BluE Scrubs

phalaenopsis

It’s been a year since I adopted this humble plant. I wanted to say I got it from the deepest darkest untouchable part of Amazon but that would be lying. I got it from IKEA but still, the character of it matches no other plants in my care.

Other plants have vibrant blooms, competitive, needy and demanding. Possessive with sunlight, fussed about the amount of water they need. I don’t mind all that, I just don’t want them to die, like all the martyrs. They thought they’ll be strong for me, but they succumbed to my decaying mental ability to care for others, and my fluctuating memory.

This one is different. It’s always been there, winter spring summer or autumn. Me, hardly noticed the plant by the kitchen window sill.

While others busy blooming all year, it’s kept itself camouflaged, close to ground, almost shy to steal any amount of sunlight I allow to bath the kitchen. But it does know what it needs, without being demanding. It does get what it wants, without asking. It almost knows I have no time. The spine to the bloom bends, like a virgin Geisha humbled by an unexpected gift. Just how all plants should be like? Beautiful and down to earth, even if generically, you’re an orchid.

It’s seen me entertaining a dinner crowd, it’s seen me laughed through desserts, seen me cry over cups of tea and coffee, even seen me seen to. In that kitchen.

Winter comes and all the other plants, couldn’t careless if I get hit by a wave of sluggishness, gloominess and general anhedonia. Hibernate they do, dead to the world. But this one, just bloomed and blossomed. 3 stalks and not one without any of those white petals. To what do I deserve this cheering up?

Somehow the drawstring bluescrub bottoms I had on were a bit lopsided, weighed down by the bleep. My hair kept poking my right eye.

Somehow I felt myself falling apart this morning. The stethoscope kept slipping down, the ear piece kept pinching my right boob. Is that right? Boob for one, boobs for two?

I was standing in between two consultants in a heated discussion about scepticaemia from Staph aureus. The patient was on the ventilator. In between them, I tried casting my eyes on the septic numbers. Without making it obvious that I was multitasking. They were bound to turn and ask me what the numbers are even if they were right under their noses.

There was a severe compromise in my visual field. It looked like, as they were talking, the distance between their bellies narrowed and I promise you the bellies were almost rubbing against each other. When they laugh the bellies jiggled. Dugdugdugdugdug. They had no idea that physically, they were closer than they thought they were.

I think if you draw eyes, nose and big lips on their bellies, you could make a sketch. It’ll be called Between Two Bellies. It could be a romantic scene, between two people in love. Maybe making promises that they are going to keep in touch, no matter how far apart they are going to be. It’s the last meeting before one goes away to work at another hospital. They draw themselves closer, and their eyes locked and their gazes intertwined, cascading down at each other’s lips and they pucker up..

‘So shall we change it to ciprofloxacin? What do you think Naj?’

They both looked at me. The bellies popped out. Vanished.

‘Sure, I’ll do that’ I blurted, while rummaging through for the treatment chart.

Ward round I tell you, ITU or not ITU.

My heart is still beating very fast. Ran (for a change because it’s A&E) to a cardiac arrest call. Nearly ran over that balding porter with pink cheeks. Managed to just say ‘Oh dear’, and not ‘I’m sorry’. I hope he knows what I meant by that. He shouldn’t have parked the dinner trolley across the corridor like that. Muppett!!

When I got there, the man lying on the bed was probably in his sixties. White as a sheet, just brought in by the ambulance. Story was, a heavy smoker, diagnosed with lung cancer, and now, on a diamorphine pump, cardiac arrest.

This baby, if you whack the dose high enough, the patient just stops breathing. This is what people would call mercy killing. Euthanasia. Now, to me situation translated to he’s waiting for his number, any time, any day. Any hour, any second.

Paramedic chaps, with torn face explained that the family wanted the man resuscitated, that’s why they brought him in. Don’t we all want everybody to live as long as possible? Don’t we all want immortality?

But it seems, if you take a snapshot of the earth population both above ground (which includes in outer space, say what 6 people at a time?) and underground, there is always more in the underground. It seems we all are heading underground. Like it’s a final destination.

So, when enough is enough? Why we fret so much? Nobody has returned to say that being dead is so bad. Is it because those returned as ghosts look so ghastly?

Maybe because inert in all of us, we all do believe in God. We do believe we will have a terrible time getting paid for the bad things we did above ground. An atheist is just a posh word to describe a shallow and confused person. I mean the second before your soul leaves your body, or to a milder extent the second you’re hit with excruciating pain, don’t we all say, Oh my God !!! In almost submissive, almost helpless way? We are programmed to believe.

I have been on call 3 days now and I think my mind is having this parapsychological drama. So many deaths in that time don’t make it any easier.

On Friday, a lady in her 80s needed her belly cut open. Laparotomy we call it. Nobody knows why but she looked a death. I am not saying I can tell who is going to die, but there is something in the way they let you do anything to them and in the way, no needles are too big, which were suggestive. As always, with everybody, I assured her I will look after her. She only said, you do what you have to do love. I never take that well.

After putting all lines, stuck all needles in, she went to sleep. But her blood pressure just stayed in the red zone. I ran around squeezing upping meds. Phenylephrine for those who want to know. It just didn’t stay high enough. Then some more upping meds. This time, adrenaline. When they got to the bowels, it was all gangrenous, the theatre room was filled with stench, absolutely repulsive smell. Smell of shit to be precise. Something I can recall from the small roads in Kowloon.

