ICU Survival Guide: Junior

( I've devised a list of things I needed to take note on the day  I realized that working in the ICU isn't as simple as it seems--just when I thought working in a medical-surgical ward packed with patients is already hard. My job itself is an overdose of reality, sometimes you have to do things like this to keep yourself sane.)
 1. pray before and after duty
 2. take a deep breath and prepare to be intoxicated
 3. assess your patient thoroughly
 4. nursing is an art form
 5. develop your deep-seated obsessive compulsion
 6. answer all the doctors questions
 7. move steady and fast
 8. don't fuss about the harmless infusion pumps
 9. endorse the proper IV level
10. don't feel stupid
11. you still have to wake up the sleeping doctor at night because your patient is desaturating, gone hypoglycemic or worse, coding
12. sometimes you really have to figure out things by yourself
13. ask when in doubt
14. do what you think you can do
15. don't feel bad when you're asking help for the simplest things. you're still a novice for crying out loud and they put you in the ICU
16. learn how to insert an IV on an edematous patient
17. learn the ECG tracings
18. taking the 12 Lead ECG takes a great amount if skill
19. you can learn things when you actually do them
18. use your time wisely
19. keep everything clean
20. replace your suction catheters, sterile bottles, ET tie every shift
21. get rid of the water from the mech vent tubes
22. night shift means deal with all the papers and deal with them fast
23. focus on the patient and not on the stack of papers
24. deal with the papers anyway
24. turn your patient
25. be present at admissions, turning rounds, daily hygiene, and everything you need to be in
26. master the stockroom
27. learn how to be a nursing assistant
28. deal with the special endorsement with a legitimate face
29. don't feel like you are at the bottom of a food chain even if you are
30. your co-staffs are still people
31. don't make stupid mistakes
32. you will get used to codes sooner or later
33. sometimes, you might know better of the patient than the doctor does
34. it's okay to cry. just don't do it in front of them

35. try to live

(to be continued)

Musings

The people around me have spoken. They speak of wisdom that goes along the lines of commitment to a person they believe would be their person forever. They tell stories, rarely heard by my keen ears, where happiness and loneliness collide, overcome trials are called success, and the mere thought of having a someone even if it is far away feels better than having no one. A bunch of them hold on to these ties for they have lived with it. It taught them things I seem to have failed to learn. It is being committed to love. 

I have not yet been lost or lead to such musings. Thus, I'm doubtful, wondering, questioning what. However, I am curious, and has this utter urge to venture on these like sailing in uncharted waters. 

How do you define it? How do you set directions to find what you must seek and know if you've finally found what you are looking for? How can you know what envelopes it's entities when the only way you can answer all your questions is actually live in it?

untitled

traces of you
form the lines and scent
of the beginning and an end
a hint of your smile
strums the beat of a heart
where the wind doesn’t make
reasons for you to ask
and the colors of the sky
remains a perfect art
remember the time when
I sat next to you and listened
as you were spilling words
wandering how people are what they are
while you created stories and poetry
and grinning through your ears
I said something 
and you laughed

Taint

Standing right next to you

Is an old friend and all lost
Confused with the tainted world
Sick from flesh to bones
Resting a suffocating journey
He stands there staring
At the blank pictured faces
And broken records of a chord
You were watching yourself fall
Hurt like you’ve never been hurt
But breathing and breathing hard
You’re mind fails to rest
As much as you wanted to
For every blink of your eyes
You see a murky blot of a picture
A stained shirt and a broken wheel
But He was there all along
Protecting you on your way home
Standing right next to you

spill

there is no start in what I want to say
because as I look at the sky and
gaze at its infinity and wander off
with the misty wind that
tends to hug every part of
me, I see the details of 
the fine lines of ideas
and sparks and scraps of paper
torn and not, they lay
scattered on the cold floor
there saying something that
should have been spoken
yet still waiting to be unearthed
traces, just traces
of sweet summers
familiar laughter
meaningful glances
they were long gone
as the waves crashed upon 
the tiny ebb of
warmth, it dims its flares
as I bleed into another
torn piece of paper
I can't start what I want to say

Come Away

Come away with me
Let us sail the uncharted waters
And watch the sea
Paint things 
That cannot be seen
Come away with me
Let us walk the 
Moss and grass of earth
Have the wind carry us
And feel perfect mirth
Let us trace our steps
Make one at a time
Look up high to the heavens 
Make the trek worth a climb
Listen for hidden words of wisdom
Though walls may seem unkind
Because we will seek freedom
And define it for the blind
Come away with me
For there are far great things to see

someone like you

it can’t be helped that
one day,
i’d be singing a song for you
a song i wish i sung to you

words were the first
tiny drops that had
encased the depths of
my soul
words were the strings
that that tied me on a balloon
watched myself soar
words were the music
that kept playing on
with my thoughts

it can’t be helped that

one day,
i’d be singing a song for you
a song i wish i sung to you