Bad Days

Pedia has this new "project" Read and Learn, so the pedia interns now also have to do some sort of storytelling activity in the hot, humid and cramped hallways of the Pedia OPD every morning and afternoon Mondays-Fridays. Which is a good idea in theory except most of the patients we get are still really small and we end up as free entertainment for the mothers. And the books are written in english with no filipino translations and we end up having to improvise. Still works but you lose the lyrical quality of a children's story which is really sayang.

Anyway during slow days at the OPD I browse through the kids' books and read them. And I found a book titled: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which I believe would be GoogleMyFacebook's favorite bedtime story, had he encountered this book when he was a kid. I read the book page after page and sympathized with Alex's misfortunes -- not finding a toy in his cereal box while his brothers get these awesome freebie toys, his teacher not liking his drawing of an invisible creature, his best friend telling him 'you're just my third bestfriend now', not getting dessert in his lunchbox, uinintentionally angering his father, being forced to eat a dinner he doesn't like, etc etc etc -- wondering how his day would get better.

And then I get to the end of the book where he tells his mother "tomorrow I'm going to move to Australia!" and his mother kisses him goodnight and tells him, "Bad days happen to everyone, even in Australia." THE END! Gosh what a depressing story for a kid to listen to. But it teaches a good lesson. Life is not all sunshine and rainbows. SHIT HAPPENS. And when things go batshit crazy we just have to deal with it.

I wanted to write about my first week of internship but I keep drawing a blank and HTGOF's been nagging me to blog (pushy bitch!) so I posted a book review instead. Haha JOKE. This is my motivational blog post for the looming Pedia Wards rotation. I could just imagine my day: I read the charts and find out I have to get ABGs from all my 15 patients and after needling them to death I monitor and I get one hypotensive patient after another which leads to endless IV pushing and monitoring neglect and then someone codes and the resident screams, "sinong monitoring, bakit di mo namonitor!" And then for PM chart rounds I see orders for more blood extractions, which I painstakingly try to carry out but fail coz my hands are still trembling from all the IV pushing. And then I remember, "My FRICHMOND!" And on the way back to the callroom I bump into my RIC who tells me, to please please refer patient X to IDS and CAAP stat please. And at the end of the day all my freshness is but a distant memory, my scrubs and white pants are bloodstained, my hair looks like it hasn't been shampooed for a week, and my face is as oily as the tocino sold at the coop and as I trudge my way home I bump into my crush who is bagong ligo and mabango and I try to kill my fugly self but I won't diiiieeee. And I tell him, "Tomorrow I'm moving to Timbuktu." And we kiss (yeheessss) and he tells me "Bad (hair) days happen to everyone, even in Timbuktu." Har.

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Due to insistent public demand I'm posting a video of the book being read after the jump. Enjoy! :]

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