BluE Scrubs

It is already noon and my on call on Christmas- eve has been, fortuitous so far.

I only had two bleeps from the secretary to say that the operating list for next week had been changed, yet again. But for now, no cases booked, no tummy needed poking, no legs needed chopping no head needed drilling.

Each of the time when the bleep went off, my heart sank a little and I felt guilty a little. The former, because I just couldn’t be asked anymore. I feel heavy, restless, burnt out, therefore laziness emerged as a wrapper to these symptoms.

A wrap of laziness is probably something I would use instead of just lazy, because laziness itself carries an enormous amount of accusation, generalization, and unreliability. Therefore standing on it’s own, seems like such a bad word. Almost sinful to utter when one is getting paid to be on the wait.

The latter, was because I know I just shouldn’t feel like that.

The last time I paid a visit to the wards, which was yesterday, I was amazed at the effort made to emboss the spirit, on anything and everything. Spirit of good will. The wards were adorned with the auspicious paraphernalia of Christmas. Assorted colours of lights were crowned on the mini Christmas trees, amongst the glittering ornaments and condiments, and the gangways and corridors were cobwebbed with inaugurated deco.

Nurses pottering about with their blinking reindeer and Santa hats, gleefully smiling unaware that there is a small chance that there might be somebody walking around them, not feeling as jolly as they are.

I have nothing against Christmas and the whole opportunity given birth by it, but I was not entirely sure why I was so discontent. The way I look at it is, whatever my action, the nidus is what I feel. It starts with the feel of it. If you feel it, then the mind will form reasoning and weigh the good with the bad.


Depending on the memories, the experience, the grudges, love and hatred your mind is set at, you will take upon necessary body posture, tone of voice facial expression and your bodily execution of movements. The festive mood did by the end of my visit seep through and I felt the willing need to unscrooge myself.

I left the ward humming the tune trala la la laa laaa la la la laaaaaaa. Of course with the right minims and crotchets.

***

In the theatre of vagina and such (gynae list), I had the pleasure of having a supervisor, my delightful Dr.Bramwell. I was not prepared to be quizzed let alone grilled by him on the subject of physics. I really thought that when I left Hertford, donkeys years ago where I did my A-levels, I never had to learn the Boyle’s the Charles and the Avogadro numbers ever again. I was so wrong.

I have done the gynae list on my own and this I should have looked at as a teaching session, to consolidate what I already know. Somehow, that idea needed a bit of whacking in and it didn’t seem to want to precipitate down, even after a session of sitting on the toilet seat staring vacously at the lock.

The question still is engraved in my mind next to the memory of my many conversations with cab drivers I’ve ever met in my life.

“So, how much is the weight of air in this room Dr. Ahmad?

*Gulp* Should I know the answer?

I was embarrassed to feel myself needing to swallow. I thought this swallowing business
only happens in Charlie Chaplin movie or Mickey Mouse cartoon when the characters found themselves in a bit of a state. The painstaking task of getting to some reasonable number required me to tap into the deep buried memory of what the molecular weight of oxygen and nitrogen were.

16 and 14 sprung to mind but, which one for which was another story altogether. At some point he mentioned the word thick, but I wasn’t sure if he meant it. I was neither mad nor humiliated. Just frustrated.

For the whole afternoon, I was tortured mercilessly.

I went home without any song in my head. Only growling of an angry stomach.


The answer to Bramwell’s question:


Take the room as having the dimension of 8m width, 10m length and 4m height. From this you get volume of the room which is 320 cubic meter.
Now calculating the molecular weight of air composition, 20% oxygen 16x2x20%. Added to 80% nitrogen 14x2x80%. These equate to about 30 g. Now using Avogadro constant as 25 litres for one mole ( to make life easy), we can now calculate how many mole the air there is in the above room.
As 1000 litre equals one cubic meter, and calculating mole this is 1000 litre divide by 25litres which equals 40 moles of air in a cubic meter space. If from calculation above we know that a mole of air is 30g then 40 moles equals 1200 g weight of air. That’s heavy for a cubic meter of air!!!!!! For a room of 320 cubic meter it’s a shocking 384,000 g, which is 384 kilos!!!! Now if this is accelerated with a certain speed, imagine the momentum it could create. No wonder it can topple a truck.


I know it’s sad, but at least there’s an, answer.