The Secret Garden of working over time and emergency patients

The date was October 15th 2009, the time was 4:00pm, location: acupuncture clinic.
When I took this job I never thought that I would be stuck after hours with an emergency patient, squeezing puss and tissues out of a patient's stomach for 3 hours.

Patient comes in at 4:00pm, sits down in the waiting area and leaves to the bathroom then I hear a desperate yelling coming from the bathroom. I bring in the doctor to the bathroom and when she got there, there was puss everywhere, on the floor, the door handle, the trashcan, just everywhere. He suffered from a long term disease which imitated colitis, which is a inflammation of the colon that causes diarrhea, abdominal pain, painful bowl movements, etc..
His lower stomach was hard, he looked about 6 feet and weighed less than 110 lbs, so he had a very thin frame but with a rock solid lower stomach that stuck out like a pregnant woman's belly.

No one knew what it was, his doctors has given up and concluded that he might not be able to make it. So eventually he came to our clinic looking for help, he took our herbal medicine and the inflammation started to worsen. We found out that the thing that was in his stomach was years and years of puss that has built up by the bacterias that was living in his body. The puss eventually became solid and expanded, so the herbal medicine liquefied it and the skin was no longer able to hold it; so it exploded.

We spent 4 hours tending to the patient and placing tissues under him so the puss can flow out, we didn't even squeeze it most of the time and it came out. The most painful part was when a tissue or the root of the problem; the bacteria chunks were exposed and the acupuncture doctor had to pull it out of his 6 mm diameter hole in his stomach. It was definitely disturbing, the smell lingered around the clinic until the next day, half a gallon of Clorox did the trick I must say. So we spent from 4 in the afternoon til 7 in the evening and I stayed until 8pm sanitizing and cleaning.


<--Yes, that is a picture of me taking a 2 minute break, the picture was taken by my boyfriend who waited 4 hours to take me home. Thanks babe. I took pictures of the whole mess but I wont post it because it might traumatize the readers. At the end of the day I was exhausted, I had a paper to write and when I got home after a short dinner it was already 10pm. That's when the tears came, having two jobs going to school full time and this was just the cherry on top. Anyone who is going to school and working will feel my pain. There is that point in our lives where our everyday routine becomes too much and we need a break, but what happens when the break doesn't come?

The lives we live are not picture perfect but bitching about it wont do us any good either. I learned to accept the situations as they come and if there is something that we can do about it to make it better, I should do it. But if there is no way out and we need to wait until things become smoother then we should. For a year now I've been complaining about how I am sacrificing so much for my family and nothing made me feel better until I realized it'll get better later. That doesn't mean I'm going to wait here like a fool for my "moment". No. It means if there is a way out but it's not due to be here until next year; I'll plan and set it to action when the time is due instead of forcing them to happen now.

Patience.. I'm learning it. Day by day.

The Secret Garden of forgotten birthdays

It's a bummer, forgotten birthdays are the worst, the forgotten-er feels the tremendous amount of guilt and the forgotten-nee feels the cold shoulder. Then there is that awkwardness that dwells around the whole day and even forces the meanest people to be nice for that one special day. Unfortunately I am one of those people who forgot a birthday today, it's my co-worker's birthday and i forgot it. The shame! I felt really bad since she gave me a 100 dollars for my birthday and have been so nice to me though out the year.

Can forgotten birthdays separate friendships, relationships and even family ties? Just because of that one day can it drive people apart?

From my personal experience I believe it does. I had a friend who considered me her best friend but to me she was one of those friend who I felt that only called or messaged me when she needed something from me. So when I didn't text or call on her birthday she got upset and that ended our friendship.

So in conclusion, we threw my co-worker a party in the end and she appreciated it, she didn't want one from us but it was something that we felt like we needed to do. Birthday cupcakes, tiaras and sashes were involved, she looked pretty.

The Secret Garden of customers we hate

It's unavoidable, they are everywhere and they keep coming back...

Yes, you guess it, customers - annoying, rude, arrogant customers. Age and gender doesn't matter, nor does race, height or size; they come in different forms and share the same mind crushing characteristics. They enter the "DO NOT ENTER" zones, they pull, push, fondle with things that clearly says "DO NOT TOUCH", they demand that they get their money back after opening and re-taping back their products, and they always want things to be accommodated to them.

I really feel sorry for cashiers, I swear they have it the worst because it's dealing with money. I work as a front desk clerk so I feel their pain, it's exhausting trying to deal with them. And how we deal with them is a even bigger headache, of course we can't yell at them or just bang their heads against the table, no that's unprofessional. All we can do is talk to them in a reasonable manner which is torture!

Things would be so much easier if there was a guidebook about how to handle these things, a little black book that has step by step instructions on how to talk to the patients calmly and not offending them so that they will leave immediately, how wonderful would our lives be if that existed? Unfortunately that is too good to be true and life would be drama-less if we had one of those books so that's why we have to learn to deal with these kinds of things the hard way.

One time I was working at the clinic and this woman demanded to see Rosie, for those of you who don't know Rosie is my boss/mother's dog and she is just precious. Rosie usually sleeps in her bed right next to my desk where patients are not allowed to come in. So this patient decides that she wants to pet her while she is sleeping and comes barging in to the employees only area, so I stopped her and said "I'm sorry but this is an employees only area," then she gives me the most coldest look and says " I only want to see the dog, I'm not doing anything." Usually my older sister who is more masculine handles these kinds of situations but she is in South Carolina for her training at the Army Base. So for a good 5 minutes I repeated the sentence over until she gave up and sat down. Then the next week she came back for her treatment and she does it again! Why? Why does this woman keep doing this? Honestly I don't know, but what I do know is that there are unreasonable people out there who have absolutely no common sense. We can't control the peoples' stupidity, all we can do is control ourselves and perform the appropriate actions to the customers. It's frustrating, I know, sometimes I want to slap them upside the head and most of the time I imagine that in my head and it helps me to put a smile on my face while I deal with them.

Bad customers are a pain in the neck and from personal experiences, do whatever it is that make you feel better but never NEVER use ice cream as an outlet for your feelings - they go straight to the thighs.