart to inform them that the patient had been alive all along.

Night Duty Nightmare

It was around 2:00AM one morning on Night Duty, and I was in charge of all the Diabetic and Asthmatic patients. That means checking their blood sugar, or giving them Nebulizars and Oxygen, respectively, every four hours (and reporting to someone of higher authority if there's a problem).

I come along to an old homeless man and check his blood sugar. 20mmol/l. O_o A normal blood sugar reading is 3-7mmol/l. This is not good. If it increases much more, he'll end up in a coma. I run to find the sister and can't find her in any of the cubicles. I eventually run to the kitchen and there she is with the rest of the staff members, fast asleep. One nurse is sleeping curled up on the warming cupboard (which is for food, not asses), another is sleeping on the floor. These are South Africa's nurses. ANYWHO, i wake the sister up and tell her about the emergency. Her reply to me? "Don't wake me up. Call the Doctor." Stupid cranky bitch. So I phone the doctor who tells me, "Just give 20 units of Insulin." (This decreases blood sugar levels). Now, 20 units is a crapload, considering the usual amount of Insulin given is 2-8 units, depending on the condition of the patient.

However, as a nurse, we do as we are told by the high-and-mighty Doctors, and I administer the Insulin. I re-check the sugar levels five minutes later and it isn't better. I phone the Doctor again. I am instructed to leave it, the reading will come down in a few minutes - and get hung up on. I supposed she would rather catch up on her beauty sleep, which is understandable because she sounded a bit doggish.

Five minutes later, I go to check on my patient. Dead. Nice. Plus, my damn asthmatic patients were half an hour late getting their oxygen and I like to run a tight ship.

A Reason to Quit

In our first year, we were all very green and new to the whole nursing thing. A fellow nurse, Daisy, was working in a surgical ward. One day, she noticed a patient covered by all his blankets, shaking vigorously and breathing heavily.

She decided she needed to check why he was shaking - was it an epileptic fit? Did he have a high fever? So, she quickly lifts the covers of the bed right at the moment of... climax.

She got, er, sprayed. Yep, he was fapping. Needless to say, Daisy quit nursing soon after that.

P.S. I see Daisy every now and then, and she permanently has a single tear running down her cheek.

Billy the Psycho

A certain ward that is not an official Psychiatric Ward has the reputation of keeping all the crazy patients in it. I had to work there for a month. On my first day, I was warned by a night duty nurse to 'avoid the last cubicle'. Being the dumb blonde (and sucker for punishment) that I am, I decided to go straight to the last cubicle. In I walk and I find a patient standing on his bed (let's call him Billy), ripping his neighbour's file apart. The neighbour just sits there with a very slight but very noticeable pout.

So, I shout at Billy to sit down. He sits, looks at me and with a sly wink says, "Would you like to go out with me sometime?" I reversed out of that room so quick, you would think I was the one who invented the moon walk and taught it to Michael Jackson.

I then saw that I was delegated to do Medicine Round. Great, I would have to confront Billy and force pills down his throat. Hesitantly, I walk into the last cubicle and find him pissing on the walls, on his bed, on the drip stands - basically anything he could find. I stood with my jaw dropped open in absolute shock, but then I realized I had better shut my mouth before he saw it as a target. Luckily, because Billy has this 'attraction' to me, he obeys all my commands: stops peeing, gets into bed, swallows all his tablets.

Thereafter, the day moved along quite smoothly until I was standing at the Nursing Station (making a list of why I shouldn't stay in nursing) when something caught my eye down at the end of the corridor..

It was Billy. Taking a shit.

ICU, now with added Polystyrene!

ICU is a great place to work. It's interesting and fun, and when you're a student and an outsider, you get to see some of the insane characters that work there. One doctor, "Manny" went on a rampage one day. The night duty nurses left a patient with a temperature of 40 degrees Celcius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) all night, and didn't do much to get it down - effectively making his brain cook itself.

Hannibal Lecter eating brain on the aeroplane, anyone? It's chilling. I could practically smell the Soy Sauce.

Manny then saw a nurse putting up a 5% Dextrose in 0.45% Saline drip. He picks the drip up and looks at me.. "Nurse, what I want you to do, is go to the top floor of this hospital and throw every one of these drips out the window. You know why? Because they are pure shit." I tried my best to avoid giggling but my friends Ariel and Cindy were becoming increasingly red-faced and that didn't help all that much.

Another crazy ol' coot is one of the Sisters in ICU who eats polystyrene cups and bowls. She sits there chewing away with polystyrene remnants all over her face and clothes, content as a pig in crap. Either she is hungry and can't afford food - or just plain insane.

Religious Songs by an Atheist

In one of the wards, the rule is "You come on duty, then you pray". So, in I go to the Tea Room to get my prayer on, but considering the fact that I'm an atheist, I wasn't all that comfortable doing so. I stood there respectfully with my head bowed. I couldn't sing along either way considering they were singing in Zulu.

The Sister-in-Charge then asks me why I'm not singing. "I don't know the words", I reply. Then, she asked me to sing a song from my church. "I don't attend church." I could swear I heard a couple of shocked and horrified gasps.. There was silence for about five minutes until the Sister said, "We're waiting." I had to sing. I don't know any church songs. The only songs I could think of that are remotely religious were Christmas Carols.

I broke out into Silent Night.