There is nothing more we could have done. And for a split second, I just wondered, isn’t that just the best way to meet your maker. Completely, seemingly, painfree, under anaesthesia. That is if you are concerned about the pain. But we all know, pain is a perception.

There is science behind it, but why some feel it more than others?

We can’t see pain, we only see the manifestation of it. We perceive people as not in pain if they are not moving, not screaming. But, what is the truth?

The truth, will never be told. The knowledge we have now is just a fraction of the whole knowledge there is to know. Just because we can’t see, doesn’t mean it’s not true. So that makes, faith as the closest thing to truth when everything else hits a brick wall. Going over the wall, you will be delusional. And to some people, the wall is thin and to some unlucky ones, so transparent, people call them ‘sick’.

And..what a gloomy day today as well.

p/s: get well soon bro, please.

shoes glorious shoes


What I can say about buying shoes is, it’s a bit like the cooperative binding of oxygen to haemoglobin. Of course you know oxygen, the thing you breathe in, That’s right. Sometimes they carry it in a big tank. Liquid oxygen, so so cold. And you know haemoglobin, that thing in the blood, you know. That’s right.

So this cooperative binding is like, me the haemoglobin and the shoes are the oxygen molecules. Like haemoglobin, I don’t bind to oxygen easily, I mean shoes. So I don’t buy shoes easily, I need a lot of reasons, a lot of lateral thinking, some quadratic and integration solution to the buying shoes equation. But again, like the haemoglobin molecules, once it binds to oxygen it will bind and bind till it can bind no more.

So, I bought one pair of shoes the other day and between doing that and coming home, I manage to bring back 5 other pairs. Bloody Christmas SALE.

If it’s good, share it. Maybe that’s what God was thinking when He thought about polygamy. Acerbic some say about the gymnast of my tongue but, somebody’s got to write in here. On that note, I was thinking of a guest writer. You know, to keep bluescrubs eclectic, and going. I am inviting.

Now on sharing. For the past year, I have been using this ORIGINS potty things which have successfully, satisfactorily managed to keep my skin calm. With crazy sleeping pattern from work, stress (this is understated, they need to create another word for a stress induced by people trying to die on you), demanding boyfriends, persistent stalkers, nocturnal alcoholic doctor friends, my skin frequently jockeyed the attacks of spots and eruptions and redness. Being pale doesn’t help. Somebody’s put words in my mouth. I am not pale, I just need a holiday in the sun.

I was talking about liquid crystal face wash by ORIGINS. It doesn’t foam up so don’t you go and rub it in between your palm like rubbing Aladdin’s lamp. A few squirts is enough to keep the oil under control yet keeping the dry and sensitive area calm and cool. Now if you’re a male, it’s clearly not something for you is it this entry?

The rest is easy, just follow the holy grail; cleanse, tone, moisturise. ORIGINS moisturiser constitutes white tea. Something my skin very much love. Corr, love it, love it.

When I visited Dr. Chemo in Leeds last weekend, we did what girls would do when they get together. Shopping, coffee, gossip, more shopping. I found something grin inducing, face lifting. A whole set of ORIGINS skincare at half the original price. Apa lagi kan, borong la kan.

So finally, I am succumbing to being what I have been designed to become. A girl, a woman. A bit late I dare say, (before anybody else says it), but this year will be a WOMANLY year. I knew it will come, it just took it's time.

So, ladylike approach to many things. A motherly treat for those I care, a sexy arrival of bountiful indulgence and many girly games to play. Clink, clunck, clink. Cheers.

Oh and if you're male and you're still reading, why do you think we say men never listen?

p/s: I think I have been colonized by the Italian speaking bourgeois bugs. Recently launching a massive attack against scruffs like me. Because I just don’t feel quite myself.

I wouldn’t stretch the word laziness to include the fact that I normally let people make contact with me. It’s my normal way of saying I am not fussy, if it’s ok by you it’s ok by me. In courting or being courted, I much rather the man do the hard work. I am traditional like that. But this way, sooner or later you will meet some downfalls.

Pre new year, I was invited to 3 parties.

One, would be full of people I don’t know apart from one who works at the hospital. The one who invited me. Who made it fairly obvious that she’d like me to meet his brother, who is shy, single and a barrister. I know, Bridget Jones comes to mind but it’s not quite like that.

Another one would be with a bunch of girls from work, getting drunk would be the top priority.

The last one would be all the way across the bridge and I wouldn’t want to start imagining how to get home afterparty. So, after oh so many thinking sessions on deciding which one to go to, none actually rang me again to confirm. So I was sat at home, alone, watching Halle Berry as a psychiatrist being possessed by a dead girl Rachel. A girl who was tortured by the psychiatrist’s husband. I thought, if things starting to get sad in my world, why not make it sad and horror at the same time.

I was hitting the bottom of Haagen Daz cookies and cream when the phone went off. Dr DJ sounded cheery, like he’d won something on the scratch card. And I sounded like somebody’s being possessed by Andy Little Britain.

So, how did I deserve this phone call I asked. And he simply said just to find out if I was going anywhere. And when I said no, he gasped, exaggeratedly.

"You, alone? I don’t believe it. But knowing you, very soon you’ll probably get a knock on the door and a handsome man will take your hand and soon you’ll be dancing under the beautiful lights of fireworks". He just has this quirky way with words this one.

And I heard a knock on the door, it was him. Little bugger.

There was him, for a while. We chatted. Then there’s another and there’s another. And not long there were many of us.


True, the best parties are the ones not planned.