Thursday 14 February 2013

Valentines Love

Call me a sap but I love the idea of Valentines. I love the effort people put in into making the day a little extra special for their loved one. Despite the consumerism that surrounds the holiday, I don’t see anything wrong with the idea of celebrating love.

My Valentines was just another day.

Finished a night shift, crawled into bed for a couple of hours and woke up in that semi-groggy lightheaded state you get when you haven’t had adequate sleep but have to wake up anyway. We ran through the rain to get some KFC before I had to go to work again.

The moment I got to work I was called to the operation theatre – a man had been assaulted and was bleeding profusely from the multiple stab wounds. I’d never seen an operation so rushed; the team hadn’t even had time to drape the patient properly. There were three or four anaesthetists attempting to secure the patient condition. My surgeons were desperately trying to secure the bleeding – every pint of blood that we put in seemed to just ooze back out. Every second counted, every single cut and stitch mattered.

I had to run for blood from the blood bank multiple times, and every time I went I kept hoping that the patient would survive the ordeal, that our surgeons were able to secure the bleeding in time. Somewhere out there this man had a family and loved ones who probably had no idea that his life was teetering between life and death on the operation table.

I couldn’t imagine what it would feel to have you there, on that operating table. Or my father, or my sisters. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to undergo that ordeal.

As I left the operating theatre, I saw a few people banging the door of the intensive care unit, pleading to the nursing staff to let them in. I approached the man, on a hunch. My hunch was right – it was the family members of the patient. “He’s still in the operating theatre sir, and the operation is still ongoing. We’re doing the best we can but we don’t know how long it will take, and it will be likely that he will still be very unstable after this. We can only pray for the best now.”

I watched the man almost crumple before me, but his son took him in his arms and thanked me for the information. I watched them sit at the seats outside our intensive care unit with grief and hope etched across their faces, and once again I hoped that this young man would make it through the night.

My work forces me to deal with those situations, but it also makes me realize how truly fragile life is. In these moments I thank God for my loved ones, and their presence in my life.

Some people were celebrating Valentines Day today, immersed in that grand notion of love and being swept away by it. There is nothing wrong with celebrating love, but to me, it comes in all shapes and forms.

Sometimes love comes in the form of running through the rain to have KFC with you.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing this. Indeed, life is fragile.

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