She Bites

For my nursing internship, I (with Angelo and Jay) spent my entire day looking over a group of Junior Nursing interns in the OB-Gyne ward for my Head Nursing

As the head nurse, there was a time when I have to give some simple lectures about some things that they might encounter inside the OB-Gyne ward, it was their first time to intern in this particular ward so we were a bit hopeful (This particular group was immersed more in delivery rooms last sem, heck, some of them have almost completed their DR cases). Just after the Juniors had a snack, Angelo and I started discussing some topics in pregnancy and birth related-complications. I really prepared for this and I was very excited, but I guess I was wrong to expect too much.

As I was giving the lecture, most of the girls were intently jotting down notes and all the three guys behaved really well. But amidst my discussion I was a bit distracted by the absence of particular gestures that tell that they are listening or they are getting what I was saying, they neither nod, nor wink, nobody even asked a question. (except some of the words which were too long that they didn’t catch to write down.) They were… erm… monotonous, very much like an ECG of a dead person. They didn’t smile, they didn’t laugh. They were silent and I was just perplexed if they have understood or not everything.

I was not boring, I am very much certain of that, however, I honestly don’t know what is wrong. They are nice, yeah. But, I just don’t know what happened.

I guess I was just expecting too much. Or maybe our group (when we’re still third years) was much smarter than they are now. For example, there was a particular case in the ward. The patient was released last week after her three-day stay following her delivery, but immediately that night, in their house, she started acting queer. The patient’s family recalled how she became violent and attacked and bit them. The girl was already okay and was already laughing with us as her mother told the story. I have immediately inferred that the diagnosis would have been Post-partum Psychosis, and I was right.

They got her Vital Signs at eight.

After the lecture, we returned to the ward. We told them to take their 12:00 Noon Vital Signs. After a few minutes, the two third years who were assigned to her came to me saying that they can’t take the Blood Pressure. They said she was asleep. I said that they need not to wake her up “ilagay nyo lang sa kamay yung cuff ng dahan dahan.” (just put the BP cuff slowly.) They weakly smiled and returned, after a few minutes they were smiling weirdly, then one of the girls approached me and said that she doesn’t want to take the BP. After some stupid alibis, they finally admitted that they were afraid that she might bite them if they wake up her up. And I was like, “anong ‘kakagatin’? di ba okay na sya kanina? kausap nyo na nga eh.”(what do you mean ‘bite’? wasn’t she okay already? you talked to her a while ago.). But they were still unconvinced; they took me with them to take the blood pressure. I saw the girl sleeping with her hands on her head. They were afraid that if they move the arm she might suddenly grab them and bite.

I lazily took the hand and coiled the Sphygmomanometer around her arm as she lazily dozed to dreamland. The two girls gazed at me… awed.