It is HARD to STUDY HARD

I secured a special duty from the Senior Coordinator in a delivery room to complete my cases. Since there are three free shifts this weekend, she gave me the freedom to choose what time I would like to come. I took the 10PM to 6AM shift since I hate traveling at 4 in the morning or at 12 midnight. Since I can’t miss my Saturday class that runs from 8AM-5PM, I decided to attend until lunch yesterday and half of it today, Sunday.

Hanzel, Neil, Loren and Rose came with me to complete their respective cases (The rest of my groupmates have already completed their assisted and Handled Deliveries).

It was a breath of fresh air that the CI who supposed to handle us was not there and another one had to supervise us. The first was extremely annoying and yells at everyone when we had her as our CI when there was a Medical Mission this hospital. She snapped at us and ridiculed us in front of everyone… the very opposite of our CI last night. She’s nice and I felt her deep concern on our cases. Maybe it’s because her daughter is a nursing student too.

I handled the first case, Lorenza assisted me. The nurses in this hospital do not practice Episiotomy- the manual surgical incision of the perineum to facilitate the baby’s exit from the womb. The nurse instructed me to support the little muscle that separates the reproductive organ and the anus. I stretched the skin but very careful not to make any tear on it. I put my thumb outside and pressed the skin between the perineum and the anus while the rest of my fingers pulled the widening mouth further. Still, no matter what kind of support I made to prevent the laceration, the skin cut in half as the baby passed through the vagina. The expulsion of the baby was incredibly fast but notoriously bloody. I spilled blood all over the floor when I finally delivered the baby, and still more after the placenta. I have to insert my hands inside the cervix and into the uterus to make sure that no debris was left. Unfortunately, the uterus lies farther deep within that I have to dive even deeper until the hem of my gloves has finally touched the lips of the organ and I couldn’t continue anymore since I was afraid to touch the blood directly with and to contaminate the sterile environment inside with my bare skin. However, no matter how I avoid the blood, they still poured down to my bare arms to my elbows. I have to wash really hard later on since the blood hardened and dried up afterward.

The second case would have been handled by Rose, assisted by Neil. But Neil told me that he felt peculiarly nauseated when he watched me handled my case. He couldn’t stand the sight of blood gushing down so he told me to assist Rose instead. I agreed, a second case is not bad afterall. I find this a bit stupid, I mean, after all this months of witnessing countless deliveries and surgeries, ngayon pa ba sya matatakot sa dugo?

The woman giving birth is a Muslim, so I stayed beside her, near her shoulder, careful not to look at her private- respect for her tradition, but her husband and mother-in-law didn’t seem to care. Actually, I didn’t do anything, the woman gave birth with ease and at a pace of a 100th time mother, which is really surprising considering that it is her first born. The mother-in-law later on asked for the placenta. I asked Neil about this since he grew up in Mindanao, he told me that they’ll bury it.

Hanzel handled the third delivery. It was already 6:30 when he finished his case. I got home at 9:30. I ate my breakfast then took a nap for an hour and ate my lunch. I went back to school today to continue my class yesterday.

I have been awake for more than 36 hour now, and amazingly, I don’t feel sleepy at all.