Kirstin’s Blog

crazy call

I’m extremely tired and my nose and ears are all stuffed up today. I’m tired from the insane night on call last night, but I have no idea why my nose and ears are all weird. I was fine until after my nap this afternoon. So last night just was nuts. We had so many patients, 3 who needed surgery, 2 of which I scrubbed in on. One was an appendicitis, the other was an abscess that needed to be drained. The other surgery was a trauma from an accident with a large lawnmower blade in which a man’s right foot was sliced open. The tendons, muscle and several bones were cut completely. In between these surgeries we had several children with diarrhea and vomiting that had to be admitted and many other patients that we treated in the ER. One patient in particular was an extremely difficult case. A 13 yr old girl was brought to the ER by her parents with a large amount of vaginal bleeding after her first sexual intercourse. This was really difficult for all involve due to her being so young and scared. I still wonder if there were extreme circumstances surrounding this experience, but she denied it. She was torn in a similar way to a woman who has given birth, in a lot of pain and traumatized. In order to stitch up her wounds the dr had to give her some anesthesia. This was very hard on her mother, but I was able to tell her mother that she would not remember the pain of being stitched, and that things will get better.

After all the paperwork was done and the patients taken care of it was after 2 am. I was able to sleep until 6, and even took a 2 hr nap from 3-5 today. Then we (the residents, Christina, Dan and myself) had bible study at the Benedick’s tonight which was really good. We watched a NOOMA video about God’s mercy, being grateful and finding our corner (that we can give to others). The discussion afterwards was really awesome as some of the questions were difficult, but we all were open to sharing and really looking for what God is doing in our lives, especially with this special time here in Shell. Finding the time and energy to do anything extra seems to be an issue for all of us, but it was good to talk about how He gives us so much mercy and grace with which to do what He has for us to do. We talked about how simple it can be to share that mercy and grace with a patient, even just through a smile or a kind word. Not every patient will need us to pray with them or spent a ton of time with them, but taking that extra moment is sometimes all that is required to help them or make them feel better.

I am probably going to sleep earlier tonight than usual, but hope that I wake up rested and not stuffy so that I can be the most useful tomorrow at the hospital as I can be. I still have pictures that need to be added from this weekend, and will hopefully get to that tomorrow.