And Monsters Came Raining Down

I think in a hospital, what truly separate nurses from doctors in delivering patient care is the night shifts.

Where in daytime, the nurses are basically carrying out orders and treatment plans from the doctors. Night shift nurses own the hospital after midnights. On call doctors have to cover several levels, thus incapacitating them in the whines and whims of each patient suffering at night. Probably the only time a patient would see a junior doctor at night is that he/she needs a blood sample or he/she is crashing. The night shift nurses are their only lifeline.

In night shifts, I had spent hours beside a critical patient, spent hours trying to chill down a feverish patient with several baths, reassured anxious patients and families, attended to patients in pain, shock and delirium, fought with the dazed and sometimes, literally sat there with them in bleary eyes until the spooked ones slept.

No one delivers more care than night shift nurses.

No one.


Just got off from my three nights. On the second one, I had a conversation.

Let's call him Patient Boy. He is only sixteen and he had multiple brain surgeries. Nowadays he only wakes up to throw up. He was a bright student before his accident and was in fact in one of the most prestigious school in the country, now he could barely remember his own name.

Infection hit him pretty bad, tainting his bloodstream, circulating the venom in his body. It was four in the morning when I crossed over to his bedside with my gloves and scrubs. I switched on the light, the only blight in the room. As I ran the antibiotics with syringes and burettes into a line on his arm, he woke up and stared at me.

PatientBoy: Ah Kiat?

Me: Ya. Sorry. Be done in a minute.

PatientBoy: Ah Kiat?

Me: Mmm?

PatientBoy: What... What you know?

Me: Huh? (Leaning over)

PatientBoy: What do you... you know... you know other than?

Me: Again? What do I know?

PatientBoy: Other than nurse.

Me: What do I know other than nursing?

He nodded.

Me: I know many things. All the small things I guess. I know how to draw. I can draw cartoons with no legs. I can't draw legs well. I know how to write. Not very good, but I just like to write. Almost anything. I know. I know how to watch good movies. I had been a reviewer once and I can do a analysis and comparison of films and genres.

There I was, in the wee hours of morning, trying to prove to myself that I know something, to a stranger.

Me: How about you? What do you know?

PatientBoy: I know nothing.

Me: Come on. What do you like best?

PatientBoy: Computer games.

Me: Ah. Last time I played a bit of computer games. I'm an impatient guy, so when the tough gets going, or when I couldn't jump that virtual wall in the game, I gave up. I rather write, create than to jump through hoops devised by others. In another words, I'm not really good at computer games.

PatientBoy: You are lazy.

Me: That's correct.