Stress in ACLS...

This was written after I took the dreaded Advance Cardiac Life Support :)



Dear journal,

For the past 2 days, I have been bombarded with algorithms and cardiac arrests. I have seen ECG tracings in my sleep and counted the small boxes and big boxes where the P-waves and QRS's are found. Good thing I did not sleep walk towards Alex's bed and start doing chest compressions on him. All this fuzz is because of the thing they call Advance Cardiac Life Support or otherwise called as Stress.

A day before the training, I forced myself to study the lectures that I asked from one of our charge nurses. I guess what drove me to read was not the idea of passing, but the idea of failing the test. Yesterday, I finished the course. It was as tough as I thought it would be. Good thing I got lucky.

ACLS is about knowing everything, managing pressure, and, above all, saving lives. It is like you are in the center of a major crisis and you are the one responsible to take the lead and to give out orders; the only difference is the presence of the trainer on the side, ready to put an x mark for every  wrong move you make.

Last night, I realized how life is so much like the ACLS course. We are faced with problems now and then and we are the only ones who can actually do something about it. If decisions are to be made, it has to come from us, and we have to stand by it whatever the consequences are.

Algorithms are like the paths ahead of us. We choose the algorithm by heart depending on what we have at the moment. Judgment is very critical in life because it is our lives that are at stake and not the lives of others. At times, we start at the wrong foot and make the case worse. We look for someone to blame, but all we have to do is to look at the mirror and we'll find who we are looking for.

Vasopressors are our family and friends; they push us to be better. When we are at our lowest, they stand by us and tell us to move forward. Thus, they make our spirit high. The shocks are the realizations that we have everyday. Sometimes, we are stunned; other times, we continue to fight (because that is what we are supposed to do.)

The best thing about the course was not about having the certificate or the pin in the end, but it was about the experience itself. Aside from the tension, it was still fun; I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Remember, lightning could strike anytime... c",)

V-day in the Land of Sand and Sun...

This was written on Valentine's day when I was still in Jeddah. I didn't want to send quotes to my friends, so I wrote this journal instead. 




Dear Journal,


Valentines day in Jeddah? No way!

In the Philippines, February 14 marks the day when restaurants, flower and gift shops, and hotels have an increase in their profit because Valentine's day is something almost everybody loves to celebrate. It is either you are in a relationship or you would like to be in one, you try to make that day memorable. In movies, it is done with exaggeration of course, where surprises are to be expected all the time.

On the other hand, being in the middle east on this day is quite a different story. Why? Primarily because there is no story to tell at all. People here don't celebrate occasions such as this just like the fact that they do not celebrate halloween and Thanksgiving. Forgive me, but the holidays that they have here? They are boring!

There are always 2 opposing groups when it comes to Valentine's Day. Let me tell you about them.

First, for the group of into-love, they consider this day as their favorite day of the year. This is the day when they can be so cheesy but still come out as sweet. They spend their time creating new ways to express how they feel. The artist and the idealist side of them would usually merge in order to create the perfect spectacle for the one they love. If only they could engrave names on their hearts, they would. Love for them is on top of their Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, and nothing else matters.

The second group is more of the love-hater. They cannot appreciate love because they don't have it at the moment or they have been hurt by it in the past. Either way, they have not felt the bliss that is brought by love. They have been blinded by angst and it has clouded their ability to feel infatuation for others. It takes time for them to accept the reality that they need love in one way or another. To cope with the absence of love, that's the time they result to hate.

Many things have been written and said about love. Most of them are already cliche, for they have been uttered repeatedly in various languages. But to say that Valentine's is just for couples is something that is far from the truth. I believe that this day is actually not just about Cupid's arrows flying all over the place, but rather it is a celebration of love in general; may it be the love for your family, for your friends, or for your neighbors. Let us not confine this day in a box and look at it in a narrow perspective. Isn't it more fun if we embrace our friends right now and ask them to have dinner because it's valentine's? I might as well do that later. 

Though I am in Jeddah right now, a place with no heart decorations in malls and in restaurants, I am still with joy to greet everybody a blessed heart's day. We may be far from the glamorous v-day parties, but let us not forget that love has no limitations. 


Remember, cupid's arrow could strike anytime c",)

The Leader and the Charge Nurse...

