Medical Emergency

Dear Diary,

Today is one relaxing day at work. Did not really do much. Even spent some time teaching my student and my pharmacy assistant how to make some lilies from a square piece of paper. Yup, you guess it right… origami! ;-) Looks like all those whom I teach some pharmaceutical knowledge are going back with at least an extra knowledge of folding lilies, haha… =) I also spent some time chatting a little with a locum pharmacist whom I had not spoken to for quite a few weeks. Nice to be chatting with her, strangely, she is someone whom I never really properly speak face-to-face. Oh well…anyway, somehow realise that maybe the schools that one attends in one’s formative adolescent years really have an impact on the eventual character of a person in adulthood. It just always amazes me how a typical former convent schoolgirl is usually more vocal, fun loving, English-speaking etc. Similarly, the Chinese school students are more industrious, meticulous, disciplined… or non-missionary English schools founded from the British colonial era… like myself from Victoria School, Victoria Junior College… English-speaking, pro-western, analytical, motivated, competitive... The neighbourhood school students are usually more “local”, more “comradeship”, more daring and impulsive too, haha…

Yesterday Friday 13th July, was an incredible day. In the morning, a lady burst into my pharmacy and asked me for help. Apparently, she told me an elderly man had fallen down a flight of stairs in a nearby food court and was lying in a huge pool of blood. I asked her if the ambulance had been contacted. She said yes. I was a little reluctant to go with her but still grabbed a couple of latex gloves, gauzes, swabs, normal saline solutions and proceeded with her leading the way. It was at the basement 1 level of the building opposite my pharmacy. As I approached the huge crowd, they made way for me as I went forward to check the man. His face was soaked in blood and so were his clothes. I knelt down beside him and asked one of the bystanders to relate what happened. I removed the soaked tissue papers that was covering the wound. Geezz… it was a nastily huge gaping wound probably 6cm by 2cm. Blood was seeping out. I placed a stack of gauzes and applied pressure. Took a quick glance at his neck while he was lying supine. No signs of deformities or delicate spine, so I propped him up in a sitting position, hoping that by elevating his head above the heart level might reduce the flow of blood gushing out his forehead.

I spoke to him asking him if he felt any pain etc… actually… the intention was to keep him conscious. I was afraid he slip into unconsciousness and that would be tricky. I did not do much actually… if I had brought a pen-torch, may attempt to check if his pupils were reactive to light, haha… indicating any brain concussion. I was pretty surprised that I was calm. Tens of “spectators” just looked on and heard some even asked which nearby clinic I was from. I am a pharmacist! Pharmacists know first aid too! No wonder, there was a newspaper article a few weeks back saying that if you collapse with absence of breathing and blood circulation in a developed European country, you have a 45% chance of survival. In Singapore, the possibility of survival is less than 10% because most of us are apathetic and do not know how to administer Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Okay… the lady who brought me to the scene told the rest to move back a little so that it would be less suffocating around the casualty. Thank God that CPR was not needed. Whew… I took his radial pulse… I don’t know why I did that anyway… maybe just for “show” since there was a period of inactivity. No cyanosis, no clear cerebrospinal fluid flowing out of the ears…

The paramedics came and took over. I returned back to my pharmacy. What an experience indeed. It was just a few weeks ago when I carried a hyperventilating lady to a clinic. Hmmm… nevertheless, it felt good. Hee… wondered if I like such medical emergency work or maybe it was just the sense of “heroism”. Whatever the case, it is back to the real world of selling drugs. Haha… shortly after that, a Ghana national came along and related to me a medical situation back in his country and bought everything I suggested to him to buy and even more! A glucose-monitoring device, 250 test strips, a cervical collar, 6 boxes of Neurobion…. Nice deal, haha…

During lunch time yesterday, saw a pretty nice exhibition “Habitat Forum” where they furnished some 2-room, 3-room, 4-room and 5-room apartment showrooms. Went with my student to check them out… excellent designs! The designs of these government flats are very similar to the private developments in terms of standard of design. Impressed! Then in the evening, there was a customer who came along and yelled at a promoter… making a din, preventing other customers from buying her product and swearing that he would complain to the Ministry of Health on her product… I did not bother. If the situation got out of hand, we would call the cops. He was fortunate that we did not call.

That was my Friday 13th, haha… apparently the myth about why it is such an accursed day is because Christ died on Friday and there were 13 people during that fateful Last Supper? What ridiculous nonsense! Jesus Christ must have been most upset to see how we succumb to such superstition. For me, Friday 13th is just nice… almost memorable, haha… =P

As the number of hits on my blog inches towards the milestone 10000-mark in an estimated one month’s time… well… errr… ok, I don’t know what else to say. Mental block. Okay, anyway just say goodnight. We will talk about that one more time when I have more creative idea how I should commemorate that, haha…

God Bless,

Andrew