Christmas Cheer

Now that I'm far enough removed from it, I can actually contemplate writing down some of the horror that was casualty at Christmas. I think that clinched it for me. Since then I've been aching to leave. Feeling so desperately unhappy in my work, it's almost palpable. It's like an endurance test - see how much they can take without breaking.
Emotionally, physically, mentally - I'm shattered. But you get this bombardment day after day, night after night. And you just have to keep going. If it was just one night I could have coped without batting an eyelid. As we so often do. But it was the repeated battering every minute of eight to ten hours every night for a week, that will take more than a weekend-off to heal. And yet, that's all we get.

I don't think it is possible to convey how I felt at the time - the accumulation of it all. I'm not going to try. These are just things in my head that I need to get down to obtain some sort of resolution...

bl7 FLASHBACK Christmas eve and I'm doing too much but it's still not enough. I cannot keep up this pace. Patients piling up waiting to be seen and I can't see them fast enough. Feel like I'm chasing my own tail. Am doing the job of (officially) two doctors because the other is off sick. Why are all these people here? Do they have nothing better to do? At least 70% of them don't really need to be here. And I have to put up with the shite off them because they've been waiting 5 hours to be seen for their cut finger which they sustained in a fight. I try to patch them up and ship 'em out and not take any notice of one smartass comment after another. But it wears you down.
I leave exhausted, with the mistaken belief that the next night couldn't be any worse.

It is. More of the above.

I f*ckin hate christmas.

bl8 FLASHBACK Boxing night. And I'm doing too much but it's still not enough. This time there really are alot of really sick people but only one of me. Frazzled doesn't even come close. And a 35 year-old woman who is 4 days postnatal comes in Cardiac Arrest. We try and try - we pound her chest,and shock her again and again - we try for hours but she's gone. Lost one. And I get to break the news to her husband, clutching their 3 year old son and 4day old baby. He is beyond distraught. And so am I.
but I have to leave and see the next punter who moans at me about waiting 4 hours. I escape for 2 minutes to cry in the loos, hidden from everyone - because it is SO unprofessional. We are supposed to maintain our compassion but shed no tears for the lost ones. I'm not superhuman/inhuman. I cry.

bl9 FLASHBACK Dec 27th. I'm doing too much but it's still not enough. We have a 40 year old woman in Cardiac Arrest. ohnonotagain. We try and try - we pound her chest, and shock her again and again. She has a supported downtime of 50 minutes.
Then I can feel a pulse. "I'VE GOT AN OUTPUT!"
We somehow get her back from the brink. She goes to ICU.
Her husband asks "Is she ok?"
"Her heart's now beating but she's far from ok"
She gets wheeled out and we feel superhuman. "Good arrest. Thanks everyone."
But we're not superhuman/inhuman. Several hours later we hear that she dies in ICU. I cry again.

Merry Christmas.

bl10 FLASHBACK Dec 28th. I am sitting in my car, ten minutes before my shift is due to start. I'm in the staff car park and can see the entrance to A+E from here. And I'm repeating to myself "I have to go back in there, I have to go back in there". It takes every ounce of energy I have left, but I dry my eyes and step through those doors again. And I'm exhausted. And I just do what I can. Because it will never be enough.

sick

Why do the stupidest people in the world come to casualty? Well I've made it 5 months without killing anybody (intentionally or not), and that includes myself. But I am rapidly losing the will to live and becoming too cynical for this age. Good thing I'm going to do a normal job soon, I can tell you. I will escape this falling shite.