Dear journal,


A great philosopher once said that leaders are not born, but made... I guess he was precise when he said this...

Being a charge nurse is quiet a challenging task. Not everyone gets the chance to be one, so it is really a big responsibility rather than a privilege. Some did not choose it, while some really craved for it. For others, it just happened like it was served for them on a silver platter.

If you are the point-person in a work place, you cannot do anything but accept the fact that whatever happens in the unit is on your shoulders all the time. Your name is on top of the list because you are expected to be the best. You are the leader, and you give what is needed. You are actually the knowledge and the skills that your staff cannot fully provide. You give commands more than any other because you live by protocols and standards. Thus, you are the standard.

Decision-making is another thing. It is a must that a charge nurse should have the skill needed to give fair and befitting judgement the first time and all the time. Staff will respect the leader only if the staff knows how credible and how reliable the leader is. With this, staff's point of view is very important, too.

I admire people who manage stressful situations well. If you can still give an aura of positivity in spite of ill things happening all around, you deserve a pandemonium like no other. You are the calm not just after the storm but during it. You do not stand at the back and push the staff to work, but rather you stay at the front and guide them with helping hands. Your staff's hands are your hands in motion.

Many things have been said about leadership and management. But I guess the most important thing of all is how effective and efficient the charge nurse can become to his staff. I despise the charge nurse who condones staff who leaves their patients and talks among themselves more than the time they spend with their patients. I detest the charge nurse who shines with negativity when he comes and leaves the unit. And above all, I loathe the charge nurse who builds walls instead of bridges.

Saying all these things does not make me the bigger person here. I am still just an outsider looking in. But come to think of it, what more will I be able to say once I get in?

Again, I write to express and nothing more... 


Remember, lightning could strike anytime... 

The First Journal ever written...

Minor warning: Please forgive me, for when I wrote this, I was mad. Lesson learned though. I won't forget this because this started everything. 




Dear Journal,


I am pissed off right now with the kind of attitude that a senior nurse showed. I went inside her patient's room because I wanted to relay to the patient that his wife called and asked about him. This nurse told me that I shouldn't be inside her room because her patient is an open-heart case and she doesn't want me to give her patient infection.

Basically, this nurse has this little-knowledge-is-a-dangerous-thing syndrome where she feels she knows everything already, thus, thinks with exaggeration. Yes, I know for a fact that she is already an expert when it comes to open heart surgery cases here at IMC. And yes, she is already a senior staff at that. But here are 2 of the things that she forgot:

First, Open-heart surgery doesn't compromise the patient's immune system. Though it is a major operation, which involves the heart (obviously), it is like any other surgical operation out there where the patient has this POTENTIAL risk for infection because of the surgical incision. If she's thinking that since her patient is an open-heart patient and is at more risk of acquiring infection compared to other post operative patients, she should have implemented reverse isolation already. But the thing is, she can do that only in her dream, for facts will always remain facts. She's good, but she is not that good to change the way things are.


Secondly, she is a senior staff talking to an orientee. I mean, she should at least have the courtesy to show the new staff how things should be done properly without showing them any superior attitude that she may have. No matter how good a person is, no matter how much knowledge she knows or how excellent her skills are, but if she doesn't have the right attitude to handle situations, she will fail big time.

In school, we have been taught that attitude plays a major role in nurses' professional life. Yes, I completely concur. It is indeed a very significant element in our part as angels of the sick room. We cannot just be nice to our patients and be rude to our colleagues, right? You always have to walk your talk and practice what you preach. Because at the end of the day, when all else fail, you will still ask the help of others no matter how top-notch and marvelous you may think you are. 

Remember, lightning could strike anytime...  

Hey yah!

Finally, I'm up and running! 

I have dreamed of putting something like this for a long time now. I am a registered nurse moonlighting as a writer, so you better prepare yourself for some nurses' stuff coming your way. I try to make things real simple: I let my hands write what my heart feels and what my brain thinks. 

No pretensions. No judgement. No biases (I doubt).  

This is for my family who has never fail me, for my friends who know me inside and out, and for the love of my life who is still out there waiting to be found. And of course, this is for you, too, so that you can join me in my adventures and misadventures as a nurse, as a Filipino, and as a flawed person. 

Remember, lightning could strike anytime... :)