Wednesday august 10th, 2016
Dear diary,
My third day at work today and I am so thankful for the
chance to work as an intern in National orthopaedic hospital.
A fellow intern posted to the haematology unit came to meet
me this morning; a sample was requested for cross matching. As usual, my team
mate Sammy was very busy in his unit microbiology and I hated to go alone. I
stalled…sadly waiting till he was done. Unfortunately, his sensitivity took
forever and Elvis had to go with me. Why did I stall? Not because I was afraid
of the wards nor because I couldn’t collect blood samples. I just wasn’t
confident enough to go in to collect the samples alone. A lot of what ifs had
crept into my mind. What if the veins aren’t prominent? What if I have to prick
multiple times before collection of the samples? Would I be perceived as an
amateur? The thoughts scared me and I shyed away from my duties.
Well as I was saying, Elvis went with me and we met this
beautiful and interesting old lady. While I was busy asking around for the
Patient whos request form I had, she called out to me with worry in her
brilliant eyes.
“Where is the doctor who is supposed to give me blood?”
“Are you Magaret?”
“Yes I am. Are you the one who will give me blood?” Her eyes
shone brighter with enthusiasm.
“We will take some blood from you so that we can check whose
blood will match yours before the doctors can come.” She relaxed a bit. “ I was
to be operated upon today but they said there was no blood in my body so they
moved the surgery to tomorrow.”
I beckoned on Elvis to come and he did; resting the
collection flask on the nearby cupboard, he slipped on his gloves. I handed him
the tourniquet with which he tied a few inches above her elbow and she
squinted. I looked back then at a young girl who I knew would not be older than
15 and my heart went out to her.
“ The devil is at work,” the old lady began. “ She is just a
little girl who went to school and slipped and fell on the stair case.” I
marveled at the old ladys attention to details. The girls sister had told me
the day before that she fell down and broke her elbow. Now, the old lady had
filled in the rest of the details. Edwin wanted using the vacutainer but I
objected; it was his first time of using it and I knew he might need superior
supervision to avoid adding pains to the lady. He heeded and asked for a
syringe instead. When I saw the sizes of the syringe in the flask, I knew we
had picked the wrong ones. Slowly but steadily, he uncapped the syringe and
plunged it into the ladys prominent veins. She looked away again with shut eyes
and he reassured her.
“They say I don’t have blood and yet you are taking the
little I have left.”
“Sorry ma”. He said calmly as he drew the syringe up to the
3ml mark. I eyed him but he wasn’t looking. The blood was too much for cross
matching. He seemed to realize he had taken too much and then stopped.
“Please pray for me so that the surgery would go well”, she
began.
“What happened to you?” My curiosity was taking the better
part of me.
“I fell down and broke my waist.” As though sensing I needed
more details, she continued. “I just stepped out to ease myself and all of a
sudden, I got dizzy and fell and here I am about to be operated upon for the
second time.”
“Really?” Elvis was transferring the blood sample into the
plain tube .
“The first time I was operated upon on my other leg was in
1993 when I was shuttling between Jos and Aba on business. I had a motor accident
and broke this hip bone.” She pointed at her left hips.
“It was operated upon and now, am having another one on this
leg.” She pointed at her right hips and sighed. “ Biko pray for me my children
please.”
“We’ll pray for you ma”. She kept repeating we should pray
for her and in assurance, I kept telling her we would.
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