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.: The Blogger :. No more a full-time student Is a fan of coffee Can be random at times, as you can see.
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(SPH OMY The Y-bloggist 2009, 8th position)
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Monday, November 02, 2009The Chocolate Doctor
She fell, came, and got admitted, and that's how we got acquainted.
She came into my ward (or rather, the ward I was in-charged of), and it was my job to take care of her medical issues. I wrote blue letters (letters of referral to other departments in the hospitals), co-ordinated her care, did the administrative work to get her into the theatre for an operation, and took her blood for blood tests. Unknowing, it became a morning ritual to go to her bedside with a tray containing a needle, alcohol swabs, blood tubes and a plaster to cover the puncture mark which I would create. After a few days, most of her veins were thrombosed, and blood-taking became a more tedious affair. As the days went by and the blood-taking process took longer, I coaxed her to allowing me to take her blood for tests as ordered by the seniors, by saying that I would buy her chocolate after the blood-taking. And that was how I got the nick Chocolate Doctor. I didn't know that I had earned myself that reputation, until I heard her daughter said to her one day as I approached her bedside in the ward: "There, Ma, Chocolate Doctor is here". So day after day, the Chocolate Doctor went to her bedside as a morning ritual and took some blood for testing. At the start, her face was as black as charcoal when she saw me approaching with that dreadful blood-taking tray. As time passed and she got used to me, the process took shorter as I knew the exact hot-spots on her arms which I could definitely draw blood, and I became her personal phlebotomist. How did I know I became her personal phlebotomist was simple: she actually rejected the doctor-on-call who wanted to take her blood for another different test at night when she complained of shortness of breath, and said she wanted only "the guy with specs and spiky hair who took blood from her every morning". Two weeks plus passed, and it was time for her to go home finally. The Chocolate Doctor went to her bedside to wish her well and to say goodbye to her, and she actually prepared a gift for him. No prizes for guessing, it was chocolates. I placed that mini candy machine on my desk, in hope that each time I see it, I will remember the story behind the Chocolate Doctor, and that I made a difference. 
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