I’ve just finished Stephen King’s book, On Writing
His stories and dark themes terrify me. Cujo
I’ve just seen the ‘the Bucket List’ which stars Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. I thought it was a wonderful film and well worth seeing.
This movie was about miracles, particularly the small, personal kind. I felt very inspired- I laughed and I cried through this story of courage and love. The film gave a ‘big picture’ perspective to life.
The premise of the movie (without giving too much away) is that two random people become friends while sharing a hospital room together. Their friendship blossoms, partly because of the life-changing events forced upon each character. They create a so called ‘Bucket List’ of things to do before they ‘kick the bucket’. Of course, the list contains a few concrete goals in life, such as seeing the Great Pyramids of Eygpt, or skydiving, but actually goes far beyond into the spiritual realm. Read the rest of this entry »
I was back in Manila, headed towards San Lazaro hospital, a veritable mecca for Infectious Diseases in the Philippines.
Stepping down onto the platform of the LRT (Light Rail Transit) into a throng of people, the thick humid air descended on me immediately. The steam bath was oppressive. I pushed through the crowds, cringing as the train screeched away.
I worked my way through the turnstiles, passing a gaggle of beggars dressed in rags with dirty, tousseled hair. Mostly young children, four, five years old. What a future… Motorcycles sputtered by like annoying kazoos. Sometimes 4 or more people were seen variously packed onto these bikes. How they ever didn’t fall off, I wasn’t sure.
Hulking shiny metal jeepneys, brightly hand painted, revved up and down the roads. Filthy soot belching from their exhaust pipes. Most of the female passengers held handkerchiefs to their faces to limit the particulate inhalations. Ten, twenty, maybe even more passengers were crammed into the back. Hundreds of children in school uniforms, everywhere, walking linked together at the arm.
I looked up at crowded houses and shops, laundry-lines criss-crossing the skies. Webs of hundreds of wires interconnecting everything – it was an electricians worst nightmare.
This was my new home for the next month, and I just loved it. Despite the outward appearances of an over urbanized mega-metropolis, the human heartbeat of Manila was palpable all around….
A good friend of mine who works as a nephrologist was putting in a dialysis catheter. She had done many ‘lines’ before and this one was just routine. The catheter looked like a very large needle with tubing attached. The catheter or dialysis line provides access to the blood stream to provide the patient with life saving hemodialysis. When the kidneys fail, a patient will die in a very short time without dialysis, as toxic levels of metabolites build up.
She accessed the neck veins and got a good flow of blood, indicating the line was in position. She finished up the placement and was preparing to give some fluids to flush the line clean. Now that the ‘hard’ part of placing the line was done, her attention lapsed ever so slightly. While preparing the fluids, she inadvertently stabbed the needle through her glove and into her finger. A lancinating pain ran up her arm – it was a bad ‘stick’ or injury. The needle had penetrated through and through her finger.
